Create an upscale

POST https://videoupscaler.co/api/v1/upscale

Starts an upscale and returns the new task. We download the video, read its real duration from the file and charge credits for it before the job starts. You never send the duration yourself.

Request

Headers

Body

Video requirements

• Formats: MP4, MOV and WebM.
• Length: up to 600 seconds.
• Size: up to 500MB for a remote video_url, 100MB through /uploads.
• The server at video_url must answer a plain GET with the file and a Content-Length header. Signed links from S3, R2 or Google Cloud Storage work. Share pages such as YouTube or Google Drive previews do not.
• Fragmented MP4 files without a total duration are rejected. Re-encode them into a regular MP4 first.
• WebM files must store their duration in the header. Recordings made in a browser (MediaRecorder) often don't; re-encode them first.

Example

curl https://videoupscaler.co/api/v1/upscale \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VIDEOUPSCALER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: order-1234" \
  -d '{"video_url": "https://example.com/clip.mp4", "resolution": "2k"}'

const res = await fetch('https://videoupscaler.co/api/v1/upscale', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.VIDEOUPSCALER_API_KEY}`,
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Idempotency-Key': 'order-1234',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ video_url: 'https://example.com/clip.mp4', resolution: '2k' }),
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error((await res.json()).error.message);
const task = await res.json();

res = requests.post(
    "https://videoupscaler.co/api/v1/upscale",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['VIDEOUPSCALER_API_KEY']}",
        "Idempotency-Key": "order-1234",
    },
    json={"video_url": "https://example.com/clip.mp4", "resolution": "2k"},
    timeout=300,
)
res.raise_for_status()
task = res.json()

Response

201 Created with the task:

{
  "id": "0b6f3c1e-8a52-5d1e-9c43-3f1d2e7a9b10",
  "status": "processing",
  "resolution": "2k",
  "video_url": "https://example.com/clip.mp4",
  "duration_seconds": 12.4,
  "processed_seconds": 12.4,
  "credits_charged": 26,
  "watermark": false,
  "output_url": null,
  "thumbnail_url": null,
  "error": null,
  "created_at": "2026-09-30T08:00:00.000Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-09-30T08:00:02.000Z"
}

Then poll the task until it is completed.

This request downloads the video before it answers, so a large remote file can take a while. Allow up to 5 minutes before timing out.

Idempotency

Send an Idempotency-Key with every request and reuse it when you retry after a timeout or network error:

• The same key with the same video_url and resolution returns the original task with 200 OK. You are not charged again.
• The same key with a different video_url or resolution returns 409 idempotency_conflict.
• Without the header, every request creates and charges a new task.

Billing

The price is the video's length in whole seconds (rounded up) times the rate for the resolution. See Credits & pricing. A 12.4-second video at 2K costs 13 × 2 = 26 credits.

If the job fails, the credits are refunded automatically and the task becomes failed.

Errors

See Errors for the error format.