Removing the background from a video

The Video Background Remover does for clips what the main tool does for photos: the subject stays, the background goes, and everything runs on your device. Nothing about your video is uploaded — frames are decoded, processed, and re-encoded in the browser.

Choosing a model

The single most important choice is the model tier, because they work differently:

• People runs Robust Video Matting — a recurrent network. Each frame's result feeds into the next, so the model remembers where you were a frame ago. That memory is what makes edges hold still instead of flickering, and it is also the fastest tier (~15 MB, one-time download). Use it whenever your subject is a person: talking heads, presenters, dance clips.
• Any subject — Fast and Any subject — Best segment each frame independently (the same ORMBG and BiRefNet models as the image tool) with smoothing blended between frames. Use these for products, pets, and objects — anything that is not a person. Best gives the sharpest hair and edge detail; Fast is roughly three times quicker.

If you pick People for a coffee mug, expect poor results — the model was trained on humans. That is a model property, not a bug.

The 60-second / 1280px limits

Every single frame runs AI inference and is then re-encoded by ffmpeg in your browser. Sixty seconds, processed at up to 1280px on the long side, is the bound that finishes reliably without exhausting browser memory. Longer footage: trim it first — the Video Editor trims without re-encoding your master — and process the section you need.

Transparent WebM vs composited MP4

• WebM output is encoded as VP9 with a real alpha plane (yuva420p). That is genuine transparency, not a checkerboard baked into pixels. Chrome, Edge, CapCut, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, and OBS all read it directly.
• MP4 cannot carry alpha, so MP4 output composites your chosen background — solid colour or a blurred version of the original — into every frame. It plays everywhere.

One honest caveat: Safari cannot decode VP9 alpha, so the transparent WebM shows an opaque background there. The file is not broken — hand Safari viewers the composited MP4 instead.

Original audio is kept in both outputs.

Putting the subject on a new scene

For a quick result, pick a solid or blurred background before processing. For full control, export the transparent WebM and open it in the Video Editor: every lifestyle scene and custom background shows through wherever the clip is transparent. If you open an unprocessed clip in the editor and pick a scene, the editor will tell you the clip is opaque and offer to remove the background in place.

Troubleshooting

• Edges shimmer on an Any-subject clip — try the Best tier, or if your subject is actually a person, switch to People.
• Processing feels slow — WebGPU (Chrome/Edge) is substantially faster than the WebAssembly fallback; close other heavy tabs, and remember the first run includes the one-time model download.
• The result opens with a black background in some player — that player does not support VP9 alpha. The transparency is still in the file; verify in Chrome or any modern editor.