Using AI upscaling to enhance your videos

[MasterBates]

i could have an outdated version but w. it turned a 1,7GB file into 589mb and a 990mb file into 250mb w. no loss to quality

[DarkRaven671]

Sure, I was just saying that this is more a matter of getting the settings right. It's not that Handbrake does it just so, or that Handbrake can do it and others can't. Handbrake offers a lot of presets that are especially interesting for non-techy people or people generally new to the topic. With the wrong settings, as with any encoder, you can also double the size of the input video, which obviously is totally pointless. That's what happens, sort of, with the built-in encoder in the upscaling software.

[NEILYOHYEAH]

i agree with the topaz software but the time is incredible, i think i must dedicate an entire system to the program is the best idea, turn it on and let it run for a day or two or three.

[flamefrien]

Pearldiver6 (from another thread):

I thought of one thing, some clips have been "upscaled" to HD from whatever to 4 - 6 gigs. Correct me if I am wrong, but you can't get 4X from something that started as 2X, that is you cannot increase the resolution above what it was originally. Can you?

Reply: You would be correct if the software only used the original file. My understanding is that AI uses a universe of similar images and makes an educated guess as to what the original image should look like in a higher resolution.

To use a very simple example, say in the background there is a clock hanging on the wall, but you can't make out the numbers. The software would look at a huge library of clock images, and choose one where the numbers are discernible. Now, add in everything else, hair, clothing, furniture, and you can see why the files get so big.

I will say that my favorite actresses are from the SD era, and that for a long time I put up with watching crappy 480p videos on a 1080p monitor. The upscaled versions of the same scenes , while not 4K quality are miles beyond the originals in terms of watch-ability.

[WWEGM100]

I use Topaz for maybe a year now and its alot of fun to upscale my old vids and i tried upscaling some HD Videos that dont have the best quality.

HD Source


4K Output Artemis

[WWEGM100]

Originally Posted by RobertWill

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.

do you still use the same setting for the new version and do you use this setting for all resolutions ?

[deak]

Aah how could I miss this thread regarding sizings: I take older VR Vids that already have i.e. 3400x1700 and usually upscale them most of the times to 2.25x = 7650x3825.

Since the older VR scenes are mostly encoded with x264 codec and have some decrease in quality because of compression VEAI does also a great job at sharpening, denoising, etc. Newer devices like Quest 2 benefit heavily from that IMO.

I looked at the bitrate of newer x265 scenes with 7-8K resolution and when I encode the output from VEAI I aim to the same bitrate.

Right now I dont have original files to my 'remastered' scenes anymore so I can not compare but in general I would say you can multiply original filesize with 1.5

Feel free to ask more

[MasterBates]

how do you improve old 1990s pixelated trash looking scenes theese are BAD quality but would like to improve the look anyway

[DarkRaven671]

Originally Posted by MasterBates

how do you improve old 1990s pixelated trash looking scenes theese are BAD quality but would like to improve the look anyway

If the input quality is really, really bad, like compression artifacts and/or bad quality analog to digital conversion, for example from an old VHS tape that has seen more action than the actors on screen, then there is only so much you can do. In the end, this is science overall, not magic. You won't be able to recover much of the lost details due to overly strong compression or damaged media. Some files are so bad that you won't be able to achieve anything.

[MasterBates]

I ran them through anyway with mixed results some i needed improvement on I got others in preview looked worse than the original so i aborted I would like some tutorial on the settings and which do what artemis/gaia etc so I dont set it on the wrong setting