CRTified vs free CRT methods in DaVinci Resolve: what do you actually get for $30?

You can build a CRT effect for free in DaVinci Resolve. That is a true statement and you should know it before you spend anything.

Fusion ships with every copy of Resolve, including the free version. It has the nodes you need to create scanlines, barrel distortion, color separation, and a passable retro TV look. There are also free Fusion fuses that package some of this work into a single node.

CRTified costs $30. It is a GPU-accelerated OFX plugin from EZSCAPE that runs in Resolve, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro.

This page explains exactly what each approach gives you. No hard sell. If the free method does what you need, use it. If you need more, you will know why.

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The free approach: building CRT in Fusion

Fusion is a full node-based compositor. You can build a CRT effect from scratch using its standard tools. Here is what that looks like.

What you can achieve

A manually built Fusion CRT effect typically includes:

• ☼ Scanline overlay using a Background node with horizontal lines, tiled via Transform
• ☼ Barrel distortion using the Lens Distort node for screen curvature
• ☼ Chromatic aberration by splitting RGB channels with Channel Booleans and offsetting them
• ☼ Color grading via Color Corrector nodes for warm, desaturated, blown-out tube colors
• ☼ Vignette using an Ellipse mask with soft edges
• ☼ Noise/grain using FastNoise

With patience, you can stack these into a convincing retro TV look. Some Fusion builders have created impressive setups that hold up in production work.

How to do it: step-by-step overview

A typical Fusion CRT node tree looks like this:

1. MediaIn feeds your source footage.
2. Scanlines. Create a Background node (black and white horizontal stripes). Set Transform to tile vertically. Merge over your footage with Multiply or Overlay blending.
3. Barrel distortion. Add a Lens Distort node. Push the barrel parameter to curve the image edges inward. This simulates the curvature of CRT glass.
4. Chromatic aberration. Use three Channel Booleans nodes to isolate R, G, and B. Apply a slight Transform offset to one or two channels. Merge them back together.
5. Color correction. Add a Color Corrector. Push midtone warmth slightly orange. Reduce saturation. Lift the blacks a bit. This gives the washed-out tube look.
6. Vignette. Ellipse mask on a Brightness/Contrast node. Darken the edges.
7. Grain. FastNoise merged over the result at low opacity.

That is seven or eight nodes minimum for a basic CRT look. A more detailed version can hit 15-20 nodes.

Pros of the free method

• ☼ Costs nothing
• ☼ Works in DaVinci Resolve Free (no Studio license required)
• ☼ You learn how Fusion works, which has value beyond this one effect
• ☼ Total control over every parameter, because you built every parameter
• ☼ No third-party dependencies

Cons of the free method

• ☼ Takes 30-90 minutes to build from scratch, longer if you are new to Fusion
• ☼ No presets. Every project starts from zero unless you save and manage your own macros.
• ☼ Fragile. Change your project resolution and the scanline spacing, distortion values, and chromatic offsets may all need manual adjustment.
• ☼ No real signal artifacts. NTSC color bleed, dot crawl, and bandwidth loss require math that Fusion's standard nodes do not expose. You would need custom DCTL or Fuse scripting.
• ☼ No phosphor mask modeling. Real CRTs break the image into subpixel dots (shadow mask, aperture grille, slot mask). A tiled scanline overlay does not replicate this.
• ☼ No GPU optimization. Most of the work runs on CPU through Fusion's standard processing. Performance drops at 4K.
• ☼ Hard to iterate quickly. Adjusting one parameter often means rebalancing three others.
• ☼ No phosphor glow physics. Real phosphors bleed light into neighboring cells. Fusion's standard blur does not model this accurately.

The free method is real. It works. But it has a ceiling, and the ceiling is the signal chain.

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Free Fusion fuses: Akascape Super CRT and others

Several community developers have packaged basic CRT simulation into downloadable Fusion fuses. The most notable is Akascape's Super CRT Fuse, available free (or pay-what-you-want) on Gumroad.

What they offer

A Fusion fuse is a Lua or DCTL script that appears as a single node in your Fusion graph. Super CRT Fuse gives you scanlines, curved screen distortion, chromatic aberration, and pixel point patterns in one node. You drop it in, adjust a few sliders, and get a basic CRT look without building the node tree yourself.

