Based on my research, it seems like Topaz is the best video upscaler currently. Topaz has been around for several years now. I am wondering why there hasn't been a newcomer yet with better quality.

Is your experience the same with video upscaler software, and what is the best OS video upscaler software?

Hey, i'm looking for a good Alternative to apps like Topaz AI. I only want to upscale my 1080p Videos to 4k with Ai. I've seen some people on the internet using CapCut for this as a free tool, but CapCut doesn't work for me, because I always get a error message telling me that something went wrong. So are there any other Free AI tools to Upscale Videos?

Hi all, I’m wanting to upscale my Blu Ray collection to 4K. I’ve tried finding and simply purchasing titles in 4K but some have never been released in anything higher than BR 1080p.

Happy to pay a reasonable amount for software if it’s a better product. Also aware that the quality is not likely to be at the same level of true 4K releases but just looking to improve on full HD as much as possible.

I was going to try VideoProc but not sure if it is any good? Some recommendations would be appreciated.

I’ve been digging into AI video upscalers lately and noticed the market is starting to split into different categories. Curious what others here are using and how they compare.

From what I’ve seen, most tools fall into three main camps:

Real-time upscaling – things like Nvidia RTX Video Super Resolution or AMD Fluid Motion Frames, focused on smoother playback and instant enhancement during streaming or local playback.

Creative upscaling – tools that add interpretive detail or even “imagine” missing data, like Topaz Video AI’s Astra models (often used by content creators to give an artistic or cinematic touch).

Precise / restoration-focused upscaling – more traditional AI models aiming for faithful detail recovery, this catagory seems to be the most popular one?
Examples like the old Topaz Video AI, Nero AI Video Upscaler, AVC Labs Video Enhancer AI, VideoProc Converter AI, etc.

And (not sure if it should be a catagory) Open-source / community upscalers – options like SeedVR2, Cupscale (ESRGAN-based), and Waifu2x variants (especially popular for anime).

In your experience, which one actually works best right now? Is Topaz still the top choice, or are newer tools catching up?

And where do you think this technology is going? More toward real-time enhancement (playback/streaming), or high-quality offline processing for creators and archivists?

I'm building a quick, free, no-nonsense tool for upscaling videos with AI right in the browser. There's no software to install, and no registration or sign up required - just input a video, and all the upscaling work is down on your own computer by the browser:

https://free.upscaler.video/

Demo here: https://youtu.be/wUuFJpo8Hfo

It's 100% open source, you can see the source code yourself: https://github.com/sb2702/free-ai-video-upscaler

I couldn't charge if I wanted to, as anyone can take the source code and host it themselves.

It right now does a better on Animated content than "Real Life" video but I'm working on porting more powerful AI models into the tool.

I built it because from previous experience as a casual user who just wants to upscale a few videos you have around, it's surprisingly frustrating. There are paid tools like Topaz Labs which are excellent but also overkill for non-professional work, or open source projects like Video2X which require a bunch of setup & config.

Some new advances in the latest browsers (like Webcodecs and WebGPU) now allow websites to do much more powerful stuff than in the past, so I wouldn't suprised if more, powerful video-editing tools come out soon that are also free & browser based.

Hey everyone, I'm looking for recommendations on the best free AI video upscaling tools out there. Ideally something that works well with low-res or older videos and can upscale to at least 1080p or 4K with decent quality.

Bonus if:

It runs locally (but cloud-based is fine too)

Supports batch processing

Doesn’t add watermarks

Works on Windows/Linux

I’ve tried a couple, but most seem to have limitations unless you pay. Curious to hear what’s worked best for you all!

Thanks in advance!

A really good friend of mine released a new app called UpRes that will upscale your photos (up to 16x resolution) and video (up to 4K). It is completely free with no subscription, no ads and no account needed to use. It's literally one of the few apps I've seen that is free with no strings attached. They are looking for productive feedback for improvements and thought this community could help.

It works for iPhone iPad and MacOS.

Link below:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/upres-ai-photo-video-upscaler/id6739590673?platform=iphone

Here's my latest music video upscale from 480i to 4k progressive. I decided to make a small guide, since it took me a long time to find settings that worked with low quality originals.

