When I made this video back in 2018, YouTube was filled with videos that had awful looking, obviously fake VHS degradation effects. This was meant to improve on the old “make it blurry and displace the color channels” technique that was so prevalent back then. In recent years, people much more talented than I have made much more convincing analog video simulations. These days, you can easily get something considerably better using free open‐source software. If you want to get a realistic VHS effect without using real hardware, I recommend that you use one of the following:

ntscQT+ (https://github.com/rgm89git/ntscQTplus)
ntsc-rs (https://github.com/valadaptive/ntsc-rs) (works as an After Effects, Premiere, or OpenFX plugin)

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To find out how I edited the sound, be sure to watch the follow up to this video:    • Addendum: How to simulate VHS sound  

And stream or buy the song in the background here: https://fkic.bandcamp.com/album/somew...

Have any suggestions for how to improve the effect? Be sure to leave a comment sharing your ideas. I’d also love to see anything that’s been done with this effect.