the problem with paid software like this give it 2 - 5 years when technology progresses and you'll have to pay for another version or 2 to receive updates that open source would already be enjoying
right. I paid a bunch for topaz image upscalers and sharpeners... but their new version is 1/3 the price. So they swapped out to the newer verions and I really overpaid.
Thank you very much. I did have trouble telling the difference because all three views were different parts of the film. I suggest you do something that I have no idea how to do: Maybe split the screen into two or three parts and shoe the exact same scene/footage in all three boxes?
Let's be honest, most of us use this to upscale ripped DVDs/blurays. Mainly DVDs. 1. I look for and rip 576i/p PAL videos. More data for AI to work with than 480p. 2. If interlaced, I use QTGMC via Avisynth to deinterlace to progressive frames. Avisynth also converts 25fps to 24fps if you want that. 3. In Topaz I use the IRIS model for SD to HD and the GAIA model for HD to 4K. These create the least amount of artifacts with the most detail increase as well.
Is there a simple way or program to do a simple 720p60 upscale from 480p60? So that I can upload VHS videos to here but still maintaining the proper frame rate, 60/59.94 fps
what I do is two enhanced files, one upscale with Rhea other with Iris, then I overlay both in my video cutter software and set opacitiy for example to 50 and they merge into one. Then I export and I do the "polish" in Topaz with "Artemis HQ" or "Strong Halo"
@@shawnmorita5821 I have a running job with Vapoursynth QTGMC deinterlacing of 127 episodes Star Trek Voyager 😊 I don't know if Avisynth or Vapoursynth is better. What I can say my finished ones looks amazing good deinterlaced. I'm doing this with deinterlace settings "very slow" ...it takes about five days nonstop to finish them all.
I like the Video2x the best. It may not be as sharp, but it has way less smearing. To be honest my first impression of the middle Topaz Video Ai was that it looked gross.
I have alot of old avi and mp4 exercise videos recorded from VHS, I can find the best settings on Topaz AI to make them look better without the AI making the people look weird. What settings would you suggest?
Am i missing something with Video 2x? I've don 3 videos now and none of them are higher quality anyone else get the same problem? I've put the videos side by side and no difference at all?
Very helpful, thank you! I can't wait to enhance these old 1940s to 1980s movies I cut FX Network promos for. The old telecine transfers did nightmarish damage to these beautiful old films.
Is there a comparision when Video2x is slowly enhanced? Say 1x. Then the 1x is ehanced again, and so on? I've ran into poor results using paid Topaz from potato quality >> 1080. I'm wondering about the results if it were done in "x" enhanced batches... However, I appreciate your test and I enjoyed watching the results that you posted. Thank you!
I wonder if Topaz looks at multiple frames to enhance each while the FOSS option only works intraframe. Whether the paid version is worth it depends if you're earning money doing this or it's just not a big deal to you to burn that money. It's clearly better. But can the FOSS option be modded to look as good or better?
I’m not sure if it’s because I have the free version, but every time I try to increase the fps or use AI models other than Gaia, it gives me an error. I don’t want to get the paid version if I’m not able to increase fps. SPECS: i7-11375H 3.30GHz 16GB RAM RTX 3050TI. I’m pretty sure I am able to run this
Thinking it's just an issue with the trial version. Your specs are decent. I would eventually invest in more RAM tho. 32 GB is better for video editing. I personally have 64 GB of RAM.
The AI does weird things to the eyes in your main example. I find it too distracting. I have an earlier version of the topaz suite and I only use it for the stills tools. I barely use the video upscaler. I didn't think it was worth paying the upgrade price.
Is there any tool to enhance video that can also take (as input) some photos of the scenario and actors to use those to increase the video even further with real details that are in the photos but not in the video??
Not that I'm aware of. You can almost do this using background removal and taking stills from the same vantage point and overlaying the actors. But when I do things like that, they need to be quick shots and it's best to add a little movement in the background to "sell it" - like a flickering light, moving gradient, or slow light sweep.
I only want to use topaz once for a 2 min vide . Not a video editor.. but have Final Cut Pro. Any way to do that ? … can’t afford that price for just a clip.