I hope this is useful for you who struggle to get good results with Video AI. I'd also appreciate feedback if you think I'm doing something wrong, or you have any tips to do this even better.

Original official video of Sentenced - No One There: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGtrNZwqpCY

My upscaled version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOf82qs8yiU

This one in particular required a lot of manual work because of the darkness, but I think I still managed to get decent results.

These instructions are in no way objectively what could be considered the best method. It's just something that has worked for me upscaling DVD or lower quality music videos to 4k.

Step 1: Deinterlace and Frame Interpolation

Import the 480i interlaced footage into Video AI.

Use the Dione TV model to deinterlace the footage. This removes combing artifacts and enables smoother motion.

Enable frame interpolation in Dione to increase the frame rate to 60fps (this is somewhat controversy, I like the end result but some people definitely prefer 30fps). 60 fps makes the motion smoother but also subtly improves image quality in my opinion.

Export the cleaned and interpolated video. This version is now deinterlaced and plays at 60fps.

Step 2: Upscale with Proteus

Re-import the interpolated output into Topaz Video AI.

Select the Proteus model and set the upscale factor to 2x only.

Avoid 4x upscaling for 480p sources as it tends to introduce excessive AI artifacts.

Begin fine-tuning the Proteus settings. Prepare to use a lot of time on this, especially if the footage is low quality like in my example.

Focus on the following sliders: Fix Compression, Improve Detail, Sharpen, Reduce Noise, and Anti-Alias/Deblur. Start with conservative values (around 5) and adjust gradually. Create multiple short test clips (2–5 seconds) to preview how changes affect the result. Zoom in to inspect details and prevent the “overcooked AI” look.

Finalize the best settings through trial and error, ensuring a balance between sharpness and natural appearance. This is somewhat of a subjective process. Some people might enjoy sharper image while others like the original look.

For best results, consider processing each scene separately with custom settings.

Step 3: Scene Editing and Blending in DaVinci Resolve

Import both the Dione (interpolated) and Proteus (upscaled) versions into DaVinci Resolve (free version is just fine for this).

Use scene detection to automatically split the video into clips based on visual changes.

Manually refine the scene cuts as needed — expect to spend time on this step. In this case, around 85 individual scenes were created.

Use the Transform module to crop and reframe shots for better composition.

Use the Composite module with opacity blending to mix elements from both the Dione and Proteus versions.

In more complex scenes, use power windows in the Color module to selectively mask and blend the best parts of each version.

Perform color grading to fix any balance issues and ensure visual consistency across scenes.

Step 4: Final Upscaling to 4K

Used DaVinci Resolve’s internal upscaling tools to scale the output up to full 4K (2160p).

Resolve’s built-in scaler tends to produce cleaner results with fewer artifacts than other tools I've tried.

Are there any open source options for this? I've managed to grab the whole of Voyager (I have the DVDs already) that someone has AI upscaled. I'd like to do the same with the TV series Bottom but unsure how to go. I see DVDFab claim they can do it but that's paid for software. Was looking for an opensource alternative if possible.

What is a good video upscaler, I ask this because I have a movie i want to upscale because of it being 360p. Any recommendations?

I am looking to upscale a 240p video into 480p or higher

What should I use?

I know Topaz is a high profile AI software but are there others? Which is the best?

I'm looking at upscaling video recorded from 2015-2018, so going from 3K to 6K, maybe higher. I'm not expecting miracles but I've seen some adult VR remasters done at this level and some look great.

Is anyone involved in this already or have good knowledge about the process?

What I want to know is, is there a way to do LOCAL AI upscaling of video, either using a Mac with Apple silicon or Windows? Preferably I would like to know if there is any free or low cost software that would work well for this purpose on a Mac.

Failing that, if I absolutely have to use Windows, would it be helpful to have something like Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Windforce Overclocked Dual Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card, in other words would that or a similar card be good enough to do it, or would there be a better way to go about this or different hardware I should consider? And in that case, is there any free or inexpensive software that runs on Windows and is highly recommended for this purpose?

