AI boom - Any free and worthy video enhancers?

[Paultx]

Back in 2020 I asked here about free video enhancers recommendations. With today's phase of the AI boom, I wonder if there are some good and worthy free video enhancers out there you guys know of or have used and recommend.

[SaurusX]

ESRGAN and its variants are the king for animated material. There's no unified program to use it, but it exists as a multitude of stand-alone models that can be used individually or in combination. There's a learning curve. As for live action, I think Topaz is still widely considered to be the best available consumer product, though not free.

[davexnet]

IN general, do these enhancers need a GPU present? I'm thinking of those running an older motherboard with onboard graphics only

[DVDLover00]

IN general, do these enhancers need a GPU present? I'm thinking of those running an older motherboard with onboard graphics only

maybe yes, depending also on your cpu rendering.

[lollo]

I wonder if there are some good and worthy free video enhancers

AviSynth and VapourSynth

As for live action, I think Topaz is still widely considered to be the best available consumer product, though not free

There is nothing Topaz VEAI can do that cannot be matched or beaten by AviSynth/VapourSynth

[rrats]

avisynth, vps, vsgan and even virtualdub to an extent.

There is nothing Topaz VEAI can do that cannot be matched or beaten by AviSynth/VapourSynth

Yup. VSGAN is like a better alternative to VEAI, with actually passable and even good looking outputs

[Platos]

ESRGAN and its variants are the king for animated material. There's no unified program to use it, but it exists as a multitude of stand-alone models that can be used individually or in combination. There's a learning curve. As for live action, I think Topaz is still widely considered to be the best available consumer product, though not free.

With RealESRGAN x4plus Anime (for example) you have way more artefacts than RealCUGAN.

Why is everyone saying ESRGAN ist so good? Which model exactly should be that good?

Never found sth better than RealCUGAN, escpecially when you look over the speed. Yeah, RealCUGAN makes sth sharper, but the artefact it produces is often horrible.

avisynth, vps, vsgan and even virtualdub to an extent.

There is nothing Topaz VEAI can do that cannot be matched or beaten by AviSynth/VapourSynth

Yup. VSGAN is like a better alternative to VEAI, with actually passable and even good looking outputs

Which VsGAN can you reccomend for Anime ? Which model?

I use RealCUGAN. Could not find sth better.

[Selur]

Yup. VSGAN is like a better alternative to VEAI

For some specific use cases, since nearly all VSGAN models to have no temporal component.
Only one frame at a time is filtered, for old cartoon/anime and texture/image filtering this will not cause much of a problem, for normal movies&content you will have temporal flickering etc.

[lordsmurf]

With today's phase of the AI boom

The only people that think there is a "boom" in AI are those those don't understand it. You could often switch the term "AI" for "magic" or "pixie dust".

AI is definitely A, but lacking in I. So much wrong/nonsense/BS from AI engines.

Video is no different. The models mostly create artifacts, especially the cheap crappy ones like Topaz software. The *GAN methods are superior to Topaz in almost every way, aside from having a GUI for newbies and the lazy. (Lazy is fine, I like lazy myself at times, but not when it comes at the cost of quality.)