Topaz Video AI is a stand alone app. you just need to export any clip from any editor and import into Video AI. stick with high quality codecs like ProRez if your on a mac.
I'm starting to realize I'm going to have to wait for Nvidia to offer their real time video upscaler since right now the only choices are subscription models that NOONE wants or you have to pay absurd $300(+) prices. If just one competent program was out for a reasonable price like say $50, people would actually buy it.
Nvidia has real time upscaling now. It's very good for real time, and I've tested this using screen recording from Camtasia to effectively upscale video. It is an improvement for sure, but not as good as the other options.
Topaz Video Ai 4.2 gave me terrible results with interlaced sources. Ît is great with no movement but when there is movement it makes the result ready for the bin.
Topaz has limited tools to work with interlaced video. Interlaced video is crappy from the get-go, if you do any kind of frame by frame analysis. My philosophy is to deinterlace first. Topaz has a deinterlacer called Dione DV, but its output sucks. I've been a Virtualdub/avisynth user for years, and deinterlacing is old school for either. You can deinterlace with a number of tools, and output an intermediate video at a high quality setting, which is deinterlaced. Once that is done, Topaz can process this intermediate video, which is progressive, like a charm.
Hello Jeremy. Very informative video. I've been thinking about the possible purchase of Topaz Video. I don't really do a lot of upscaling of videos, mainly editing current work which is all 4K. I do use Topaz Gigapixel which really works well on facial recognition (as long as the original has enough data to work with.) You can get some very interesting results if the program has to guess too much! I think probably (for me) the $300 price tag is too steep for a secondary, once-in-a-while program.
i have video from around 1995 the video resolution 480x368, what settings would you recommend to input to enhance the quality, i put 1080p artemis settings and the output looks cartoonish.
I haven't experimented with all of the settings yet to be honest. I just got the software in mid December, so I've been using the defaults till now. I did try it on a few 360 and 480p videos and it's decent and even tries to predict and add hair textures, but other elements can look a bit like an image to vector conversion (cartoonish), especially if the source content has low dynamic range and minimal color gradients.
The Artemis model works with a form of "smearing technology" which is not suitable for all source material! Gaia is very low invasive method but is unspectular. "Theia Fine Tune (Fidelity) is lower invasiv than Artemis and use a form of "crystalize" method what is perfect for softer low/unpixelated sources! Iris or Proteus are genrell usable models, results differs massiv on set parameters (relative to auto mode)
This is really interesting, I want Video2X to be as good as Topaz, because it's simply amazing that there is now FOSS video upscaling software. Do you have an insta360 Go 3 or even 2? I love those cameras, but my biggest gripe is: A) lack of 4K resolution & B) lack of 60fps, it caps at 50fps. Would you be able to do a test of how good Video2X can upscale and interpolate the remaining 10 frames, to turn an Insta360 Go 3's 1440p 50hz video, into 4K 60hz? That would be SUPER interesting and useful. Also, do you know if Video2X gets further accelerated with GPU's that have Tensor cores, so for example RTX or even Intel GPU's? Great video btw, I wish more people were excited about these ai tools.
I'm sorry, I don't have the Insta360 Go cameras, just the link webcam. I can say that the Waifu2X gui project does let you use hardware acceleration, which does speed things up quite a bit and also has interpolation as an option. Both work respectably well, but are not as good as the Topaz suite.
I wonder how well this comparison holds up with the rapid optimization/development of AI upscalers. It's 10 months into the future as of when this video was posted, and I wonder if Video2X has closed the gap at all.
The Topaz Video AI app and models keep getting better. I've been comparing each of them lately and it's getting much better, more stable and correcting other aspects. I'm going to do an update on this.
I've seen errors most commonly with interrupted runs (computer sleeps or hibernates) or if the downloaded zip wasn't extracted to a folder then video2x_GUI.exe was run from the zip file directly, or huge files. Not sure if that applies to your case, but that's when I've encountered them.
