Note: This is not a full-fledged formal review and comparison of Topaz Video Enhance AI against other in-market applications, but a discussion of one particular application’s strengths and weaknesses. Model quality and capability are still changing significantly from version to version.
Over the past 10 months, as I’ve worked on upscaling Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager, I’ve relied on one piece of software above all others to perform the work: Topaz Video Enhance AI ($199.99, for Windows and Mac). I have recommended this product both indirectly and directly, and I’m going to continue to do so. But I need to make certain it’s clear what you are getting into.
Topaz Video Enhance AI is everything we need to enhance the video and make it worth appreciating. As a professional photographer, you always use software that enhances videos but waits. Have you tried this amazing Topaz Video software that has been facilitating the photographers for the last many years and has become the first choice for many? Topaz Video Enhance AI Key Topaz Labs has announced a program called Video Enhance AI, which allows increasing video stream up to 8K resolution using technologies that use machine learning algorithms. P2P group has released the newest build of “Topaz Video Enhance AI” for windows. Description: Stunning video enlargements with groundbreaking AI technology. Trained on thousands of videos and combining information from multiple input video frames, Topaz Video Enhance AI will enlarge and enhance your footage up to 8K resolution with true details and motion cons. Overview of Topaz Video Enhance AI Benefits. Until now, there was no way to perfectly recreate a high-resolution video from low-resolution footage. From old home movies to low-quality SD to DVD quality and more, Video Enhance AI will transform your videos into clean upscaled footage up to 8K resolution. Topaz Video Enchace AI is Gigapixel AI for Video and performs a similar job for each frame of a video, that you would do for an individual still photo, but it does it for every frame of the video. Some people had done it this on their own using Gigapixel AI, but it was a lot of work.
Up until September, virtually all my focus had been on improving the quality of my video pre-processing steps. After publishing “What No Fan Has Seen Before,” I decided to turn my attention to the upscaler side of the equation.
Here’s the good news: Topaz Video Enhance AI is, hands-down, the best AI video upscaler I’ve tested. Some of its models are tunable and it can improve a broad range of video. I’ve seen it breathe new life into Grateful Dead shows, old VHS tapes, Star Trek, Stargate: SG-1 and a number of other types of content.
I cannot say that the entire community has been happy with the pace of development, but given the complexity of video editing software and the need to keep continually improving the underlying AI, I feel like things have been moving along at a reasonable clip. AI video processing is an incredibly new market, and Topaz is way out in front of any of the video editors I’ve tested (though I’m always happy to hear suggestions for other programs to test). To the best of my knowledge, TVEAI is the only application that does what it does as well as it does it.
I don’t have a lot of new footage to show just at the moment — I’ve been working on Voyager, but I’m not ready to show work. What I’ve got on tap is a version of the DS9 credits I built immediately after “What No Fan Has Seen Before” went live. This footage was produced using AviSynth+ for initial upscaling and TVEAI for processing. For those of you wondering where the tutorial I promised is — I’m still working to hammer out a workflow that’s going to deal with the full range of the show and improve the first seasons more than the current method does.
But users should be aware that there are some inconveniences to Topaz Video Enhance AI as well. First, it is not kind to system stability. It never fails to start properly when a machine is fresh from reboot, but if you’ve been using your GPU for other applications, the program may need a reboot to work properly. Stopping and starting it again pretty much always works the first time. It probably works a second time. You’ve even got a solid shot at three times. Asking it to render more than three videos in a row? That’s pushing your luck. Eventually, either the AI engine will fail to initialize or the application will crash and a reboot will be required.
Topaz Video Enhance AI seems to become unstable faster if other applications like StaxRip are running multi-threaded AviSynth+ encodes at the same time. It is not overly fond of sharing the GPU, though this behavior has improved in recent months. I’d recommend rebooting every 1-2 days to minimize the chances of a crash, especially if you’re running multiple videos in that time. Loading videos increases the chance that the next video will cause a crash, though the software can also crash on very long encodes. Preprocessing is often required for maximal upscale effectiveness, however. Personally, I just grit my teeth and reboot a lot.
Topaz Video Enhance Ai Free
One of the ways Topaz has addressed this instability issue is by creating an AutoSave mode that reloads your previous video and remembers (mostly) what frame you were on. This mitigates the hassle of rebooting four times in a single day when upscaling a great many short clips.
