helical.video: VHS effect using real analog equipment.

Hi all! First time on Product Hunt. I'm pleased to present to you all a brainchild of mine, Helical. It's certainly a blast from the past, compared to other launches showcased on this site! To start, Helical is an online service where you give your digital video an authentic VHS effect using a real VCR, capture device, and playout device. It starts at $5 for 10 seconds, and $2/min after that. All videos uploaded must be 30 minutes maximum (for now). Right now, orders are done same day and can even be done in under an hour, and this could change in the future. Helical is perfect for those digital video projects that are 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s themed that need the authenticity of a VHS tape. Because it's an online portal, you can upload your video anywhere, even on your smartphone or tablet. The process: - You upload your video to Helical, it gets queued into a worker's batch - Tape deck (VCR) starts recording - Playout device outputs your video to the tape deck - Video stops playing back; tape deck stops recording, and rewinds back to the beginning - Tape deck plays from VHS tape, capture device digitizes playback - Final processing is done, including yadif double frame-rate deinterlacing (if at 59.94/60 FPS), free automatic 9:16 rescaling (i.e. from 720x486 to 1080x1920 on Instagram and TikTok), and any add-ons in the order - Result is uploaded back to Helical for you to preview, meaning you get to see it before you pay*. * An authorization hold is placed when you check out. This does not actually charge your payment method until you click "Approve" on the deliverable. You can click "Decline" if you don't find the deliverable satisfactory or if you change your mind later. Why Helical, why now? - From 2023 to 2025, I've done this on the side on Fiverr while working my full-time software engineering job. I've had over 150 orders, not including those who took it off platform. Clients ranged from indie filmmakers, creatives working on music videos for record labels, modeling videos, school projects, and everyone else in between (examples on the landing page!) It was clear to me that this helped elevate their projects with the authenticity they needed, better than any cheesy built-in filter or effect that comes with any video editing suites today. - Since then, I've built this automated solution in parallel nights and weekends while working at my most recent full stack engineering role. It took a couple of months of extensive troubleshooting and building to get Helical to a shippable state. This included compiling a specific build of ffmpeg that used the latest DeckLink SDK to resolve numerous access violation issues, and a lack of exit code 0/graceful exits when it was done digitizing or playing out the video. - As you can imagine, given the times, my full stack engineering role was made redundant a month ago, and thought it was now or never for Helical. Right when it was mostly done, too. I wanted to provide the same service I did when it was a mere side hustle, but to automate it and hopefully long-term grow it into a larger portfolio of services aside from the VHS effect (i.e. digitization of physical media formats like VHS). This is how it starts. Frequently asked questions: Can't you do this for free? - Yes, and for those who don't want to shell out money for a service like this, I understand. On the FAQs on the landing page, I routinely recommend tools like ntsc.rs (which launched on Product Hunt too!) as it's the most competent *free* option. It's quite fun to play with and you can get similar results, and also acknowledges the state of how fake most filters and effects look. It simulates each part beautifully with granular control: chroma, head switching, tracking, and so on. Can't you do this yourself? - You absolutely can. You need a VCR, capture device, and something to play it out. I use Blackmagic equipment that does both playback and output for Helical. It can, however, sum up to hundreds of dollars versus a handful by having Helical do it for you if you don't already have the equipment. TL;DR: Helical is a service for those who want a VHS effect for their video that uses real hardware, from anywhere. It does everything you need: tape playout/recording/digitization, progressive/interlaced video detection + deinterlacing, automatic rescaling for TikTok and Instagram.