Video2X only seems to encounter an error when using drivers other than Anime4KCPP and Waifu2X Caffe, Anime4k I think is made for making videos a bit more cartoonish and Waifu2X Caffe seems to be working but is taking a long time, all other drivers come up with the same error. Have you ever seen this/Do you know how these drivers work and if there are any more? Thanks :) @@DeployJeremy
I actually walked through the process on a previous video here th-cam.com/video/xSBT5vUNt80/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0CQLOHfTPzAOg4TV note that the process is very slow in either app
@@Precosg you can download it for free, but you just can't install and activate it for free once you've downloaded it. The download is on their website.
I think it would've been better to have the 3 versions of the same slice of video for direct comparison, rather than three different slices as was used here.
Upscaling or not, it's about the movie, not about quality. Nobody will say after a year, wow that was a great quality movie, either it was a good movie you'll remember or not. I can really be satisfied with DVD and even VHS because the movie I watched either keep stuck in my head or not. Investing the amound of time upscaling movies for being watched maybe a few times most in life is not worth the time, use that time to watch movies instead. I'm not gonna argue with people saying 4K will outsource any other format, stick with what you like. I have a growing collection in DVD with more than 1400 movies and will never buy blue-ray or 4K, it's not worth the money as dvd's are really cheap these days.
I can see how animation would be pretty easy to interpolate. On the other side there is billions of apps for restoring images using ai that works. and just couple of options for video that works like crap. Topaz is BS honestly.
Tell me a product offers AI trained models on the level of for example Topaz Rhea/Iris models and brings a bunch of adjustable parameters like Topapaz has. Of course you can use free tools, but often it's not more than trying out, this is not the same. Unfortunately there is not really a alternative to TVAI and I wish it were different!
@@JoergHH62 Yep. Stone might as well have said, "Solution, get a time machine, set the date for 1976, bring your 4K camera and reshoot all the VHS, Beta and NTSC." Simple.
the problem with paid software like this give it 2 - 5 years when technology progresses and you'll have to pay for another version or 2 to receive updates that open source would already be enjoying
right. I paid a bunch for topaz image upscalers and sharpeners... but their new version is 1/3 the price. So they swapped out to the newer verions and I really overpaid.
Are you trying to say that new products cost money? What a crazy concept.
@@VoliStormNA😂
Topaz video AI costs 299 a year.
Because company keeps investing to make new versions and new features you think the devs are working for free ?
Thank you very much. I did have trouble telling the difference because all three views were different parts of the film. I suggest you do something that I have no idea how to do: Maybe split the screen into two or three parts and shoe the exact same scene/footage in all three boxes?
Let's be honest, most of us use this to upscale ripped DVDs/blurays. Mainly DVDs.
1. I look for and rip 576i/p PAL videos. More data for AI to work with than 480p.
2. If interlaced, I use QTGMC via Avisynth to deinterlace to progressive frames. Avisynth also converts 25fps to 24fps if you want that.
3. In Topaz I use the IRIS model for SD to HD and the GAIA model for HD to 4K. These create the least amount of artifacts with the most detail increase as well.
Is there a simple way or program to do a simple 720p60 upscale from 480p60? So that I can upload VHS videos to here but still maintaining the proper frame rate, 60/59.94 fps
what I do is two enhanced files, one upscale with Rhea other with Iris, then I overlay both in my video cutter software and set opacitiy for example to 50 and they merge into one. Then I export and I do the "polish" in Topaz with "Artemis HQ" or "Strong Halo"
Is Avisynth better than Vapoursynth in QTGMC?
@@shawnmorita5821 I only use Avisynth. Never used anything else.
@@shawnmorita5821 I have a running job with Vapoursynth QTGMC deinterlacing of 127 episodes Star Trek Voyager 😊 I don't know if Avisynth or Vapoursynth is better.
What I can say my finished ones looks amazing good deinterlaced. I'm doing this with deinterlace settings "very slow" ...it takes about five days nonstop to finish them all.
Please do a TOPAZ tutorial for working with digitized VHS (720 x 480) and demonstrate the best settings for upscaling by a factor of 2.