Hi all,

I hope this post isn't against the rules of this sub, but I've been creating a video upscaling service (refocused.ai) and had some questions for professional editors who use software or services like TopazLabs Video AI.

1. What type of videos do you usually upscale, and why do you choose to upscale them? What resolution/bitrate do you tend to upscale videos to? How frequently do you upscale to HD vs 4k vs 8k?

2. How frequently do you use video upscaling software? Over the course of a year, how much footage ( in terms of hours, frames, etc.) do you upscale?

3. Do you primarily upscale footage on a local setup? Or do you use the cloud for processing? If you don't use the cloud, would you be able/willing to use remote processing to upscale the videos if it was available?

4. Quality vs. time/cost - I know this one is a bit vague, but how much time is too long to render an upscaled video? IE 2 seconds/frame vs 100s/frame. At what point would you consider remote processing?

5. Matching encodings: Does it matter if outputs are limited to a subset of encodings (ie raw/h264/h265/av1)?

I appreciate any responses you all might have! If you're interested in trying out the service, I am looking for beta users, feel free to message me.

Hello folks,

Hope you are doing well

I am looking for the best ai video upscaler for real video (it is short natural real vido)

Could you please let me know the best AI service or open source to use?

Thanks in advance

This is my hardware specification

1- System specs

• OS: ubuntu 22.04

• GPU + GPU RAM: Nvidia RTX 4090

2- Editing Software

• No sure, I am looking for recommend

3- Footage specs

• Codec (h264? HEVC?): not sure

• Container (MOV? MP4? MKV?): MP4

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 mentioning HDR).

I wonder how many of you tried Topaz Video AI?

I’m currently running a job (14h in duration on M1 Max) to upscale TRON Legacy.

I’ll be posting some samples once it’s done (ETA 3 hours).

I’m curious of your own results.

Update post processing

IT LOOKS SPECTACULAR!

Samples here.

I created an image, upscaled it and made a 704x704 video with LTX's img2video.

What would be the best way to upscale this video? The image I used has great resolution. Can I use that image to upsale it?

Thank you.

So for some reason I became fixating on upscaling the random Lamberto Bava movie, which I have not even seen, because it was on my piracy list and I couldn't find a good version. Of course it would have to be state of the art, or else why even bother? And it must be open source, of course. So I stumbled on STAR which does appear to fit the bill, or does it? Let's find out.

Unfortunately I decided to start with the cog based model which, despite a lot of fiddling and resolving of transitive dependencies in various ways, I was unable to get running. But the I2VGenXL one is a lot more straightforward to get working.

First experiment, "Heavily Degraded" version of the model. The source of the video appears to be an actual analog cable TV broadcast from the 90s, 232p.

Here's what the free version of Topaz Starlight did with the same file:

As you can see the results are quite different. The topaz version looks more like a modern video and handles the faces nicely, but if you look at the background you can tell it has a very AI feel to it and zooming in it's like, WTF is this?

Okay, now for the content I actually wanted to upscale. This is a scene from the actual movie (Morirai a Mezzanote). Source is 430p, 299 frames but it wouldn't fit into the 80GB of vram I had available, so I downscaled it to 358p first, then upscaled 4x on both height and width.

Edit: There's more, but I can only put 5 videos in here, if anyone's interested let me know if you'd like to see a part 2 or whatever, or I can just respond with links. Anyway the long and short is I ended up on an H200 with 140GB of vram, 11 seconds of video was upscaled from the original resolution 3x to 1440p, which took about 1.5 hours and cost me $6. Doing the entire movie would cost around $3000 bucks in compute, more actually because you'd need some patches that overlap slightly to get a good, continuous looking result. To upscale DS9 would cost about 300k.

Conclusion: I like this upscaler, it gives very natural looking results that don't have an AI feel. The repository is an absolute mess, the instructions are neither detailed nor correct. I was unable to get one of the models working. I'm sure there is plenty of room for optimization, and I might look into this, but I think in 2025 if you want fully synthesized context aware AI upscaling that doesn't look like shit the price will be significant.