Dim a full 3-minute Short in one filter job: 180 of 300 s, $0.02

A 3-minute Short is 180 seconds, and Sume's Video filter takes a source of up to 300 seconds, so the whole thing dims in a single job at $0.02 (as of 2026-10-08). A dim op of 0.45 multiplies the luma of the full clip and leaves black black. A TikTok non-Spark ad of 10 minutes is 600 seconds, twice the filter's limit, so it needs at least two filter jobs, or a dim applied to shorter pieces before they are assembled.

Limits on the same page

The docs give the filter source limit as 300 seconds. A longer file is refused with output_duration_exceeded. The filter keeps geometry, frame rate and audio unless the program changes them, and it returns a new MP4 while the source stays as it was.

Why dim a Short at all

Burned-in captions lose contrast over bright footage. The dim op takes an amount in the range above 0 and up to 1. The docs example is 0.45, which makes the clip darker; 1 changes nothing, and 0 or anything above 1 is refused. You can chain up to 8 ops, and add a filters-only filtergraph of at most 2048 characters and 32 filters, applied after the ops.

The free check endpoint runs the schema, the op allowlist, the filtergraph allowlist and the host preflight, and it returns an estimate and next_action. Run it first. It does not create a job, so it costs nothing, but it also cannot show you how dark 0.45 looks. For that, you pay for one encode.

Order of operations for a captioned Short

Dim first, then caption. The caption job is a separate render that burns text onto an existing public video URL, at $0.20 per job for clips of up to 60 seconds under the current fixed estimate. So for a 59-second Short: dim at $0.02, captions at $0.20, total $0.22. For a 180-second Short, the dim is still one job, but the docs state the caption price only for up to 60 seconds, so check the live catalog before you assume a rate.

Remember the host rules differ. Video filter needs a media.sume.com clip in your workspace, while Video captions needs a public HTTPS URL that Sume can fetch. Plan the hand-off between the two, and read the YouTube page's three-minute rule once more if you plan to dim and publish a file longer than 180 seconds.

What one job does not do

A dim job does not trim, resize or add text. Cutting a range is Video trim, and the filter allowlist leaves out trim and setpts for that reason. It also leaves out drawtext and subtitles, so captions come from the separate caption job. The output keeps the source geometry, frame rate and audio, which means a 1080x1920 Short in is a 1080x1920 Short out. If you want to darken only part of the clip, split it first with trim, dim the piece, and rejoin in Timeline; each piece is a $0.02 job, plus the render at $0.10 per started minute.