A small, soft picture.
A 720 x 480 frame has a sixth of the pixels of a 1920 x 1080 frame, and the tape softens it further. Doubled, a transfer 480 lines tall comes out 960 lines tall, and one 576 lines tall comes out 1152.
SOLIPSIUM Super resolution audio engine
Free video tool
Enlarge an old home video transfer in your browser.
Your graphics chip doubles the width and height of every frame of a camcorder or VHS transfer, and your browser writes the result as a new MP4. The video is not uploaded, and there is no watermark and no account. The sound is kept, and the page checks it for hum and background noise.
Drop your transferred video here
It is enlarged in your browser. The video is not uploaded.
MP4 or WebM, up to 1920 x 1080, 60 frames a second and 30 minutes.
Enlarge your transfer
Picture
Detail
Sharpen edges
Adds contrast along edges after the enlargement. It can draw bright or dark lines along strong edges and make grain more visible, so preview a frame before you choose it.
Keep grain
Off smooths grain and noise away as it enlarges. Some and Most keep more of the picture's fine texture and grain. Preview a frame to compare.
Size
Strong, slow draws four times the width and height, then shrinks that to 2x. 4x keeps all of it, for videos up to 960 x 540 either way up, so the new file is at most 3840 x 2160.
Enhancement invents detail that was not filmed, and an enhanced video is not evidence of what was recorded.
Your enlarged video
Your first 20 seconds
After signing up, import the video into the editor: it repairs the whole soundtrack and exports the video with its picture kept.
What Solipsium hears
Make a free account to repair the whole soundtrack
Then import the video into the editor. Scans and short repairs are free.
Old transfers
What a tape transfer holds.
A camcorder or VHS tape holds standard definition video. Its transfer is usually 720 pixels across and 480 lines tall in North America and Japan, or 576 lines tall in most of Europe, shown at 4:3.
Interlaced lines.
Tape video is interlaced: each frame holds two half pictures, on alternate lines, taken a fiftieth or a sixtieth of a second apart. Where something moves, a transfer that was not deinterlaced shows comb lines.
How it works
From your transfer to a larger copy.
Chrome and Edge can run a neural network on your graphics chip and write video themselves, so enlarging needs no upload.
Each frame, twice the size.
A network tuned on filmed clips doubles the width and height of every frame and sharpens edges and fine texture. Quick, Balanced and Most detail are three sizes of it. Strong, slow runs Real-ESRGAN's general network. It takes videos up to 1280 x 720 either way up, which a standard definition transfer fits, and keeps your graphics chip busy for a long time.
Preview a frame first.
The page enlarges the middle of one frame a third of the way in and sets it beside a plain enlargement, with a divider you drag between them. Sharpen edges, Mild or Strong, adds contrast along edges after the enlargement and can make the tape's grain more visible.
What it leaves alone.
The enhancer does not deinterlace, correct colour or steady a shaking picture.
The new file.
It is H.264 video in MP4, or VP9 in MP4 where the browser has no H.264 encoder, and its name is your video's name followed by the word enlarged. It keeps the original sound packet for packet, with no new compression. Vorbis and old u-law or 8-bit sound are converted instead, and the page says so.
See what the sound needs.
The quick check listens to the first five minutes of the sound for clipping, dropouts, hum, background noise and muffled sound. Solipsium's free try is built for speech.
Questions
Before you choose a transfer.
Why does my transfer show comb lines?
The tape was interlaced, and the transfer kept both half pictures in each frame. Deinterlace it first, in the capture program or a video editor, then enlarge the result here. This page enlarges the frames as they are, comb lines included.
Which files open?
MP4 or WebM, up to 1920 x 1080 either way up, 60 frames a second and 30 minutes, in ordinary 8-bit colour. The picker also takes MOV, MKV and M4V, and whether the picture decodes depends on the browser. Convert an AVI or MPG file from an older capture box to MP4 first.
Will it look the way the tape did?
No. The network draws detail it learned from other filmed clips, so faces, writing and number plates can come out unlike the real thing. Keep the original transfer as the record of what was filmed.
Which setting suits a soft transfer?
Start with Balanced and preview a frame. Most detail uses a larger network and takes longer. Strong, slow takes longer still, so try it on one frame before you enlarge a whole tape with it.
Which browsers can do it?
Chrome and Edge on a desktop or laptop whose graphics chip supports WebGPU. A browser that cannot do it says so as soon as this page opens, and can still check the sound.
The sound hums or hisses. Can that be repaired?
When you choose a video, the page also checks its sound in your browser and offers to repair the first 20 seconds, free and with no account. With a free account, the editor repairs the whole soundtrack and exports the video with its picture kept, for videos up to 1 GB and 30 minutes. An enlarged copy can pass that 1 GB, so repair the sound in the editor first, then enlarge the video it exports here.
Is my video uploaded?
No. Your browser reads the video, your graphics chip enlarges each frame, and the new file is written on your device. Pressing Enlarge sends Solipsium one count with the settings you chose and the video format your browser writes, and nothing from the video, not even its name. Only if you press Repair the first 20 seconds does any sound go to Solipsium, never the picture, and Solipsium keeps only its first 20 seconds and deletes them within an hour.
Make an old recording easier to hear.
Solipsium works on voicemails, voice memos, answering machine tapes and camcorder audio.
Try it on a recording
The check and the 20-second try need no account.