Pros of free fuses

• ☼ Free to download and use
• ☼ Work in DaVinci Resolve Free (no Studio license required)
• ☼ Single node instead of 8-20 manually connected nodes
• ☼ Quick to apply and adjust

Cons of free fuses

• ☼ Limited parameter range. You get the parameters the developer exposed, and that is it.
• ☼ No signal chain depth. No NTSC/PAL encoding artifacts, no dot crawl, no bandwidth loss.
• ☼ No phosphor glow physics. Standard blur, not physically modeled bloom.
• ☼ No pixel mask variety. You may get one pattern. Real CRTs used shadow masks, aperture grilles, and slot masks, each with a distinctly different look.
• ☼ CPU-bound. Fuses run through Fusion's scripting layer, not through compiled GPU code. Performance at 1080p is acceptable. At 4K, expect dropped frames.
• ☼ No presets or preset management.
• ☼ Maintenance depends on a single developer. If Resolve updates break compatibility, you wait for a fix or fix it yourself.

Free fuses are a solid middle ground: more convenient than building from scratch, less capable than a compiled plugin. They are a perfectly reasonable choice for one-off projects or quick experiments.

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What do you get for $30 with CRTified?

CRTified is a compiled OFX plugin. It runs on your GPU and covers the full CRT signal chain in a single effect. Here is what the $30 buys you that the free methods do not provide.

Pixel masks modeled on real hardware

Four types: shadow mask, aperture grille (Trinitron style), slot mask, and raster. Each has adjustable dot pitch, intensity, and blending. These are not static overlays. They scale with resolution and respond to the brightness of the underlying image, the way real phosphor masks interact with the electron beam.

The free method gives you scanlines. CRTified gives you the actual subpixel structure of a CRT display.

Phosphor glow

Real CRT phosphors bleed light into neighboring cells. CRTified simulates this with adjustable tint, radius, and a pulse parameter that lets the glow breathe over time. Aging tubes had phosphors that flickered unevenly. The pulse parameter replicates that. This is not a Gaussian blur. It is physically modeled bloom.

Signal chain: NTSC/PAL artifacts

This is the biggest gap between free methods and CRTified. Real CRT footage passed through an analog signal chain before it hit the screen. That signal chain introduced specific artifacts:

• ☼ NTSC/PAL color bleed. Composite video encodes color and luminance together. The decoder never perfectly separates them, causing color to smear across edges.
• ☼ Dot crawl. A rainbow shimmer pattern that crawls along high-contrast edges. Caused by the chroma subcarrier interfering with the luminance signal.
• ☼ Bandwidth loss. Analog signals lose high-frequency detail. The image softens in a specific way that is different from a digital blur. Horizontal detail degrades more than vertical detail.

You cannot replicate these with Fusion's standard nodes. They require modeling how composite video encoding actually works. CRTified does that math on the GPU.

Analog distortion

• ☼ Six warp shapes: barrel, pincushion, and four additional screen curvature models
• ☼ Static (adjustable density and intensity)
• ☼ Film grain
• ☼ Brightness wobble (the way a CRT's brightness fluctuates as the power supply drifts)
• ☼ Vertical hold drift (the image rolls vertically when sync is lost)

Every parameter is keyframeable. You can animate a clean signal degrading into noise over the course of a shot, or snap from static to a locked picture in a single frame.

Presets and workflow

• ☼ 18 curated looks as starting points
• ☼ A randomizer that generates combinations you would not think to try
• ☼ 300 user preset slots for building a personal CRT library
• ☼ Works on any node in the Color page, any clip in the Edit page, or any layer in Fusion

GPU acceleration

CRTified runs on CUDA (NVIDIA), OpenCL, and Metal. Real-time playback at 1080p and 4K on modern hardware. The free Fusion methods cannot match this because they run through the scripting layer, not compiled GPU code.

Cross-NLE support

CRTified works in DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro. Build a look in one application, move it to another. Free Fusion fuses are Resolve-only.

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Side-by-side comparison

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Is the free CRT method good enough?

