News VLC to support Nvidia's RTX Video HDR 'soon' — will join VSR on VLC for AI upscaling

[Admin]

Nvidia's RTX Video HDR upscaling feature is coming to VLC media player, DaVinci Resolve, and Filmora. It will use AI to convert videos you watch or edit into 4K HDR. The SDK is now available to all developers.

VLC to support Nvidia's RTX Video HDR 'soon' — will join VSR on VLC for AI upscaling : Read more

 

[Notton]

That's all fine and dandy, but the GUI for VLC is... atrocious
Will I have to go through 20 menus to find it and turn it on?
Or is there some shortcut key combo that will be neigh possible to find?

 

[brandonjclark]

I remember a "Disc-0nly-4lyfe!" friend who, beyond espousing the benefits of native Blu-Ray or HD content library instead of streamed, probably never envisioned a "crappy" 700mb-file .avi library would one day look as good* as his content.

*Like audiophiles, "disc-only bros" can TOTALLY SEE(hear) the difference!

The proof is in the pudding. If the AI-upscaling is good enough for the majority of users (always solve for the 80%), then that's the end of the discussion.

 

[bit_user]

I remember a "Disc-0nly-4lyfe!" friend who, beyond espousing the benefits of native Blu-Ray or HD content library instead of streamed,

What these folks overlook is all the work (potentially) being undertaken by streaming providers to improve the content. In the past couple years, I've seen a few older movies on Amazon Prime that have stunning clarity! Not a trace of film grain, dirt, frame alignment problems. These look better on my 1080p TV than even the masters must've looked in the editing suite!

I've seen some better & worse restorations on Blu-ray. Lawrence of Arabia is probably one of the best I've seen, but the film grain on my Wall St. (25th anniversary edition, I think) was bad enough that I actually had to turn on my TV's noise reduction feature, which I'd probably never done before.

The main area where discs probably still have an edge over streaming is in the audio department, simply because the industry just put uncompressed audio tracks on the discs. You can't really beat that.

The proof is in the pudding. If the AI-upscaling is good enough for the majority of users

I'm a big believer in motion smoothing. What sold me on it is the improvement in clarity of moving objects and during camera pans. Once I saw that, I turned it on and never looked back. So, I've already bought into some processing. However, there are some artifacts. Therefore, I'd definitely opt for better technology, if it reduces the artifacts.

And having seen what AI upscaling is capable of doing, I'd switch that on as well, if it reliably delivered a net improvement in picture quality (which I'm fairly certain is the case). Let's not forget that most content being viewed on 4k TVs is already being upscaled. So, why someone would reject better quality upscaling, out of hand, is somewhat beyond me.

 

[CmdrShepard]

I remember a "Disc-0nly-4lyfe!" friend who, beyond espousing the benefits of native Blu-Ray or HD content library instead of streamed, probably never envisioned a "crappy" 700mb-file .avi library would one day look as good* as his content.

700 MB AVI with or without AI processing can only look as good as BD content if you have a late-stage cataract on both eyes and I say this as a visually impaired person.

*Like audiophiles, "disc-only bros" can TOTALLY SEE(hear) the difference!

I am visually impaired and I can still see the difference.

If the AI-upscaling is good enough for the majority of users (always solve for the 80%), then that's the end of the discussion.

That's a big IF, and it all depends on the source material.

That said, if you are a fan of watching images with details hallucinated by AI that's your prerogative, but please don't force it on everyone else and dis them because they disagree with your definition of "quality".

Finally, disc has another benefit -- it's yours to keep while your digital streaming right can be revoked at any moment without prior notice. Even just that is a good enough reason to prefer owning disc even if you are going to rip it, put contents on a NAS, and store it in the safe.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

I remember a "Disc-0nly-4lyfe!" friend who, beyond espousing the benefits of native Blu-Ray or HD content library instead of streamed, probably never envisioned a "crappy" 700mb-file .avi library would one day look as good* as his content.

*Like audiophiles, "disc-only bros" can TOTALLY SEE(hear) the difference!

The proof is in the pudding. If the AI-upscaling is good enough for the majority of users (always solve for the 80%), then that's the end of the discussion.

What are we comparing? Because a 700MB 4K encode does not look as good as a 4GB 4K encode. It's not opinion, it's easily measurable. Now if we're talking about a 700MB DVD rip, encoded using AV1 or HEVC, yeah, there's basically no difference in quality.

I'm definitely in the "good enough" camp for streaming video, though. Get the VMAF score above 85 and I have no complaints. Most 700MB encodes are likely going to end up with a VMAF score closer to 70, though.

 

[SirStephenH]

Now, RTX Video HDR will become a feature in VLC media player for downloaded video. RTX Video HDR will also become part of video editing software DaVinci Resolve and Wondershare Filmora, allowing users to upscale lower-quality video files to 4K and SDR source files to HDR in editing. It's a bit odd that the HDR aspect wasn't supported in VLC, since the upscaling feature was already present.

Why is it odd? VSR was released about a year before Video HDR. VLC supported VSR about a year ago, before VHDR was even a thing.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Why is it odd? VSR was released about a year before Video HDR. VLC supported VSR about a year ago, before VHDR was even a thing.

What's odd is that VSR was available in a beta version of VLC when it launched. It was one of the things Nvidia used to promote VSR. So, why was Video HDR not simply rolled into the same code path that supported VSR in VLC? Or just supported in whatever way was required? Why did it take six months for VLC to get Video HDR support when it was obviously working in browsers?

 

[umeng2002_2]

I prefer MPV. Once you set it up, it's way easier to use day to. No clutter and still the best non-browser animated gif viewer.

