Remove Background - AskEditor

Cut the subject out of a video: the person isolated on a true alpha channel, ready to composite anywhere. SYNCHRONOUS: the call returns the finished cutout (~40-90s), no polling. The reflex call when an agent needs a background gone.

See it

29s start to finish · 25 credits · 1080p in and out

Output
Your input video
Side by side

The same 14 seconds, with the wall gone. This run asked for mp4, which lays the subject on green; ask for webm or mov and the identical cutout arrives on a true alpha channel instead.

Material

A video with one clear subject, up to 15 SECONDS. Any orientation; output is capped at 1080p on the long edge and 30fps. Pass an upload handle or a public https url.

Spec

Field	Type	Required	Description
`quality`	enum (`best` \| `fast`)	no	’best’ (default) is the quality pick. ‘fast’ trades a little edge fidelity for speed.
`outputFormat`	enum (`webm` \| `mov` \| `mp4`)	no	’webm’ (default) = VP9 with true alpha. ‘mov’ = ProRes 4444 alpha. ‘mp4’ = green screen.

Pricing & timing


Delivery	File — an mp4 at `outputUrl`, plus an editable canvas
Price	25 credits: estimate is free and authoritative
Typical run	~90s
Review gate	No: runs straight through

Refusals this template can return

NO_SUBJECT
SUBJECT_TOO_SMALL
SUBJECT_LEAVES_FRAME
UNREADABLE

Refusals are free and typed: see Refusals.

Run it

curl (REST)
Agent (MCP)

SYNCHRONOUS: the call holds open (~90s) and the response IS the result. No job to poll.

curl -X POST https://api.askeditor.com/v1/run/remove-background \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ASKEDITOR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --max-time 600 \
  -d '{ "material": "https://…/clip.mp4", "quality": "best" }'

material is a public https url, or the handle from an upload.

{ "success": true, "data": { "status": "completed",
  "processedVideoUrl": "https://…/processed.webm",
  "canvasId": "…", "editorPath": "/workspace/canvas/editor/…",
  "credits": 25, "creditsCharged": true, "cached": false } }

Retrying the identical call returns the same result with "cached": true and no second charge.

Editable delivery: The canvas delivers the cutout as a live alpha layer over a swappable background element.

Verifying alpha: a naive ffprobe reports pix_fmt=yuv420p because VP9 alpha travels as a WebM side channel. Check the stream tag ALPHA_MODE=1, or decode with -c:v libvpx-vp9 (the default decoder silently drops the alpha plane).

​See it

​Material

​Spec

​Pricing & timing

​Refusals this template can return

​Run it

See it

Material

Spec

Pricing & timing

Refusals this template can return

Run it