Using AI upscaling to enhance your videos

[RobertWill]

Hi! This is not a thread to ask for help, but my recommendation & experience of using AI video enhancement software on older videos.

I have a lot of older porn videos released before 2008 for nostalgia reasons, those are usually low-res due to their age and don't have HD equivalents, despite the fond memories, they are a bit hard to look at nowadays. Recently I've tried using AI software to enhance them and got some pretty decent results.

The software I'm talking about is Topaz Video Enhance AI, it has a pricetag but you could search for a cracked copy on torrent sites if you have any doubt. I've used it to upscale a few of my older 360p/480p videos to 720p/1080p which is a significant improvement, sorry I don't have a screenshots comparison but the software does work as advertised, it uses machine learning algorithms to upscale the video image and clears out artifacts, and adds a lot of details. However, the final result does depend on the source file, some videos can look a bit unnatural and plastic after the processing if the source quality is too poor, but overall I find those older ladies are a lot better to look at after the AI enhancement.

So far I feel the biggest drawback of current AI enhancement solutions is not the result being imperfect as I mentioned above, but the huge amount of time it takes to process the video, my setup is decent-powerful (core i7 6770 w/ RTX 2070) but it takes almost 5 hours to process a 30-min 480p video to 1080p, this is why I haven't test it on a full-length movie, I assume that would take a day.

So, if you're like me and have a collection of older videos, maybe give AI video enhancement software a try, there are several brands of them so far I find Topaz to be the best but feel free to look for your choice. Time to revitalize those vintage pornstars as they surely deserve some HD treatment.

[Oliverfr]

Hey, nice advice you gave here. I wouldn't mind making myself a list of old vids to run in the background on idle days...
Edit: not even porn vids, actually. Old family vids looking much better would make old relatives' days, I think, now that's even better a plan O_o

Thank you!

[RobertWill]

Originally Posted by Oliverfr

Hey, nice advice you gave here. I wouldn't mind making myself a list of old vids to run in the background on idle days...

Thank you!

Glad to help!

In case anyone's interested, my preferred mode in Topaz is "Theia detail" (sharpness 25, detail 80, artifacts 8) which produces very clean & sharp results, other modes are way too soft for my taste but feel free to experiment.

I prefer to convert my videos at night, all set up and let the software run its course, as the process can take several hours to complete.

[digitalsierra]

What's the learning curve like for Topaz? Did you figure things out from an instructional video?

[RobertWill]

Originally Posted by digitalsierra

What's the learning curve like for Topaz? Did you figure things out from an instructional video?

There's no real "leaning curve":P, you just select from a few pre-configured options, some values like sharpness, detail and artifacts can be tweaked, then hit the preview button to see the result, it will render a shot video pursuant to your config, if all things look good you just hit convert and wait, or you can continue fine-tuning/choose a different preset.

The only "challenge" is the very long processing time, I'd assume it will be even longer on weaker pcs, but if you have a really powerful rig the time may be shorter. That's why I always run the task at night so it doesn't interfere with my daily pc usage.

[PatrynXX]

the free ones are hit and miss online ie a 400 mb one is a pain and doesn't do much.

I first ran into this AI because DVD Fab offers a $55 program just for photos and I prefer that over video as it'd be nice to see what it does with some smaller photos I can't scan over anymore. (cause I thought who'd need better than 10mp scans (not dpi, but ppi but most scanners assume it's newspaper so they say it's dpi o_O) nowadays I scan near 30mp, and up depending on the negative. sometimes they've gone up to 100mp scans if I wanna fix them good enough so that at print level you can't tell. Digital Ice does this but not well...

the DVD Fab one I might buy but a video version iffy. and only one porn video I pulled that one was some mother at an auto shop who was thirsty and drank some warm milk. Well the twins were right there. Why not. Not entirely healthy, but not dangerous either. Just more or less very good Whole milk.. with alot of sugar in it. But it was a cheap cell phone and the ai did a bit better with it but not great.. I'll have to look for this one down below (or above depending on your PS settings)

[MasterBates]

i used the picture version twice now to upscale picture sets its a real resource hog but has great results

[RobertWill]

Originally Posted by MastrBates

i used the picture version twice now to upscale picture sets its a real resource hog but has great results

Yeah, I was thinking about enhancing all my older videos with it but the long converting time really sucks. That's why I only did a handful so far but it's still a significant improvement. Hopefully the time will be much shorter when the tech gets more advanced, or with future generations of powerful hardware.

[MasterBates]

I heard a more powerful GPU (processor) expidites it nicely still mine is average and I rin it nonstop to get as much as I can, then broke my backup and lost it all...goddamn sober october=november Ill never remember!!

[RobertWill]

Originally Posted by MastrBates

I heard a more powerful GPU (processor) expidites it nicely still mine is average and I rin it nonstop to get as much as I can, then broke my backup and lost it all...goddamn sober october=november Ill never remember!!

Sorry to hear that Yeah software like these needs both very powerful CPU & GPU to minimize the processing time.

I would have bought an RTX 3080 for Cyberpunk 2077 (hyped for that game too haha) if I weren't short on cash, thanks Cronavirus. Hope my old 2070 is up to the job with DLSS on.