 

[Unolocogringo]

I remember a "Disc-0nly-4lyfe!" friend who, beyond espousing the benefits of native Blu-Ray or HD content library instead of streamed, probably never envisioned a "crappy" 700mb-file .avi library would one day look as good* as his content.

*Like audiophiles, "disc-only bros" can TOTALLY SEE(hear) the difference!

The proof is in the pudding. If the AI-upscaling is good enough for the majority of users (always solve for the 80%), then that's the end of the discussion.

I am one of those disk or ripped to NAS kind of guys. I also have albums and reels.
Am I a snooty audiophile . F,,,,,,,No I refuse to pay those prices.
But a $500- $1000 AMP and a well chosen "for" room speakers in the $500-$1500 can sound pretty darn sweet. Not audiophile grade equipment.

I actually feel a sense of pity for people who can not tell the difference between MP3s and a CD/DVD.
There is a HUGE difference in sound quality if you have the equipment to produce the difference.
So they have never heard a well setup system or their ears just can not hear the difference. Which is sad on both accounts.

 

[UnforcedERROR]

I remember a "Disc-0nly-4lyfe!" friend who, beyond espousing the benefits of native Blu-Ray or HD content library instead of streamed, probably never envisioned a "crappy" 700mb-file .avi library would one day look as good* as his content.

*Like audiophiles, "disc-only bros" can TOTALLY SEE(hear) the difference!

The proof is in the pudding. If the AI-upscaling is good enough for the majority of users (always solve for the 80%), then that's the end of the discussion.

Generally a good video transfer will always look better over disc, because the data isn't being dramatically compressed. You'll notice it more in some content than others, but it's also down to the provider as well. Hulu's compression is maddening to me, for instance. There are also times where you get a potential advantage from streaming, such as Fury Road being in Dolby Vision over Max, when the disc is HDR10. It's a mild difference, but it has moments where the lighting feels a little more consistent. It also depends on certain effects being used. Dune Chapter One can look really bad when streamed, but it looks amazing on disc, and that's regardless of your TV's processing typically. Also, as was previously pointed out, the audio quality is notably better over disc in most cases.

As for the audiophile comment, the main issue stems from the people who think spending top dollar means better sound, when it doesn't. As far as solid state and digital reproduction go, you can get noise floor transparency for very little money these days, but you'll always have someone who'll argue otherwise. This comes back to video discs as you can get excellent video reproduction without spending a lot. Also, ripping video and being able to deduce the original bitrate can always be enlightening. Not all disc are equal in this regard, but you can rip videos at lower bitrates without getting into issues with banding and noise artifacts fairly easily.

And having seen what AI upscaling is capable of doing, I'd switch that on as well, if it reliably delivered a net improvement in picture quality (which I'm fairly certain is the case). Let's not forget that most content being viewed on 4k TVs is already being upscaled. So, why someone would reject better quality upscaling, out of hand, is somewhat beyond me.

This depends on who is doing the transfer. If done properly, a native 4K with little-to-no grain removal will look amazing. When you get into AI remastered 4K content, that's been heavily cleaned, it can look really bad. Like, atrociously. Terminator 2 gets tons of flack for this, but the recent re-releases of The Abyss, True Lies, and Aliens are terrible examples of using AI to "fix" a movie. Cameron should be ashamed of how badly he damaged those films. This is a great take on how terribly it was handled:

View: https://youtu.be/BxOqWYytypg

 

[t3t4]

Disc-0nly-4lyfe bro here!

Only those with the poorest of eye sight cannot see the compression artifacts in dark scenes of a streamed video. Just as only those with the poorest of hearing can't tell the difference between mp3 and lossless flac/wav files. It's all right there in the file size, even the blind can see it!

I don't know about the rest of ya, but I've never seen anybody eat a Big Mac then crap out a Gold Bar!

Crap in equals crap out, which is why us disk only folks keep buying more disks. No one can tell me a 1000 bit per second music file sounds just as good when you strip away 680 of those bits! Just as a streamed 5GB video file will never look as good a 59GB bluray video file! You can't throw away that much information and expect the same or even similar quality as the original file. But in all honesty, from what I've seen lately on the video side of life, this" fake it till ya make it" thing is getting really good! I've recently watched some Dolby Vision stuff on Netflix that borderline blew my mind. It was soo good, not a single compression artifact that I could find and the color was Dolby Vision Awesome!

If that is the future, well, lets just say..... it's about friggin time! I don't know about the rest of ya, but I for one am sick of paying for compressed blocky rainbow grey looking crap. I don't much care how they fix it, just so long as they get it fixed! Everybody at home has always had the bandwidth to do this job right, stripping more bits is not the answer. But maybe a balanced compression algorithm with AI fixing it at home can be a good middle ground.

Still a disk only bro..... but I've seen enough potential to at least head nod to all the streamers out there.

Side note, it is my intention to give away (to the world) my A/V archive before I die, but it's currently at 120 terabytes and growing. Anybody know a reasonable way of doing that?

 

[brandonjclark]

Disc-0nly-4lyfe bro here!


Side note, it is my intention to give away (to the world) my A/V archive before I die, but it's currently at 120 terabytes and growing. Anybody know a reasonable way of doing that?

Ship it to a home with a fiber ISP and just host it.

I think it's the best you can do to ensure it ends up in the hands of many people.

*And most cost-effective.

 

[t3t4]

Ship it to a home with a fiber ISP and just host it.

I think it's the best you can do to ensure it ends up in the hands of many people.

*And most cost-effective.

Yeah, something like that is what I keep coming back to as well. I don't have the up stream bandwidth to host myself. But maybe that will change before I have to decide. Torrent was my other thought, but talk about painful.... ouch!