Signal path
capture ▸ displayEvery era runs through one chain.
Most retro tools do one trick: VHS, or CRT, or film grain. Stack a capture format onto a display and dial the decay in a single pass.
Test signalLME LabsTC 00:00:00:00
Send any footage
back in time.
Film, tape and tube looks for macOS and Premiere Pro.
Scroll to travel19 eras · one unbroken shot-by-shot journey · 4K HDR 2024 → Kinetoscope 1894
Studio monitor · 2024
▸ The Time Machineevery era, its own shot · 2024→1894
Open sea at first light
2024
4K HDR
▸ One shot, every direction
The same frame, taken anywhere.
The Time Machine gives every era its own shot. Here’s the reverse — one shot, sent in every direction. Pick a scene, then dial through the looks. Every one is real engine output on the exact same footage.
Shot
VHS · 1987
Late-80s tape: tracking, dropout, chroma bleed.
No stock filters. Every frame on this page is real engine output.
Signature looks
The looks we reach for first.
Real engine output, not stock filters. A bonfire on Super 8, a scarlet macaw in Technicolor, a 1959 tailfin kinescoped off a live broadcast — each is one preset in Lost Media Emulator. Drag to wipe the untouched frame into the medium.
Bonfire at nightSuper 8
Scarlet macawTechnicolor
’59 tailfinsKinescope
The consumer-tape decades
Where home video actually lived.
VHS‑C, HDV, Video8 and an early phone camera — the consumer-tape and first-digital decades. Two are real-reference; two are proxies (the closest model we have without an exact‑format reference) and read descriptively, not as exact fidelity claims.
VHS-C · 1993Real-ref
HDV · 2005Real-ref
Video8 · 1988Proxy
Early Smartphone · 2012Proxy
Optics · emulsion
Light on film.
Film optics, rebuilt frame by frame: halation off the highlights, gate weave, grain matched to the stock, and Technicolor dye-transfer or deep Kodachrome reds.
Tap a look to swap the result
Signal · tape & sensor
Tape never forgets.
Every fault of worn tape, per frame: tracking jitter, chroma bleed past the edges, dropout flecks, head-switching tear — or the RF snow and ghosting of a weak off-air broadcast.
Tap a look to swap the result
Display · tube
Through the glass.
Every signal ended at a tube. Push footage through the high-contrast slot-mask of a coin-op arcade cabinet — shadow mask, scanlines and phosphor bloom, straight off the glass.
Tap a look to swap the result
The app
Two surfaces, one engine.
Run it as a native macOS app, or as a panel inside Premiere Pro and After Effects. Same engine, same looks, working non-destructively on your timeline.
Lost Media Emulator · macOS
Inside Premiere Pro · program monitor
The possibility space
Recreate any medium. Then break it.
Every look is a starting point. Pick a capture format and a display, then bend the result across the full control set until it matches a real medium, or turns into something no camera ever shot.
128
Calibrated looks to start from116
Controls behind every look9
Signal systems, lens to tape deck2,926
Capture × display combinationsWhat it does
A signal chain, not a stack of overlays.
Lost Media Emulator rebuilds the analog path instead of stacking textures on top. Pick a capture format and a display, and it simulates tube, tape and film as you scrub. One engine, two surfaces, one perpetual license.
Look bank
128Sorted by signal, not slapped on.
Tube, tape and film. A sample:
- Tube
- PVM / BVMstudio reference monitor
- Consumer CRTliving-room television
- Arcade monitorcoin-op cabinet chain
- Tape & sensor
- Late-80s VHStracking, dropout, chroma bleed
- Night visionimage-intensifier green
- Film
- Super 81970s home reel
- Kodachrome 8mmrich reversal color
- Technicolor1950s dye-transfer print
- Faded 35mmaged cinema print
Round-trip
Rough it out, finish in the edit.
Block a look fast in the Mac app, or grade it on your Premiere Pro / After Effects timeline. Pick whichever fits the job.
App ⇄ timeline
Renderer
Simulated, not stuck on top.
The engine builds tracking error, dropout, halation and bloom from your image, so they react to it instead of floating above it.
Vectorscope
License
from $39 · onceBuy it once. It stays yours.
The industry keeps drifting toward subscriptions, logins and cloud check-ins. This is a one-time purchase that opens and renders offline.
Terms
- — No monthly fee
- — No login to render
- — Free updates within the major version
Performance
Real-time on Apple Silicon.
Live preview that keeps up. Scrub looks and push parameters without waiting on a render bar.
Throughput · live
Field report · unverified
Yes, you can fake the UFO footage.
Hi8 grain, a night-vision pass, one mistimed tracking dropout, and your clip was suddenly “shot on a camcorder in 1997.” Analog-horror and found-footage creators: this aisle is yours.
We're not saying fool the internet with it. The tools are sitting right there.
Now you drive it
Try it on anything.
Every clip and still on this page, every look, one slider. Pick a source and an era, then drag to compare.
- Hi8 · 1991
- Hi8 camcorder — soft tape with chroma noise.
Look
Source · 15
End of transmission
Every look.
One payment.
Get the Mac app and the Premiere Pro / After Effects extension together for $69, $19 less than buying them apart. One payment, free updates, no subscription.