How do I make my iPhone videos look like VHS?

Use a camera app that renders the look while you shoot, so you frame for it: a VHS app such as REC or Rarevision VHS. Shoot in 4:3, hold the phone like a camcorder, keep takes short, and let the app change the sound too. Adding a VHS overlay in an editor afterwards works, but sharp 30 fps footage with clean audio under a filter rarely convinces.

What resolution was VHS?

Roughly 240 lines of horizontal resolution, about a third of a DVD. In practice that means a soft picture about 330 by 480 pixels of real detail, which is why a real VHS look throws resolution away instead of blurring a sharp frame.

Why does VHS colour smear?

VHS recorded colour at a much lower bandwidth than brightness, so colour information spreads sideways past the edges of objects. That chroma bleed, especially in reds, is the single most recognisable VHS artifact.

What is the line at the bottom of VHS footage?

The head-switch noise. A VHS deck's spinning heads hand over from one to the other at the bottom of each field, leaving a torn, noisy strip a few lines high along the bottom edge. It is in nearly every consumer tape recording.

How to Get a Real VHS Look on iPhone Video

Updated October 3, 2026. We make REC, a VHS camcorder app, and use it as the example below. The principles apply whichever app or editor you use.

Most "VHS filters" get one thing right, the warm washed-out colour, and miss everything that made tape look like tape. A real VHS clip is soft because the format genuinely could not hold the detail, its colour runs sideways off every edge, the bottom of the frame tears, motion leaves combed teeth on every edge, and the sound is thin, hissy and slightly wobbly. Get those right and the clip passes for 1994. Get only the colour right and it looks like 2026 with an Instagram filter.

What makes VHS look like VHS

1. Low resolution, for real. VHS resolved roughly 240 lines horizontally. The authentic way to get that softness is to throw pixels away and scale back up, not to blur a sharp image. REC renders its VHS camera at about half the clip's resolution for exactly this reason; its CCTV is at 40%, its 2005 flip phone at 18%.

2. Colour bleed. Tape carried colour at a fraction of the bandwidth of brightness, so colour smears sideways past edges. Reds go first. This is the single most recognisable tape artifact.

3. The head-switch tear. A strip of noise along the bottom edge where the heads hand over. Almost every home recording has it.

4. Interlacing. Tape recorded two half-pictures 1/60 of a second apart, so anything moving leaves alternate lines disagreeing: the "comb" on a paused VHS frame. On sharper formats like MiniDV, it is most of the look.

5. Tracking. Bands of the picture that jump sideways for a few frames, and a soft bar rolling up the screen.

6. Colour and contrast. Washed out, slightly magenta-warm on VHS, lifted blacks, rolled-off highlights.

7. The sound. Consumer VHS camcorders recorded one mono linear track that gave up around 8 kHz, with constant hiss and pitch that drifts as the transport wanders. A tape-looking clip with crisp stereo phone audio gives itself away the moment someone talks.

8. The display. The blinking REC, the battery, the tape counter and the date burnt into the corner in orange seven-segment digits.

How to shoot it on iPhone

Shoot through the look, not under it. An app that renders live means you see what the tape will do to bright windows, dark rooms and fast pans while you are framing. In REC, the viewfinder runs the same filter as the export, at the machine's own frame rate.
Use 4:3. No consumer VHS camcorder shot widescreen. REC snaps to 4:3 when you pick VHS; you can still crop square for a feed.
Hold it like a camcorder. Handheld, at chest height, with slow pans and the odd zoom. Gimbal-smooth motion reads as modern.
Keep takes short and plentiful. Home videos were bursts: the cake, the candles, someone waving. Then splice them, seams and all. REC's Compile Tape does this, tearing the picture at each join the way a real compilation did.
Mind the light. Tape crushed shadows and blew out windows. Shoot with light behind you, and let a lamp or a window bloom a little.
Let the sound be bad. If your app processes audio, leave it on; that is half the effect. In REC, VHS cuts the sound below 110 Hz and above 8 kHz and adds hiss and slow wow.
Date it. The orange date stamp is the shortcut everyone recognises. You can set it per clip later in REC's library.

Picking the right tape

Not every memory is VHS. If VHS is too rough, do not reach for a strength slider; reach for a better machine, the way people did at the time:

VHS: the late-80s family tape, the roughest of the camcorders.
VHS-C: the same tape in a smaller, newer deck. Cleaner, greener.
Hi8: the 90s upgrade. Sharper, cooler, grain instead of smear, stereo sound.
MiniDV: the early 2000s. Crisp, cold, over-sharpened, combed on motion.
Super 8: if you want film rather than tape: amber, grainy, 16 frames a second.

VHS vs Hi8 vs MiniDV goes into the differences in detail.

Can I add VHS afterwards in an editor?

Yes, and for footage you already have it is the only option. Overlays and LUTs in desktop and phone editors can add scanlines, noise and colour (we publish free camcorder screen overlays for the REC, battery and date corners). The catch is that they sit on top of sharp, smooth, full-resolution footage with clean audio, so the motion and sound stay modern. In REC you can import a video (up to five minutes) and develop it through any camera, which applies the resolution, frame rate and sound as well as the colour.