BRO
The settings you actually want
Width, height, font size, font color, background color, transparency, frame rate and render speed. No buried menus, and a live preview on the video while you adjust.
Put the chat on top of the clip.
A transparent MOV or a flat MP4 of the exact seconds your clip covers, with animated 7TV, BTTV and FFZ emotes, rendered on our servers.
A standalone free tool for this one job
Just need a chat overlay and nothing else? The free chat overlay renderer is a separate tool: pick a 3 minute window of any public Twitch VoD and download an MP4 of the chat. 10 free renders a day, no payment. It is not a trial of the editor, just a quick single-purpose tool.
What the output looks like
Chat scrolls in the order it scrolled live on Twitch, with the original message timing. Usernames keep their Twitch color, badges sit next to the name, and emotes render at the right size. Animated emotes keep animating. The result drops on top of the source clip in a video editor.
Drop it into your editor
In DaVinci Resolve, drag the MOV onto V2 above your clip. Resolve reads the alpha channel and composites the chat layer over the source. Use the Transform controls in the Inspector to nudge the overlay. No keyframes are needed because the overlay runs the full length of the clip.
The MOV is QuickTime ProRes 4444 with alpha, so other editors that read that format place it the same way. Prefer a flat background? Render the MP4 instead.
Before vs. after: what you save
Before: open the VoD in a downloader, scrub to the moment, screen-capture the chat sidebar, crop and key out the background in your editor, and hope the emotes look acceptable. Per clip that is a lot of fiddly work, and the result still looks like a screen capture.
After: pick the clip in Voding and start the render. Animated emotes still animate and badges stay sharp. The compilation reel that took an evening of overlay work becomes a handful of renders you queue up and collect.
About chat overlay rendering
Can I get a transparent video?
Yes. Turn on transparency and the render outputs a MOV with an alpha channel. Drop it on top of the source clip in your editor.
Are animated emotes preserved?
Yes. Animated 7TV, BTTV and FFZ emotes stay animated, and GIF emotes loop on the same cadence as on Twitch.
How long can the overlay be?
In the editor you can render any clip length your plan allows. The free public tool caps each render at 3 minutes and 10 renders per day.
Which emote platforms are covered?
Twitch global and channel emotes plus 7TV, BTTV and FFZ global and channel emotes. Standard Twitch badges (broadcaster, mod, VIP, subscriber tiers, founder, bits) are rendered too.
What output formats are available?
MP4 with a flat background by default, or a MOV with a real alpha channel when you turn on transparency.
Still wondering about something? The team hangs out in our Discord and answers there fastest.
Related reading
- How to render Twitch chat as a video overlay Render Twitch chat as a transparent video overlay for DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, or Final Cut: emote handling, MOV vs ProRes 4444, and FCPXML alignment.
- 7TV vs BTTV vs FFZ for Twitch editing A practical comparison of the three big third-party Twitch emote networks. Coverage, animation support, performance, and which sets to load.
- Twitch chat replay: watch any VOD with chat Twitch chat replay shows a VOD's chat in sync with the video. Why some VODs have none, and how to search and filter any VOD's chat, 7TV emotes included.
Three features that work alongside this one.
- Chat activity graph A chat activity graph across the whole VoD. Peaks are clippable moments.
- Emote & word filters Combine emote chips and keyword filters to narrow chat down to the messages that matter.
- Moments A scored shortlist of the laughs, hype spikes, teases and wholesome runs in chat. You judge each one.
Render a chat overlay. Free.
Seven days free on the 50 GB plan. No card for Twitch accounts older than 90 days.