1080p -> 4K upscaling: How to best achieve smaller file sizes?

[chris_m]

Hi everyone,

I’m using Video AI to upscale some 1080p videos to 4K. So far, I use these settings:

Enhancement:

• AI model: Proteus
• Paramets: Auto

Output settings:

• Encoder: H265 Main
• Container: mp4
• Bitrate: Auto
• Audio Settings: Auto

However, when I upscaled a 1080p/60 video, which has an original file size of 270 MB, it became 9.4 GB in size which is a bit too much for my personal taste, haha. I then used the program „Handbrake“ to bring it down to 660 MB. The quality difference is only very small, so that’s perfectly acceptable for me.

My question now would be: How can I best achieve these smaller file sizes in the first place with Video AI’s output file?

Thanks a lot in advance!

[menditsa]

I use a combination of av1an and svt-av1 to reduce sizes for storage.
As example:
217mb file rendered to 9.86gb (prores 422 LT)

I get that down to 63.1mb

[brock.gunter-smith (brock_gs)]

What I did to try a few tests was to use the trim feature to cut down my video to around 15 seconds or so. That way I can do multiple exports with different settings and compare the output size and quality easily. As a general rule of thumb a couple easy ways to really drop file size is:

1. Remove noise! Noise reduces the ability of the encoder to highly compress each frame of video because it’s dealing with millions of tiny flecks of detail that interrupt larger blocks of common colours that could easily be compressed without (much) loss of quality.
2. Reduce your bitrate! Experiment, everyone has different tolerances, but you’d be surprised at how low you can reduce your bitrate and still retain great quality.

For the purposes of this test, I trimmed down an old animated show to just a handful of seconds. Then I set Topaz Video AI to use your settings. Upscale to 4k. Proteus. Auto parameters. h265, mp4, auto bitrate.

Then I took the same clip and bumped up the Auto parameters by further really reducing noise and deblurring and cranking DOWN the bitrate to just 8Mbits/sec.

The result??? Original settings that tried to match yours, was a 347.2MB file, whereas my second test by radically reducing noise, reversing compression artifacts (which is really just more noise), doing some deblur and then setting the bitrate to 8Mb/sec … aaaaaaaand … 17.8MB!!!

So right within Video AI itself, by applying filter choices and settings to reduce noise and just overall cleanup image quality you can REALLY bring down file sizes compared to just going auto.

Here is a side-by-side of the final output of my test exports. LEFT = auto settings, RIGHT = DENOISE, DEBLUR, 8Mb/sec

[chris_m]

@brock.gunter-smith Wow, thanks so much for all the work and the in-depth explanation! This is really useful and helps me a lot

[icc.kl.chan (Banjamin)]

Why not aomenc-lavish since you’re using av1an anyways:P

[menditsa]

Very simple, I’m not after super douper quality and svt-av1 with the settings I use encode @ 50 - 90 fps depending on the source.