An AI upscale won't match a native 4K release, a good upscaler can enhance sharpness, details, and reduce compression artifacts. Recommended AI Upscaling Software: Topaz Video AI – One of the best AI upscalers available. It uses machine learning to upscale videos while preserving details. It’s a bit pricey but delivers excellent results. Winxvideo AI – A solid option that is easy to use and can upscale videos to 4K. It's a budget-friendly option. AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI – AI-based upscaler that improves sharpness and reduces noise. It’s a good mid-tier option. DVDFab Video Enhancer AI – Specializes in upscaling DVD and Blu-ray content while using AI to refine details. Neural.love – An online AI upscaler that can improve video resolution, though it might not be the best for long movies. More on reddit.com

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I’m looking at my Blu-ray collection on the shelf (many of them imported to Plex). Some movies never received an official 4K remaster (not... More on old.reddit.com

I just researched 10 different AI upscalers today and tested Real-ESRGAN, Nomos2, and Topaz. Here's what I found. -Topaz is the best overall. Better at not over-smoothing out skin/faces, while still adding enough detail to backgrounds/objects. Good compromise overall. It seems to know not to make blurry things sharp, not to remove detail from faces, and knows what exactly to add more detail to. -Real-ESRGAN is better than Topaz for making everything sharper including objects and backgrounds, except makes skin and faces super smooth that ruins the entire video and makes it unusable unless you want all actors to look like they have crazy Instagram filters on. I used the method of running the exe + the .param and .bin model files using Python to make it run 5 times faster than using the .pth checkpoint file with PyTorch. Using PyTorch/.pth file has a strength setting though, where you could decrease it from 1.0 to less to tone down the smoothness. -Instead of going that route, I switched to Nomos2 using the .pth checkpoint model file with PyTorch. It kept the skin/faces still very detailed and only make it about 10% smoother -- about 1 small notch worse than Topaz. Sharpness/details for background/objects were between Topaz and Real-ESRGAN except Topaz added more detail to hair. It fixed up some of the detail when you zoom all of the way in but isn't quite as smooth/detailed as Real-ESRGAN. It messed up detail with ears by making it more pixily, one small part with hair by adding more grid-like lines, and made an object that was blurry too detailed where it looked weird. All 3 also make the backgrounds and objects that are supposed to be blurry/have bokeh more detailed. Real-ESRGAN did this the most, Nomos2 did 2nd most, and Topaz did it least. This is super annoying from a filmmaking perspective, since distant objects are supposed to be blurry. I would rate them: Topaz 9/10 Nomos2 8/10 Original 6.5/10 Real-ESRGAN 4.5/10 Topaz's API is pretty expensive and Nomos2 is free, so I'm going with Nomos2. When playing back all the Topaz, Namos2, and original videos, all 3 look good to use. Sometimes the 720p original video looks better since I like certain parts to be blurry, but the upscaled ones look sharper when zoomed in or watched on a large TV. Nomos also converted it from 720p to 5k and increased the file size by 2.88x. Topax converted it from 720p to 2k (wouldn't allow 5k) and increased the file size by 2.09x. More on reddit.com