I like the Video2x the best. It may not be as sharp, but it has way less smearing. To be honest my first impression of the middle Topaz Video Ai was that it looked gross.
Thank you for the review. Very helpful.
I have alot of old avi and mp4 exercise videos recorded from VHS, I can find the best settings on Topaz AI to make them look better without the AI making the people look weird. What settings would you suggest?
Which model do you use for upscaling an deinterlaced 576p DVD video? Proteus or Iris?
Am i missing something with Video 2x? I've don 3 videos now and none of them are higher quality anyone else get the same problem? I've put the videos side by side and no difference at all?
same
Yikes, are you possibly running some sort of media player with codecs that interfere with functionality? Is there tech support at $300 per year?
Very helpful, thank you! I can't wait to enhance these old 1940s to 1980s movies I cut FX Network promos for. The old telecine transfers did nightmarish damage to these beautiful old films.
Topaz works fine with AMD cards too. It was able to use my 6700XT with 80% gpu load while running the 4x upscaler.
Great video! If possible, could you also review the Nero AI Video Upscaler? I'm considering buying it and would like to know if it's worth it.
Is there a comparision when Video2x is slowly enhanced? Say 1x. Then the 1x is ehanced again, and so on? I've ran into poor results using paid Topaz from potato quality >> 1080. I'm wondering about the results if it were done in "x" enhanced batches... However, I appreciate your test and I enjoyed watching the results that you posted. Thank you!
I wonder if Topaz looks at multiple frames to enhance each while the FOSS option only works intraframe. Whether the paid version is worth it depends if you're earning money doing this or it's just not a big deal to you to burn that money. It's clearly better. But can the FOSS option be modded to look as good or better?
Why you dont use a video like a 1080p? or 4k?
Because most people wouldn't see the difference, unless you're close to a proper monitor.
is there something that i can use on a ryzen apu pc (igpu)? without waiting for a month for upscaling a 10 min 1080p video to 4k?
probably not
I’m not sure if it’s because I have the free version, but every time I try to increase the fps or use AI models other than Gaia, it gives me an error. I don’t want to get the paid version if I’m not able to increase fps. SPECS: i7-11375H 3.30GHz 16GB RAM RTX 3050TI. I’m pretty sure I am able to run this
Thinking it's just an issue with the trial version. Your specs are decent. I would eventually invest in more RAM tho. 32 GB is better for video editing. I personally have 64 GB of RAM.
Your 3050ti has only 4GB of VRAM, you may need a GPU that has higher VRAM
@@Dabaski Believe this is the case, my 1070 runs it with 8Gb but halving that would stop the AI models and other processes from executing
The AI does weird things to the eyes in your main example. I find it too distracting. I have an earlier version of the topaz suite and I only use it for the stills tools. I barely use the video upscaler. I didn't think it was worth paying the upgrade price.
Is there any tool to enhance video that can also take (as input) some photos of the scenario and actors to use those to increase the video even further with real details that are in the photos but not in the video??
Not that I'm aware of. You can almost do this using background removal and taking stills from the same vantage point and overlaying the actors. But when I do things like that, they need to be quick shots and it's best to add a little movement in the background to "sell it" - like a flickering light, moving gradient, or slow light sweep.
That's literally what I'm working on. A couple high color photos, send it a video and then an HDR output.
@@dennissdigitaldump8619 how can I follow your work?
I only want to use topaz once for a 2 min vide . Not a video editor.. but have Final Cut Pro. Any way to do that ? … can’t afford that price for just a clip.
Topaz Video AI is a stand alone app. you just need to export any clip from any editor and import into Video AI. stick with high quality codecs like ProRez if your on a mac.
I'm starting to realize I'm going to have to wait for Nvidia to offer their real time video upscaler since right now the only choices are subscription models that NOONE wants or you have to pay absurd $300(+) prices. If just one competent program was out for a reasonable price like say $50, people would actually buy it.
Nvidia has real time upscaling now. It's very good for real time, and I've tested this using screen recording from Camtasia to effectively upscale video. It is an improvement for sure, but not as good as the other options.
