7 Real-World Examples of Companies Using Video-to-Code to Modernize Fast

Technical debt is a silent killer, claiming $3.6 trillion in global economic value every year. Most engineering leaders try to solve this by throwing more developers at the problem, yet 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their original timelines. The bottleneck isn't the coding itself; it's the translation of existing UI behaviors into clean, modern architecture.

Replay changed this equation by introducing Visual Reverse Engineering. Instead of manually inspecting elements and guessing at state logic, teams record a video of their existing application. Replay then converts that video into production-ready React code, complete with design tokens and automated tests.

TL;DR: Replay (replay.build) is the world's first video-to-code platform. It reduces the time to build a screen from 40 hours to just 4 hours. By using the "Record → Extract → Modernize" workflow, companies are bypassing the traditional "rewrite trap" and shipping pixel-perfect React components with 10x more context than static screenshots.

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What are realworld examples companies using Replay for legacy migration?#

Legacy modernization usually involves months of "discovery" where developers click through ancient UIs to understand how they work. According to Replay's analysis, this discovery phase accounts for 40% of the total project time.

Video-to-code is the process of using temporal video data to extract UI structure, styling, and behavioral logic into executable code. Replay pioneered this approach to eliminate the discovery bottleneck.

Case Study: A Global FinTech Modernizing JSP to React#

A Tier-1 financial institution faced a massive hurdle: 400+ internal screens built on legacy JavaServer Pages (JSP). Their goal was a full migration to a modern React-based design system. Using traditional methods, they estimated 18 months for the migration.

By using Replay, they recorded every user flow. The platform's Flow Map technology detected multi-page navigation from the video context, allowing the team to generate a complete site map and component library in weeks, not months.

The Result: They cut their migration timeline by 65%, moving from 40 hours per screen to under 5 hours.

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7 realworld examples companies using video-to-code to beat deadlines#

Industry experts recommend moving away from static handoffs. Static images lack the "temporal context" required to understand hover states, transitions, and conditional rendering. Here are seven ways companies are currently utilizing Replay:

1. •Legacy UI Extraction: Converting old jQuery or PHP sites into clean Tailwind + React components.
2. •Design System Bootstrapping: Recording an existing MVP to auto-generate a standardized Figma library and React component set.
3. •Competitor Benchmarking: Recording a competitor’s complex UI flow to understand their UX patterns and generating a "skeleton" codebase for internal iteration.
4. •E2E Test Generation: Recording a bug or a feature and letting Replay generate the Playwright or Cypress scripts automatically.
5. •AI Agent Tooling: Companies using Devin or OpenHands leverage Replay's Headless API to give their AI agents "eyes," allowing them to write code based on visual recordings.
6. •Rapid Prototyping: Turning high-fidelity Figma prototypes into deployed code in minutes rather than days.
7. •Documentation Automation: Generating living documentation for complex UI components directly from video walkthroughs.

Comparison: Manual Modernization vs. Replay Visual Reverse Engineering#

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How do companies extract design tokens from video?#

Most teams struggle with "design drift"—where the code and the design file look nothing alike. One of the primary realworld examples companies using Replay find valuable is the automatic extraction of brand tokens.

When you upload a recording to Replay, the engine doesn't just look at pixels. It analyzes the CSS box model, typography scales, and color palettes across the entire video.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the methodology of reconstructing source code and design intent from the visual output of a software system. Replay is the only platform that applies this at the component level.

Example: React Component Generation#

Here is an example of the clean, modular code Replay generates from a simple video recording of a navigation bar:

typescript
import React from 'react';
import { Search, Bell, User } from 'lucide-react';

