Improving video quality

[rusting]

Is there anyway that i can improve the video quality of files downloaded from youtube? I am not exactly looking for high definition quality but to enhance it enough so that i can view a pixel-free video in a bigger resolution?

Thanks

[tomlee59]

There's not much you can do. If the source is crappy, you're fundamentally limited by the coefficient of craptitude. You can blur, etc. to exchange one kind of artifact for another, but that's about it. It's the old "garbage in, garbage out" law of physics asserting itself. Wish I had better news, but if there were a magic way to convert lousy video into good, then we wouldn't need Blu-ray.

[SatStorm]

Yes, you can. But not for free. And takes time.

Deemon's Video Enhancer to upscale
Neat Video to filter
MSU Smart Sharpen to sharp

You save your file to a new Avi, better be mjpeg.

Then, re-encode the avi with your favorite encoder.

[jagabo]

Gains will be minimal and new artifacts will be introduced even with the best tools.

[tomlee59]

Sharpening a pixelated, macroblocking vid is unlikely to produce a good result. But no need to take anyone's word on it -- just try it. Since quality is somewhat subjective, exchanging one type of artifact for another might produce a result that constitutes an improvement in your eyes. For me, the gain-for-pain ratio is pretty unfavorable. As jagabo said, gains will be minimal, and that's after a lot of work.

[SatStorm]

After neatvideo, some sharpening is needed.

I have converted the way I described many videos with excellent results.

But you have to buy both neatvideo and video enhancer.

[lordsmurf]

If the source is crappy, you're fundamentally limited by the coefficient of craptitude. You can blur, etc. to exchange one kind of artifact for another, but that's about it. It's the old "garbage in, garbage out" law of physics asserting itself.

Awesome.

How decent results look indeed rests with the source. Some Youtube videos will always be awful, while some are just marginal enough that they can be cleaned up decently. It's always best to attempt to find the original source, sometimes as easy as contacting the author of the upload.

[filmboss80]

Yep. In order to compress a video down to YouTube size, the encoder throws out tons of detail that cannot be recovered. Some of the filters can possibly interpret what's been lost and smooth things out a bit, but nothing can really restore details that have been tossed out.

[lordsmurf]

Grab the HQ or HD streams, too, if exist.

[magnu]

You could try using a piece of software called Vreveal. It's rather good.

[zoobie]

no