Topaz Video Ai 4.2 gave me terrible results with interlaced sources. Ît is great with no movement but when there is movement it makes the result ready for the bin.
Topaz has limited tools to work with interlaced video. Interlaced video is crappy from the get-go, if you do any kind of frame by frame analysis. My philosophy is to deinterlace first. Topaz has a deinterlacer called Dione DV, but its output sucks. I've been a Virtualdub/avisynth user for years, and deinterlacing is old school for either. You can deinterlace with a number of tools, and output an intermediate video at a high quality setting, which is deinterlaced. Once that is done, Topaz can process this intermediate video, which is progressive, like a charm.
Hello Jeremy. Very informative video. I've been thinking about the possible purchase of Topaz Video. I don't really do a lot of upscaling of videos, mainly editing current work which is all 4K. I do use Topaz Gigapixel which really works well on facial recognition (as long as the original has enough data to work with.) You can get some very interesting results if the program has to guess too much! I think probably (for me) the $300 price tag is too steep for a secondary, once-in-a-while program.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Totally makes sense.
i have video from around 1995 the video resolution 480x368, what settings would you recommend to input to enhance the quality, i put 1080p artemis settings and the output looks cartoonish.
I haven't experimented with all of the settings yet to be honest. I just got the software in mid December, so I've been using the defaults till now. I did try it on a few 360 and 480p videos and it's decent and even tries to predict and add hair textures, but other elements can look a bit like an image to vector conversion (cartoonish), especially if the source content has low dynamic range and minimal color gradients.
The Artemis model works with a form of "smearing technology" which is not suitable for all source material! Gaia is very low invasive method but is unspectular. "Theia Fine Tune (Fidelity) is lower invasiv than Artemis and use a form of "crystalize" method what is perfect for softer low/unpixelated sources! Iris or Proteus are genrell usable models, results differs massiv on set parameters (relative to auto mode)
This is really interesting, I want Video2X to be as good as Topaz, because it's simply amazing that there is now FOSS video upscaling software. Do you have an insta360 Go 3 or even 2? I love those cameras, but my biggest gripe is:
A) lack of 4K resolution
&
B) lack of 60fps, it caps at 50fps.
Would you be able to do a test of how good Video2X can upscale and interpolate the remaining 10 frames, to turn an Insta360 Go 3's 1440p 50hz video, into 4K 60hz? That would be SUPER interesting and useful. Also, do you know if Video2X gets further accelerated with GPU's that have Tensor cores, so for example RTX or even Intel GPU's?
Great video btw, I wish more people were excited about these ai tools.
I'm sorry, I don't have the Insta360 Go cameras, just the link webcam. I can say that the Waifu2X gui project does let you use hardware acceleration, which does speed things up quite a bit and also has interpolation as an option. Both work respectably well, but are not as good as the Topaz suite.
With video2x it gets stuck at 99% for some reason
the facemelting reminds me of when i do psychedelic magic mushrooms.
I wonder how well this comparison holds up with the rapid optimization/development of AI upscalers. It's 10 months into the future as of when this video was posted, and I wonder if Video2X has closed the gap at all.
The Topaz Video AI app and models keep getting better. I've been comparing each of them lately and it's getting much better, more stable and correcting other aspects. I'm going to do an update on this.
Thanks for the info.
I keep getting a returned non-zero exit status error on Video2X, have you seen this before/do you have any solutions?
I've seen errors most commonly with interrupted runs (computer sleeps or hibernates) or if the downloaded zip wasn't extracted to a folder then video2x_GUI.exe was run from the zip file directly, or huge files. Not sure if that applies to your case, but that's when I've encountered them.
Video2X only seems to encounter an error when using drivers other than Anime4KCPP and Waifu2X Caffe, Anime4k I think is made for making videos a bit more cartoonish and Waifu2X Caffe seems to be working but is taking a long time, all other drivers come up with the same error. Have you ever seen this/Do you know how these drivers work and if there are any more? Thanks :) @@DeployJeremy
Thank you. Now I know what Waifu means.
