Colorize Old Black-and-White Video for Free
AI-driven black-and-white to color video conversion that runs in your browser via WebAssembly. The DDColor neural network paints natural skin tones, sky, foliage, and fabrics — pair it with film-stock presets to match the era of the original footage.
How to colorize a black-and-white video
Upload your black-and-white video — MP4, WebM, MOV, AVI, MKV, or M4V
Pick a quality preset (Fast, Standard, or High) and an optional film-stock look
Watch the 3-second preview before committing to the full render
Tweak skin tone or drop a reference image to bias colors, then export
Download as MP4, WebM, GIF, or a ZIP of PNG frames
Restore color to vintage footage with a neural network running on WebAssembly
Show original video
Paint colour hints on the keyframe
Quick preview
A 3-second sample to verify the look before committing to the full render.
Colorized result
Pick the look that fits
Click a tile to apply that film stock to the colorization.
Per-frame correction
Features
Why use this colorizer
AI video colorizers typically run behind a queue and watermark the output. This one runs in your browser via WebAssembly: the model loads once and works offline thereafter. No queue, no watermark, no per-minute pricing. Pair it with film-stock LUTs to match the era of your footage and a skin-tone slider to fix the typical AI-colorization "zombie face" look.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the AI actually run?
In your browser. The colorization model (~55 MB for Standard, ~110 MB for High quality) is downloaded once via ONNX Runtime Web and cached by the Service Worker for offline reuse. The neural network runs on WebGPU where supported and falls back to WebAssembly on older browsers.
How long can the input video be?
There's no hard limit, but processing time scales with frame count. A 30-second 720p clip takes about 2-5 minutes on Standard quality with WebGPU. For longer videos a confirmation appears when the estimated time exceeds an hour. The browser tab must stay open during processing.
Is the original audio preserved?
Yes — the audio track is copied unchanged into the MP4 and WebM outputs. GIF and the PNG-frame ZIP have no audio container, so audio is dropped automatically for those formats.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. The Fast quality preset is auto-suggested on phones because mobile chips lack WebGPU and inference is significantly slower. For long clips on mobile, expect 5-10× the runtime of a recent desktop with a GPU.
Which input video formats work?
MP4, WebM, MOV, MKV, AVI, M4V, 3GP, and OGV. If your file isn't recognized, try the Video Repair tool first — corrupted headers and trailing-mdat MP4s often need rebuilding before any tool can read them.
Can I use the colorized result commercially?
The DDColor model is published under the Apache 2.0 license, which permits commercial use of its outputs. The tool itself adds no watermark. If your source footage is copyrighted, the original copyright still governs how you can use the colorized version.
We can — and it's free! Just send us a quick message with your idea. If you'd like to discuss it in detail, leave your email and we'll get back to you. You can stay anonymous.