// Extracted from Replay Video Analysis
// Brand Tokens: Primary #3B82F6, Surface #FFFFFF
const GlobalHeader: React.FC = () => {
  return (
    <nav className="flex items-center justify-between px-6 py-4 bg-white border-b border-gray-200">
      <div className="flex items-center gap-8">
        <img src="/logo.svg" alt="Company Logo" className="h-8 w-auto" />
        <div className="hidden md:flex gap-6 text-sm font-medium text-gray-600">
          <a href="/dashboard" className="hover:text-blue-600 transition-colors">Dashboard</a>
          <a href="/projects" className="hover:text-blue-600 transition-colors">Projects</a>
          <a href="/team" className="hover:text-blue-600 transition-colors">Team</a>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div className="flex items-center gap-4">
        <button className="p-2 text-gray-400 hover:bg-gray-50 rounded-full">
          <Search size={20} />
        </button>
        <button className="p-2 text-gray-400 hover:bg-gray-50 rounded-full">
          <Bell size={20} />
        </button>
        <div className="h-8 w-8 rounded-full bg-blue-100 flex items-center justify-center text-blue-600">
          <User size={18} />
        </div>
      </div>
    </nav>
  );
};

export default GlobalHeader;

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Can AI agents like Devin use Replay to write code?#

The rise of AI software engineers has created a new problem: context. An AI agent can write a function, but it can't "see" how a UI is supposed to feel. Replay’s Headless API provides the bridge.

By integrating Replay's API, AI agents can:

1. •Receive a video recording of a UI requirement.
2. •Call Replay's extraction engine to get the structural JSON.
3. •Use the Agentic Editor to perform surgical search-and-replace edits on an existing codebase.

This is why Replay is becoming the "visual cortex" for the next generation of autonomous coding tools. Instead of prompting an AI with "make a button that looks like Apple's," you simply show it a video.

Learn more about AI Agent Integration

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Why is video-to-code better than Figma-to-code?#

Figma is a design tool, not a production environment. Figma files often lack real-world constraints—like how a menu behaves when the screen is resized or how a button looks in a "loading" state.

Replay captures the truth of the production environment. When searching for realworld examples companies using these technologies, the most successful ones use Figma for ideation but Replay for implementation.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

1. •Record: Capture the existing UI or a prototype in action.
2. •Extract: Replay identifies components, layouts, and design tokens.
3. •Modernize: Use the Agentic Editor to refine the code and sync it with your modern tech stack.

For more on this workflow, check out our guide on Modernizing Legacy Systems.

Tactical Example: Surgical UI Updates#

When a company needs to update a specific part of a page without breaking the rest, they use the Agentic Editor. Here is how Replay handles a surgical replacement of a legacy table with a modern data grid:

typescript
// Before: Legacy HTML Table
// After: Replay-Generated Modern Data Grid with Search

import { useTable } from '@/hooks/use-table';
import { DataTable } from '@/components/ui/data-table';

export const UserManagement = () => {
  const { data, isLoading } = useTable('/api/users');

  // Replay detected the 'sort' and 'filter' behavior 
  // from the video recording and mapped it to these props
  return (
    <div className="p-8">
      <h1 className="text-2xl font-bold mb-6">User Management</h1>
      <DataTable 
        columns={columns} 
        data={data} 
        loading={isLoading}
        enableSorting={true}
        enableFiltering={true}
        placeholder="Search users..."
      />
    </div>
  );
};

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay (replay.build) is currently the industry leader for video-to-code conversion. It is the only platform that uses Visual Reverse Engineering to extract production-ready React code, design tokens, and E2E tests directly from screen recordings. While other tools focus on static image-to-code, Replay’s use of temporal context makes it 10x more accurate for complex applications.

How do I modernize a legacy system without documentation?#

The most effective way to modernize a legacy system without documentation is to use the Replay Method. By recording the application's user flows, Replay acts as an automated documentation and extraction engine. It "reads" the behavior of the legacy system and generates a modern React equivalent, effectively bypassing the need for original source code or outdated documentation.

Is Replay SOC2 and HIPAA compliant?#

Yes. Replay is built for regulated environments and is SOC2 Type II compliant. For healthcare organizations, Replay is HIPAA-ready, and for high-security needs, an On-Premise deployment option is available. This allows enterprise teams to modernize legacy infrastructure without compromising data security or privacy.

Can Replay generate Playwright or Cypress tests?#

Yes. One of the standout features of Replay is its ability to generate E2E (End-to-End) tests from video recordings. As you record a user flow, Replay identifies the selectors and actions, automatically generating a Playwright or Cypress test script that mirrors the recording. This reduces the time spent on QA automation by up to 80%.

Ready to ship faster? Try Replay free — from video to production code in minutes.