Best upscaling software

[Spectral Fusion]

I need some information on what the best video upscaling software are, these i read about

1. Video enhancer

2. Topaz enhance

3. Instant HD

Im experienced in upscaling using Photoshop CS3, genuine fractals 5 and Photo zoom pro 2 for still images.

But video is very different due to codecs, interlacing, colorspace etc.

I also know about super resolution but not how to use it.

Manly looking for upscaling older videos and some from youtube, and phone cameras.


Is there any good techniques for motion compensation that make the result better and what filter do i need ?

and do they got any gui ?

Also can virtualdub do the same as aftereffects when upscaling and making videos look better ?

Give me tips.

Im not good at using avisyth

not so tech freaky sorry wish i was tho


thank you

[Soopafresh]

Video enhancer will let you try out super resolution with the least amount of effort.

None of them work perfectly. And trying to upscale a Youtube video is going to look terrible. It's like trying to turn a postage stamp into a movie screen.

You're going to end up discovering that it isn't worth the trouble, especially if your source files aren't perfect.

[mh2360]

Upscaling is sometimes worth the effort, it depends on your video hardware and video source. Some devices are much better at it than others.

Take the Xbox360 for example, it is truly awful at DVD upscaling. When I compare a SD DVD played on the 360 (HDMI), with a ripped DVD, upscaled to 720p H.264 using AVISynth (Lanczos4), the difference is quite noticable.

[greymalkin]

many of the newer video cards do hardware upscaling on them, but I'm not sure if they handle all of the codecs you will be throwing at them.

[Spectral Fusion]

How good is converting to frames and batch process using genuine fractals and photoshop as idea ?
can i sync the sound again or not ?

What is the difference between avisynth and virtualdub dll filters ?

[Soopafresh]

Photoshop and GF - It'll work, but it'll take so long that it won't be worth the effort. You'll have to enlarge 25 images for 1 second of footage.

Since you're not technically motivated, forget Avisynth. It's amazing, but it'll be like learning a programming language.

[greymalkin]

this sounds like fun!
- export each frame of the video as an uncompressed image..for a 2 hour movie at 25fps that's 180,000 pictures.
- open and resize each one...this could be a batch photoshop job, errrr...many batch photoshop jobs as I'm sure you'd run out of memory eventually.
- recreate the video from the 180,000 pictures..timing of each picture must be exact or your audio is useless.

good luck!

[poisondeathray]

I wouldn't bother if it's from youtube and cell phone videos. You're going to be spending more time on cleaning up artifacts.

And I have used all the ones you mentioned, except for instant HD. Avisynth is the best IMO, even for stills, and provides you the most functionality and ability to customize for individual sources.

But why don't you try for yourself and see with your own eyes? All the software you mentioned have free trials

[Spectral Fusion]

Im testing some avisynth scripts now, tips on filters for upscaling and sharpening purpose ?

[poisondeathray]

Im testing some avisynth scripts now, tips on filters for upscaling and sharpening purpose ?

It's going to depend on the footage so it's difficult to give generic advice. You would use different filters customized for to specific footage

In general, you will probably need some denoisers (considering your sources), interpolation/upscaling and probably more denoising , then mild sharpening

NNEDI2 has a great upscaling/interpolation algorithm
LSFMod is good for sharpening and has lots of customizable functions
There are dozens of denoisers to choose from, and the choice and settings will depend on the footage...

But I honestly wouldn't bother considering the quality of your sources... you know what they say... GIGO

Good luck

[jagabo]

many of the newer video cards do hardware upscaling on them, but I'm not sure if they handle all of the codecs you will be throwing at them.

Hardware video decompression and scaling are separate matters. All graphics cards for a very long time have had hardware scaling for display. Ranging from nearest neighbor (in the oldest cards) to bilinear, and bicubic nowadays. It's possible to upscale while editing/converting using the newest cards with CUDA or OpenCL but I don't know of any programs that do this. In any case, the algorithms will be the same ones you can do in software, maybe faster with the GPU.