Make a video black and white with the API: monochrome filter

To make a video black and white with the Sume API, call POST /v1/video-filter with "filtergraph": "monochrome". The name monochrome is on the filtergraph allowlist, the call returns a new MP4, and your source is untouched.

There is no dedicated black-and-white op. Sume's ops[] only knows dim and crop; any other pixel work goes in the filters-only filtergraph, as the video filter page says.

What is the request?

The source must be on media.sume.com, so import first. An Idempotency-Key is required. The default mode is async, so you get a job back and poll it.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-filter \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: bw-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/talk.mp4",
    "filtergraph": "monochrome"
  }'

How do I test it before paying?

Send the same body to POST /v1/video-filter/check. It runs the schema, the allowlist and the source preflight, creates no job, and costs nothing. The encode itself is a flat $0.02 per job on the docs page; confirm the live number in GET /v1/catalog.

A program that passes the check can still fail on the box, for example on memory or time. That comes back as a structured job error, not a 400.

Which other filters change colour?

The allowlist has a tone and colour group; these are the ones most people reach for after black and white.

What are the limits?

The source must be at most 300 seconds, a program holds at most 8 ops, and the filtergraph is capped at 2048 characters and 32 filters. Output inherits the source geometry, frame rate and audio unless you change them, so the sound stays as it was.

Sume does not offer colour presets or LUT files. lut3d is not on the allowlist because it reads a file, so a branded grade has to be written as inline filter options.