MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX

One node. Three dead formats. Infinite damage.

MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX is a single mega-node for ComfyUI that degrades your images and video batches with authentic analog-tape playback artifacts: VHS, BetaMax and LaserDisc — including the worn out tape look, tracking errors, dropout, creases, ghosting, head-switch noise, vertical roll and a period-correct VCR on-screen display.

Left to right: original, VHS (worn out, with OSD), BetaMax (lightly worn), LaserDisc (worn out).

Highlights

• Format DNA — each format is simulated with its real technical character, not a single filter with different names
• Six transport damage effects — tracking error bands, signal dropout, tape creases, frame ghosting, head-switch noise bar, vertical hold roll
• Worn-section simulation — damage spikes inside a configurable frame range, exactly like a bad patch of tape
• Damage presets + full manual control — mint through destroyed, every slider always available
• Authentic VCR OSD — PLAY ▶ / blinking REC ●, tape counter and date stamp, drawn with a built-in 5x7 pixel font (no font files needed)
• Video-ready — the IMAGE batch dimension is treated as a timeline, so temporal effects (tracking, rolls, ghost trails, counter) animate correctly on AnimateDiff / video latent outputs
• Deterministic — same seed, same damage, on every machine
• Zero dependencies — pure PyTorch + NumPy, both ship with ComfyUI

Demo

VHS — worn out	VHS — destroyed

BetaMax — lightly worn	LaserDisc — worn out

Worn-section simulation (animated) — the tape plays fine, then hits the damaged patch at ~0:01, then recovers:

Installation

1. Inside your ComfyUI folder: cd custom_nodes/
2. Either clone this repo or copy the MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX folder there:

   git clone https://github.com/your-name/MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX
   

3. Restart ComfyUI. Done — no extra requirements.

Quick start

1. Add the node: double-click the canvas and search for MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX (category MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX).
2. Wire any IMAGE through it — a Load Image, your sampler output, or an AnimateDiff / video batch.
3. Pick a format and a preset, then fine-tune the sliders.
4. For video: feed the whole batch at once. Set osd_fps to your frame rate so the counter and REC blink stay in sync.

An example workflow (Load Image → MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX → Save Image) is in examples/minimax_h3_tape_fx_workflow.json — drop it onto the ComfyUI canvas.

The three formats

	VHS	BetaMax	LaserDisc
Sharpness	soft (~240 lines)	sharper (~270 lines)	sharpest analog (~420 lines)
Chroma bleed	heavy	moderate	light
Tape noise / flicker	high	medium	low
Dropout style	long white streaks	shorter streaks	"laser rot" speckles
Head-switch bar	yes	yes	no (no tape transport)
Tape creases	yes	yes, milder	never (optical media)
Tracking errors	frequent	steadier (Beta tracked better)	mild timebase jitter
Ghosting	moderate	light	strong crosstalk echo
Black level	lifted grays	slightly lifted	near-black

Even a mint VHS stays soft and bleeds a little — that's the format's bandwidth, not damage. LaserDisc never creases and has no head-switch bar, but old discs rot: sparkle dropout and crosstalk ghosts instead.

Presets

Presets are a global damage multiplier applied on top of the damage sliders (mint 0.08x, lightly_worn 0.4x, worn_out 1.0x, destroyed 1.9x, custom 1.0x). The look sliders (softness, bleed, scanlines) are never scaled by presets — a mint VHS is still a soft VHS.

• mint — clean playback, format character only
• lightly_worn — occasional noise, rare dropout
• worn_out — the classic rental tape (default)
• destroyed — the tape your VCR ate and you rewound with a pencil
• custom — the sliders, exactly as you set them

Worn sections

Tapes damage in places, not uniformly. Set wear_start / wear_end (frame range, 4-frame ramps) and wear_boost, and damage spikes inside that range: more tracking chaos, heavier dropout, extra noise — then the tape plays on as before. Leave wear_end <= wear_start to disable.

On-screen display (OSD)

Option	What it does
osd_mode	play (▶ PLAY), rec (blinking ● REC), or none — top-left
osd_counter	Tape counter h:mm:ss top-right; osd_counter_start sets the starting value in seconds
osd_custom_text	Your stamp bottom-right — e.g. DEC 24 1996, SP, CHR-LOCK
osd_color	white (classic VCR), teal (camcorder), amber (date stamp)
osd_scale	Pixel size of the OSD font — raise it for 2K/4K images
osd_fps	Frame rate used by the counter and the REC blink

The OSD uses a built-in 5x7 pixel font supporting A-Z 0-9 : . - / ( ) ' plus the ▶ and ● symbols (lowercase is converted to uppercase; unsupported characters become spaces).

Full parameter reference

Format & preset

Parameter	Type	Description
format	combo	vhs / betamax / laserdisc
preset	combo	Global damage level (see above)

Damage effects (scaled by preset + wear)

Parameter	Default	Description
tracking	0.35	Tracking error bands: horizontal tearing waves that crawl over the image
dropout	0.30	Signal dropout: white streaks (tape) or rot speckles (LaserDisc)
creases	0.25	Tape creases: diagonal bright kink lines that persist for a while
ghosting	0.30	Frame ghosting / crosstalk: previous frame bleeds through
head_switch	0.45	Head-switching noise bar at the bottom (VHS/BetaMax)
vertical_roll	0.15	Vertical hold failures; low values give gentle vertical jitter
tape_noise	0.35	Analog grain: luma + chroma noise
flicker	0.25	Slow brightness instability

Analog look (not scaled by presets)

Parameter	Default	Description
luma_softness	0.50	Video bandwidth — how soft the picture is (scaled by format)
color_bleed	0.50	Composite chroma smear and oversaturation
scanlines	0.35	Interlaced line structure (every other line darker)

Worn section

Parameter	Default	Description
wear_start / wear_end	0 / 0	Frame range of the bad patch (disable: end <= start)
wear_boost	0.60	How much worse it gets inside the patch

OSD

See the table above.

Misc

Parameter	Description
seed	All randomness derives from it — same seed, same damage, CPU or GPU

Tips

• Single stills always show their damage: a tracking band and (for heavy settings) a crease are guaranteed on frame 0, so the effect you dialed in is visible immediately.
• Resolution independent: effect sizes scale with image resolution (calibrated to ~640px reference).
• Performance: everything runs on your ComfyUI device (GPU when available). Typical cost is a few dozen small convolutions per frame.
• Stack it: the node output is a normal IMAGE — chain two instances (e.g. BetaMax look + extra dropout) or follow it with any color/grade node.
• Performance at 4K: raise osd_scale to keep the OSD proportional.

File structure

MiniMax-H3-Tape-FX/
├── __init__.py                    # ComfyUI entry point
├── minimax_h3_tape_fx.py          # The node (pure torch + numpy)
├── examples/
│   ├── minimax_h3_tape_fx_workflow.json
│   └── demo/                      # All images in this README
└── LICENSE                        # MIT

License

MIT — see LICENSE.