Model Quality Is Still a Moving Target
The quality of each AI model varies from release version to release version. One of the suggestions I’ve made to the company that it’s said it will implement is making it easier to find older versions of the software. This can be a necessity when testing to see if a given model works better in an older or a newer version.
The reason that model quality can vary is that the company is continuing to refine and train its models. There are a lot of moving parts in the equation, and Topaz has been trying to improve their application on multiple fronts simultaneously, which means some models have gotten worse and then been rolled back or repaired over time. Some spots that were hard for Topaz to upscale in February are still hard in October.
If you’re interested in this software, take advantage of the free trial to make certain its models can address your content before pulling the trigger on it.
Adobe photoshop cc for mac cracked. Be advised that Topaz Video Enhance AI is not a magic bullet. Here are two very different versions of Benjamin Sisko:
Season 2. This is upscaled. It’s an older shot, and I’ve improved on it, but I haven’t fundamentally transformed it.
This is from Season 2, which appears to have been transferred to DVD in a manner intended to preserve every bit of the VHS “Super Long Play” viewing experience. Here’s Benjamin Sisko from Season 4:
Season 4 Captain Sisko. This is purely the difference in how the show was mastered to DVD, nothing I’ve done.
I’m still working to discover if the top frame can be fixed, but the fact that the image doesn’t look great is not TVEAI’s fault. There’s a limit to what the application can handle, and even some commercial video isn’t very good right now.
Topaz’s Ownership Model
Topaz has an interesting software model. When you buy Video Enhance AI, you get access to the application as it exists today and all future updates, major and minor — for one year. If you want updates thereafter, another year is $49.99. It is not clear if you are allowed to skip years while keeping the $49.99 price, or if you must keep resubscribing every year or buy the entire program again.
In the event that you stop paying the yearly update fee, you keep full access to the program as it exists the day you bought it. The question of how good of a deal this is really comes down to how rapidly Topaz improves the application. So far this year, it really has improved a lot — but it’s also got a long way to go.
Anyone considering this application should download the free trial first and test how it performs on your content. Be aware that you might wind up climbing under the hood with a wrench to bang on the video before you run it through the program. If you need to deinterlace footage, for example, that needs to happen outside the upscaler.
Topaz Video Enhance AI is effectively early-access software — in effect, if not in name. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the early access model, especially when the entire market is so new, we don’t have effective competition yet. But I also don’t want to plug this application as being astonishingly effective for my purposes without also noting that this program is not, strictly speaking, all that newbie-friendly. The MP4 encoding option tends to drop audio, which means it’s best to learn how to use FFMPEG to reassemble video from constituent frames. Use Topaz Video Enhance AI to render out to PNGs or JPG, and there’s no problem at all (this method also recovers more easily, since interrupted MP4 encodes can’t be resumed).
Topaz Video Enhance AI is a unique, interesting application and I’m eager to see where it goes, but I don’t want to paint the picture rosier than it ought to be. There’s not so much a learning curve around the program as there is a learning curve around the other things you need to do to use Topaz Video Enhance AI at peak capability. Either way, be aware it exists. If your content aligns well with its capabilities, the results can be incredible. If it doesn’t, it might not be worth investing in until the app gets some additional development time under its belt. Take advantage of the free trial and allow for the idea that you might wind up astonished. Also, allow for the idea that you hope to be astonished in about two years, once all the kinks are worked out.
Now Read:
A year ago, Topaz Labs introduced their new product ‘Video Enhance AI’ for the purpose of upscaling and enhancing videos. This review is based on my personal experience with Topaz Video Enhance AI, and the newly released version 2.
Video upscaling isn’t a new technology. High resolution televisions and video players have been doing it for several years. Those products do the upscaling live on the fly. Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI will convert your video file to a higher resolution file and allow use on computers and televisions which may not feature upscaling technology. It also cleans up a bit of the noise sometimes introduced with upscaling. This latter point will come up again later in this review.
Short Story – Spoiler Alert!
If you want the general basis of this review, then here it is. Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI upscales and enhances reasonably well, depending on the source. Don’t expect miracles and don’t expect rapid results. The product is expensive for its limitations and short-fallings.
Please read on for a detailed explanation of my review.