I tried this😢 but its showing like command screen waste software
Did you unzip the file and open the exe with "GUI" in the name?
@@DeployJeremy no i opened video 2x.exe file
@@mr.unique_2_0 you have to open the GUI file
@@DeployJeremy after opening what to do?
I actually walked through the process on a previous video here th-cam.com/video/xSBT5vUNt80/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0CQLOHfTPzAOg4TV note that the process is very slow in either app
No mac support?
Topaz supports macOS and runs well on M processors
Very cool my dude
Pls how can I download topaz for free
@@Precosg you can download it for free, but you just can't install and activate it for free once you've downloaded it. The download is on their website.
great vid
Nope. 2x is better once you factor in the price, and you can tweak 2x via the config files.
Its like underwater video now)
very technical explainations and hard to follow but I guess youre saying to just wait till the technology is faster.
Thanks for your comment. It's not just faster, but the upscale quality is higher, too.
Just wondering could i use your topaz account to test for myself?
How are you going to send me the account details?
@@EditsByThxnder You can create an account and get a free trial.
Username : getThe
Password: Fk_out
Password is case sensitive.
@@EditsByThxnder he wont
POV: U logged in without writing anything and got it for free🇹🇩🗿
What does that mean? Topaz wasn't free.
@@DeployJeremy yes it is if u log in without putting any information
@@BallHogfnHow?
@@rens8456 download it and click login without putting any info and it works
@@rens8456cracked version
Great review!
Thank you!
Speed ? 1080p to 4k. 4 minute clip 6 hours ? Oh brother!
Yeah, it's not fast and depends on your computer specs. I've running upscaling jobs for up to 3 days for a 20 minute video.
@@DeployJeremy makes sense
it free because it use the user computeer spec if you have high end spec i can process faster
In all honesty, I'm struggling to notice a difference between the original and the upscaled versions of the sample video...
Strange Topaz didn't look better. This requires more research. To me Video2X looked better.
@@blazingarrows6117 I thought the Topaz looked better, but TH-cam compression may have affected it, too.
@@DeployJeremy That is a good point.
I think it would've been better to have the 3 versions of the same slice of video for direct comparison, rather than three different slices as was used here.
WOW Boycott in full force😆😆
Upscaling or not, it's about the movie, not about quality.
Nobody will say after a year, wow that was a great quality movie, either it was a good movie you'll remember or not.
I can really be satisfied with DVD and even VHS because the movie I watched either keep stuck in my head or not.
Investing the amound of time upscaling movies for being watched maybe a few times most in life is not worth the time, use that time to watch movies instead.
I'm not gonna argue with people saying 4K will outsource any other format, stick with what you like.
I have a growing collection in DVD with more than 1400 movies and will never buy blue-ray or 4K, it's not worth the money as dvd's are really cheap these days.
I can see how animation would be pretty easy to interpolate. On the other side there is billions of apps for restoring images using ai that works. and just couple of options for video that works like crap. Topaz is BS honestly.
Tell me a product offers AI trained models on the level of for example Topaz Rhea/Iris models and brings a bunch of adjustable parameters like Topapaz has. Of course you can use free tools, but often it's not more than trying out, this is not the same. Unfortunately there is not really a alternative to TVAI and I wish it were different!
damn, honestly they both sucks.
First🎉
Congrats!
@paulbush8362 apparently you care enough to get butt hurt over it 😂
@paulbush8362 you are cranky for some reason, past your bed time ?
Solution, just use a 4K Camera, saves a lot of time a resources.
True, just not a 4k webcam, because 90% of them at 4k still look like 1080p or 720p images compared to an APS-C or full frame camera.
A completely superfluous comment. This is about the restoration of old videos, not newly recorded ones. Dude, stick to the topic.
@@JoergHH62 Yep. Stone might as well have said, "Solution, get a time machine, set the date for 1976, bring your 4K camera and reshoot all the VHS, Beta and NTSC." Simple.
Because you said that know you have no idea what you're talking about lol
They still look like ... bad. I have seen much better results from other upscalers.
What are they named?
You're talking rubbish, otherwise you'd have named them.