Question Upscaling video

[SyCoREAPER]

What can I use to upscale a 1080 video to 4K?

First stop were a few sites backed by AI. Looked promising until the price showed up for a 2:20min clip. That along with the "confidence score" of the source didn't have me extending my wallet.

Looked up a few software options and basically it's Topaz or DaVinci.

I tried Topaz, well that won't do anything without paying. I'd have to go through life with one nut so I could pay their price for one measly clip.

So Davinci sounded promising. Free for limited use, no restrictions or watermark. Well their definition of no restrictions is about as vague as it gets. 4K upscale puts a Watermark.

Next I tried this FOSS app primarily designed for animie but works for regular video too.
Well that had my GPU (4090) maxed out acting like I was running furmark. ~20 HOURS to complete. Needless to say, I don't want to do that.


What are my options here? I'm hoping the creator of the original gets back to me but it's been 3 years since they created it, so hope is set to realistic expectations that the creator still has the original project.

 

[turtletarget111]

I'm assuming the video you linked is what you use for your background. I have a copy of Topaz Labs Video AI and ran the video through. It can be hit or miss, but it works best on smoothing out grainy, jagged pixels, especially on particles. Suffice to say, it made some solid improvements to the footage.

Anyhow, because you have an RTX 4090, you could pull up the video on YouTube and enable RTX Video Super Resolution, which uses the tensor cores in your card to upscale video content through Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and VLC Media Player in real time. I'm unable to test for myself how much better it may or may not be compared to Topaz Labs, but if other tests are anything to go by it should work fairly well. To set it up, open Nvidia Control Panel and click on Adjust video image settings. From there, you should see a box labeled RTX video enhancement, and from there it will automatically upscale all video footage within Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

As a last resort, I would not be against upscaling the footage on my end and sending it to you somehow, provided you are okay with that. I wish I could help more but unfortunately the majority of AI products are locked behind a paywall or have some asterisks attached to using the product. Hope this helped, take care.

 

[hotaru.hino]

What's the purpose of upscaling the video to 4K? If it's for your own consumption, I'd say choose a video player that has a decent upscaling algorithm. And that's assuming you're using a display where you're in a position where 4K actually matters.

Plus depending on the content, upscaling algorithms won't really make much of a difference because the information is too ambiguous

 

[SyCoREAPER]

I'm assuming the video you linked is what you use for your background. I have a copy of Topaz Labs Video AI and ran the video through. It can be hit or miss, but it works best on smoothing out grainy, jagged pixels, especially on particles. Suffice to say, it made some solid improvements to the footage.

Anyhow, because you have an RTX 4090, you could pull up the video on YouTube and enable RTX Video Super Resolution, which uses the tensor cores in your card to upscale video content through Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and VLC Media Player in real time. I'm unable to test for myself how much better it may or may not be compared to Topaz Labs, but if other tests are anything to go by it should work fairly well. To set it up, open Nvidia Control Panel and click on Adjust video image settings. From there, you should see a box labeled RTX video enchantment, and from there it will automatically upscale all video footage within Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

As a last resort, I would not be against upscaling the footage on my end and sending it to you somehow, provided you are okay with that. I wish I could help more but unfortunately the majority of AI products are locked behind a paywall or have some asterisks attached to using the product. Hope this helped, take care.

Correct, it's the video above.

Ultimately I'm looking to use it as a Windows live wallpaper so unfortunately the player option won't work.

Having you do it is a lot it ask however if you ever have time and are bored it would definitely be above and beyond appreciated Audio isn't needed if that affects rendering at all. I can provide the cloud storage if/when that comes to fruition.

What's the purpose of upscaling the video to 4K? If it's for your own consumption, I'd say choose a video player that has a decent upscaling algorithm. And that's assuming you're using a display where you're in a position where 4K actually matters.

Plus depending on the content, upscaling algorithms won't really make much of a difference because the information is too ambiguous

I'm using it currently as a wallpaper and my only issue is it's blurry, specifically the MSI logo, the rest I can live with. I'm not expecting miracles but just sharper edges would be an improvement.

The free solution before turning my GPU into an oven, did complete a few frames and were sharper but after an hour and 20 frames to show for it, I hit the kills witch.

 

[turtletarget111]

Correct, it's the video above.

Ultimately I'm looking to use it as a Windows live wallpaper so unfortunately the player option won't work.

Having you do it is a lot it ask however if you ever have time and are bored it would definitely be above and beyond appreciated Audio isn't needed if that affects rendering at all. I can provide the cloud storage if/when that comes to fruition.


I'm using it currently as a wallpaper and my only issue is it's blurry, specifically the MSI logo, the rest I can live with. I'm not expecting miracles but just sharper edges would be an improvement.

The free solution before turning my GPU into an oven, did complete a few frames and were sharper but after an hour and 20 frames to show for it, I hit the kills witch.

It's really no trouble. My PC is nearing five years old, so it will take about half a day to render, but if you want to initiate a cloud service so I have somewhere to send the file I'll start the render today.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

It's really no trouble. My PC is nearing five years old, so it will take about half a day to render, but if you want to initiate a cloud service so I have somewhere to send the file I'll start the render today.

😭 You rock!

Can you PM me an email to invite you to my g-drive?

 

[SyCoREAPER]

@USAFRet
Not sure if Tom's Hardware has special badges or anything but this takes me back to the old days of the web where people offered above and beyond help.

I want to give a HUGE shout out and Thank You to @turtletarget111 for generously taking the time and donating the resources to assist a fellow netizen with a project that I admittedly didn't have the tools to do.

It turned out exactly as I hoped.

Not sure what I can help with but I owe you where I can.

Deepest respect (not just because you gave me something) but for being a good person.

- SyCoREAPER