System Configuration
Each computer system is going to have different results with this application, depending on its hardware and software configuration. The faster browser for mac. My review of Topaz Labs is based on my system configuration; the basics are as follows:
Dell XPS 8930
Windows 10 Professional (64-bit)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Intel i7-8700 3.2 GHz
32 GB RAM
256 GB NVMe Flash drive (Operating System and Application Installs)
512 GB NVMe Flash drive (Scratch disk and temporary storage)
Upscaling Technology
When the source video is good enough quality, the upscaling is not bad to pretty good. In the example below from Porky’s1, the source was a Widescreen DVD rip (720×404) upscaled to HD 1080p.
Since the source is a relatively clean video from a DVD of the original film, the standard Gaia HQ processing model is fairly reliably to scale the video up to 1080P.
The Artemis model sharpens well, but tends to introduce artifacts (worming) in soft areas. It is only really good upscaling a source that is very good. Like the below example from Oz the Great and Powerful2. The original recording is with high definition digital equipment. As a result, even though the source file for the conversion is DVD rip (720 x 404), a clean upscale is much more possible.
Video Enhance AI doesn’t appear smart enough to reference the previous few frames when it upscales a frame. When a key subject has moved in the frame, if the previous frames were referenced, the system could use the prior data to help ensure that there is consistency with how it handles the subject in its new location. Instead, each frame is individually rendered, independent of prior frames, resulting in variations and sometimes artifacts of the same material as it moves on screen.
The example to the right, also from Oz the Great and Powerful, demonstrates the artifacts created with the Artemis model. It is evident in most of the soft focus areas, as well as around small details like Oz and Theodora running in the distance.
As you see, it sharpened details, like Oz’s hat and bag, but notice the artifacts around his shoulders and seat. Also the edges of the soft focus vegetation that frame Oz and Theodora have been over-processed. The result is similar to poorly processed dithering.
Video Enhance AI offers low-quality and computer quality (Gaia only) rendering models, but they tend to super enhance aberrations and high contrast areas at extreme levels. I have not found a good use for these other models yet.
Face Rendering
Video Enhance AI needs to include facial recognition and modified algorithms for faces. Close faces (larger on screen) upscale very well, but distance faces (smaller detail) often end up deformed or blurred out.
In the below example of just Oz as he arrives at the land of his namesake, you can see the aberrations that are my main complaint with the Artemis model.
Look at his nose and edges of his face and hair. The damage caused to these areas reminds me of poor de-interlacing, except that the lines for interlacing are horizontal not vertical. In the softer areas of the scene, like on the left and right geographical structures, you can see aberrations that I refer to as digital worming. I used to see this effect with lower quality digital cameras from 20ish years ago.
With the newer models, scaling from 720p to 1080p, the face deformities are less common, but there are still some cartoonish fakeness to teeth and eyes. Scaling 720p to 2160p is worse. As shown in the example to the right.
Ignoring the overall softness in this example, you see the eye to our right actually looks reasonable, but look at what happened to the other eye. It is greatly exaggerated. The mouth rendering has raised “opened” the mouth slightly on only one side, or just exaggerated the lips over there. The top, front of the hairline was refined some, while the rest of his hair is left soft. The deformities to the ears can only be appreciated with moving video, which I’m not going to bother putting in this article.
At least the newer models are an improvement over the deformities created by Artemis, which were not improved in second release.
Home Video
One of the things that Topaz Labs is touting about Video Enhance AI, is that it is good for restoring low quality videos, like home movies. Using the average home movie, which often comes from tape formats, the improvement is marginal at best, especially for small details.
Noise Reduction
As part of the upscaling, Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI performs noise reduction along with its scaling and sharpening. With the Gaia model this eliminates a lot of the digital artifacts from the scaling process and even helps with noise that was on the source. This results in a cleaner video image that is easier to watch. The Artemis model has a tendency to enhance artifacts that were on the source video, often to ugly and distracting levels.
Unfortunately, the noise reduction can generate a slight haze over some video content, and details of small items are often lost. This is a normal problem for noise reduction, so I can’t fault it too much.
In this 1989 high school presentation of Grease3, you can see that the video was very low quality. Every single detail is soft, with noise.