The free approach is the right call if:

• ☼ You are learning Fusion and want to understand compositing from the ground up. Building a CRT effect teaches you about blending modes, channel operations, masking, and distortion.
• ☼ You have a one-off project where "close enough" works. A music video intro, a social post, a quick retro moment in a longer edit.
• ☼ Budget is genuinely zero. The free version of DaVinci Resolve plus a free fuse gives you a working CRT look at no cost.
• ☼ You enjoy the process of building effects. Some editors find this satisfying in the same way that some guitarists prefer building their own pedals.
• ☼ You only need scanlines and curvature. If your CRT look does not require signal chain accuracy, the free method covers it.

The free method is not a compromise for everyone. For some projects and some editors, it is the right tool.

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Who should buy CRTified

CRTified earns its $30 if:

• ☼ You do CRT work regularly. Rebuilding the effect from scratch every project is a time cost that compounds fast.
• ☼ You work on client projects where consistency matters. Presets and user slots mean you can lock a look and reproduce it across deliverables.
• ☼ You need signal chain accuracy. NTSC/PAL artifacts, dot crawl, and bandwidth loss are what separate a "scanlines on footage" look from something that reads as genuine analog.
• ☼ You value time over money. Thirty seconds to apply a preset versus 30-90 minutes to build a node tree. Over five projects, that math becomes obvious.
• ☼ You work at 4K or higher. GPU acceleration means real-time playback where the free methods will stutter.
• ☼ You need to animate degradation. Keyframeable signal artifacts let you tell a story with the effect: a clean signal breaking down, a channel drifting, static rising.
• ☼ You work across multiple NLEs. CRTified runs in Resolve, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro. One purchase covers your workflow.

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Frequently asked questions

Can I build a CRT effect for free in DaVinci Resolve?

Yes. Fusion ships with every copy of DaVinci Resolve, including the free version. You can build a CRT effect using standard nodes: Background for scanlines, Lens Distort for barrel curvature, Channel Booleans for chromatic aberration, Color Corrector for the tube color look, and FastNoise for grain. It takes time to build and lacks signal chain artifacts (NTSC color bleed, dot crawl, bandwidth loss), but the basic look is achievable for free.

Is CRTified worth $30?

That depends on how often you use CRT effects and what level of accuracy you need. If you apply a CRT look once a year for a quick social post, the free method is fine. If you do CRT work regularly, need NTSC/PAL signal artifacts, want presets you can reuse, or work at 4K where GPU acceleration matters, CRTified pays for itself in time savings within the first few projects. There is also a $10/month rent-to-own option if you want to try it before committing.

Does CRTified work in the free version of DaVinci Resolve?

No. CRTified is an OFX plugin, and the free version of DaVinci Resolve does not load third-party OFX plugins. You need DaVinci Resolve Studio. If you are on the free version of Resolve and want CRT effects, the manual Fusion method or a free Fusion fuse like Akascape's Super CRT Fuse are your options.

What is the difference between a Fusion fuse and an OFX plugin?

A Fusion fuse is a Lua or DCTL script that runs inside Fusion's node graph. It works in the free version of Resolve but runs through the scripting layer, which means CPU-bound processing and limited GPU acceleration. An OFX plugin is a compiled binary that runs directly on the GPU. It loads on the Edit, Color, and Fusion pages in Resolve Studio, and typically performs significantly better at high resolutions. OFX plugins also tend to offer more parameters, preset systems, and cross-NLE compatibility.

Can I start with the free method and upgrade to CRTified later?

Absolutely. Many editors start with the manual Fusion approach or a free fuse, learn what CRT effects involve, and later decide whether they need the signal chain depth and workflow speed that a compiled plugin provides. Nothing you build in Fusion goes to waste. Understanding how scanlines, distortion, and color separation work makes you a better user of any CRT tool, including CRTified.

Are there other free CRT fuses besides Akascape?

A few community-made options exist on GitHub and Reactor (the Fusion package manager). Most are variations on the same approach: scanlines, basic distortion, and chromatic aberration. Akascape's Super CRT Fuse is the most recognized free option. Check Reactor's Effects category for others.

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Ready to add real CRT simulation to your timeline? Try CRTified with rent-to-own at $10/month, or grab a permanent license for $30.