When upscaling 720x576 using Artemis 2x on my Mac Studio (M1 Max 24 Core GPU) and Mac mini M4 Pro (16 Core GPU), I get around 60% speed gain using my custom command over the standard ffmpeg command used by TVAI (and the TVAI command is with Max Memory set to 10%).
My technique is to stack multiple SD segments together to form a much higher source resolution prior to upscaling, then crop and join the separate the segments afterwards back to a single stream. Some time ago I created a set of scripts to do this but since then I’ve learnt a bit more about ffmpeg. Hence this is now condensed into a single command.
The command below is an example using an MKV from a PAL DVD (720x576). I get ~ 26 FPS on my Mac Studio, compared to ~16 in TVAI; ~ 29 FPS on the Mac mini Pro compared to ~ 18. So plenty fast enough to watch the video in realtime using VLC while it’s processing. There are just 2 variables to set: the frame count for each segment “fc” - 10 seems about right but I don’t know what’s optimal for the TVAI upscaling filter; and the frame rate “fr” which is 25 in this case, accounting for the de-interlacing which I’ve also added.
I invite and encourage the Topaz developers to incorporate this technique somehow in TVAI, or in their custom version of ffmpeg. Even if they don’t, other users might like to use it. After experimenting I found that a stack of 5 segments is optimal. Also by experimenting, I found the optimal Max Memory is ~ 75% for both my Mac Studio and Mac mini Pro.
fc=10 ; fr=25 ; ffmpeg -i ~/desktop/“s1e06 eye of the needle.mkv” -r $fr -filter_complex " \
bwdif=mode=0:parity=-1:deint=0,split=5[1][2][3][4][5]; \
[1]select='lt(mod(n,$fc*5),$fc)', \
setpts=N/($fr*TB)[S1]; \
[2]select='between(mod(n,$fc*5),$fc,$fc*2-1)', \
setpts=N/($fr*TB)[S2]; \
[3]select='between(mod(n,$fc*5),$fc*2,$fc*3-1)', \
setpts=N/($fr*TB)[S3]; \
[4]select='between(mod(n,$fc*5),$fc*3,$fc*4-1)', \
setpts=N/($fr*TB)[S4]; \
[5]select='between(mod(n,$fc*5),$fc*4,$fc*5-1)', \
setpts=N/($fr*TB)[S5]; \
[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5]hstack=inputs=5, \
tvai_up=model=alq-13:scale=0:w=7200:h=1152:blend=0.5:device=0:vram=0.75:instances=1, \
split=5[CS1][CS2][CS3][CS4][CS5]; \
[CS1]crop=iw/5:ih:0:0, \
setpts=(N+floor(N/$fc)*4*$fc)/($fr*TB)[C1]; \
[CS2]crop=iw/5:ih:iw/5:0, \
setpts=($fc+N+floor(N/$fc)*4*$fc)/($fr*TB)[C2]; \
[CS3]crop=iw/5:ih:2*iw/5:0, \
setpts=($fc*2+N+floor(N/$fc)*4*$fc)/($fr*TB)[C3]; \
[CS4]crop=iw/5:ih:3*iw/5:0, \
setpts=($fc*3+N+floor(N/$fc)*4*$fc)/($fr*TB)[C4]; \
[CS5]crop=iw/5:ih:4*iw/5:0, \
setpts=($fc*4+N+floor(N/$fc)*4*$fc)/($fr*TB)[C5]; \
[C1][C2][C3][C4][C5]interleave=nb_inputs=5" \
-c:v prores_videotoolbox -profile:v proxy -pix_fmt p210le -allow_sw 1 \
-movflags frag_keyframe+empty_moov+delay_moov+use_metadata_tags+write_colr ~/desktop/upscaled.mkv
Andy
EDITED to correct the TVAI_UP width from 1440 to 7200