When run through the Artemis model, the faces became ugly lines and boxes. The harsh shadows from the stage lights became extremely exaggerated. I should have saved a sample with that model, but my evaluation copy of Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI expired and I don’t have the Artemis sample to show.
As pointed out earlier, the Gaia model reduced the noise on this low quality video, but it also introduced a haze. It also softened both character’s facial features while starting to exaggerate the harsh shadow on the right side of Sandy’s skirt.
Oddly enough, the Gaia and Artemis models that were designed for low quality sources gave the worst results.
The newer models – Theia, Gaia and Dione – didn’t do any better on lower quality source video content. In some cases, they were worse than the older models. The only exception is the Dione Interlaced TV model, which didn’t over-enhance shadows.
Text Rendering
Video Enhance AI falls way short on text rendering with lower quality sources. Title screens, credits, and especially the small text at the bottom, all get boxy and blobby. Topaz Labs needs to improve their text rendering when upscaling video. This is very similar to the issue with distant faces.
This problem is evident on this sample from the title credits of If You Could See What I Hear4. The title has an awkward shadow-like outline with the bottom of each letter repeated. The Copyright notice at the bottom is practically illegible.
Processing Speed
One of the important things to note is that the video processing speed is dependent on the amount of upscaling being performed and processing power of the CPU/GPU of the computer. It is best to use the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) rather than the CPU (Central Processing Unit), because the GPU is designed for graphics rendering and can perform the task substantially quicker. Using the GPU also frees the CPU for performing other unrelated tasks – you know, multi-tasking. For fastest results, it would be great if Topaz Video Enhance AI would use both GPU and CPU at the same time. Currently, we can only use one or the other.
On my system, a feature length film (about 90 minutes) being upscaled from DVD rip to 1080p takes about 38 hours. You read that correctly – a day and a half to upscale one movie. This is something that my television does on the fly, real-time. And my television has substantially less processing power and memory than my computer.
With version two of the software, this same video conversion ranged from 43 to 72 hours, depending on the model used. They managed to make the software run slower. Even the quick preview takes dramatically longer to load – even when we ignore the couple times the software crashed during processing.
Output Size
The size of the final file is quite large, averaging 5-6 GB for a 90 minute film in 1080p. This is about 1-2 GB larger than usual, so I run the file through an optimizer which maintains quality of audio and video, while reducing the file size.
Topaz Video Enhance AI Review Summary
I use Topaz Labs tools in my photography work. Many of them, like DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI are excellent tools. Video Enhance AI has a lot of growing up to do still, even after the release of version two.
At a retail price of $299, Topaz Video Enhance AI is expensive for its limitations. If Topaz Labs were to drastically improve facial and text handling, as well as processing times and perhaps reduce finished file size, then the product would be worth that cost. At this time, I don’t even think it is worth the $150 sale price at the version two release.
Disclaimer
In the United States, and many other countries worldwide, it is technically not legal to rip copyrighted materials from their retail source (ie, DVD and Blu-ray), due to the digital millennium act. Even for making backup copies of the content that you lawfully purchased.
United States Title 17 specifically indicates that it is illegal to reproduce a copyrighted work. But there are a lot of gray areas around that statement. Consider this – you are reading this blog post on your computer. (Don’t forget your smart phone and tablets are computers too.) Your computer creates a locally cached copy of this article on itself to make review easier, especially if you go offline. According to Title 17, your computer just broke the law on your behalf – oopsy. We can also rip our music CDs for the purpose of our personal use, playing on our mobile devices. Is it legal? Well according to Title 17 it is copyright infringement.
Giving or selling a copy of your ripped content to someone else is where the gray area becomes black and white. Redistribution of copyrighted content is absolutely illegal.
The copyrighted works which I used for this evaluation were ripped purely for this exercise in evaluating the Topaz Labs tool, to exhibit the difference between upscaling professional video and home video which tends to be of lower quality. The use herein are protected under “fair use” rights.
Anyone wishing to copy and upscale copyrighted works must obtain permission and licensing from the copyright owner, if it is not themselves.
Topaz Video Enhance Ai Compression Factor
- Porky’s. Copyright 1981 Twentieth Century Fox
- Oz the Great and Powerful. Copyright 2013 Walt Disney Studios
- Grease. Copyright 1972 Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey
- If You Could See What I Hear. Copyright 1982 Shelter Films