You're about to publish a video and realize there's a face in it that shouldn't be recognizable. Gym class recordings, event footage, street interviews, tutorials, and recordings for legal or insurance purposes: as soon as a non-consenting person appears, image rights and personal data become a risk.
Chipscat Studio offers face blurring for video. We track and blur the faces you specify, section by section, to reduce the risk of identification after publishing, while keeping the original quality and pacing as far as possible.
When you need it
- Gym, hobby class or clinic recordings that must protect students' and clients' privacy
- Event footage, company parties and exhibition recordings with bystanders in frame
- Street interviews, unboxings and vlogs before uploading to YouTube or Instagram
- Internal training or meeting recordings shared externally, with some participants hidden
- News or social-media clips that must hide a person's identity
- Accident, dispute or insurance recordings that must be anonymized before going to a third party
What's included
- Face blurring: specified faces tracked and masked throughout, with adjustable strength
- Reflections: faces reflected in mirrors, glass and screens handled too
- Other identifiers: number plates, ID badges, name tags, tattoos and phone screens masked on request
- Mask styles: pixelation, Gaussian blur or solid block, depending on the purpose
- Motion tracking: the mask follows moving people and camera shake; heavy motion is corrected by hand with keyframes
- Original specs: exported at the original resolution and frame rate, with nothing outside the masked areas re-compressed
Common formats: MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, HEVC/H.264; horizontal 1920×1080, vertical 1080×1920 and 4K. Unusual codecs or damaged files need a check first.
Why it's not just "run a plugin"
Automatic face detection works when faces are frontal, sharp and evenly lit. Real footage is full of situations where it fails:
- Profiles, lowered heads, backs turned: detection drops out
- Big movements and camera shake: the mask loses track, flickers or drifts
- Mirrors and glass: reflected faces aren't detected as faces
- Several people crossing paths: the wrong face gets masked, the right one doesn't
These can only be fixed with manual keyframes and section-by-section tracking. A one-minute video with several people can take hours. It's also why automated results so often show "one frame with a face" after upload, and once a video is public, that frame can't be taken back. That's why we check every section by hand instead of handing the job to automatic detection.
Scope
To keep the assessment and the result consistent, we confirm these before quoting:
- Very small, badly out-of-focus, backlit or fast-moving faces limit how tightly the mask can fit; we say so during assessment
- Specify who must be masked when you commission (screenshots help); people not specified aren't in scope
- Review the whole video before publishing
- This is post-production, not legal advice; whether the video meets image-rights, data-protection or platform rules is for you to judge or to check with a professional
How it works
- Fill in the request form with the purpose, length and who must be masked
- Upload the footage to Google Drive and share the folder link
- Assessment and quote: after confirming the number of people, the difficulty and whether reflections are involved, we send a formal quote
- Confirm and pay
- Production: we can send a short test section first to confirm the mask strength
- Delivery, with one round of minor adjustments
What affects the quote
- Total length and number of videos
- Number of people to mask and how often they appear
- Tracking difficulty: big movements, profiles, backs turned
- Whether mirrors or glass reflections are involved
- Resolution (4K takes longer)
- Whether it's urgent
Frequently asked questions
Can you mask one person and leave the others?
Yes. Tell us who, or send a screenshot marking them.
Can you handle faces reflected in a mirror?
Reflections are in scope and counted during assessment. If a reflection is too small or distorted, we explain what can be done.
Can the mask be stronger?
Yes. We send a short test section first to confirm the strength, then process the whole video.
Will the quality drop?
Output is at the original resolution and frame rate. Only the specified areas are covered; the rest of the picture is untouched.
Can I have a blur instead of pixelation?
Yes. Blur, solid block and pixelation are all available.
How long does it take?
It depends on length and difficulty. Working days count from payment, and we give the timeline with the assessment.
