Hi,
Where is the function to use a command line (process menu)? I perform identical processes on many videos and used this function, which saves me a lot of time.
It no longer appears in the latest version 
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Unfortunately, it appears you are one of many users who will have been mislead by what Topaz have and haven’t previously told us. This is in the context of a reply from Dakota Wixom to my specific query on the subject of the change to the EULA around the CLI.
The EULA remained unchanged regarding the CLI, despite him saying it would be changed to clarify this point i.e. that the CLI could be used.
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Yeah, it’s one of those petty things which causes a company to loose a lot of good will by those affected.
Where Topaz is heading (online + subscription), they are not really competitive imho. Where they are still competitive (offline) , they are systematically taking away features.
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I invested in a powerful setup to do local processing. If Topaz goes completely cloud-based, they won’t keep me as a customer, which is a shame.
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The support team has brought this up with the team to get more clarity on what is going on and what the future will be. As soon as we know more early next week, I will update with that information.
For now, within version 1.1.0 the CLI feature is not included though for use.
Topaz Video is of no use to me without the CLI.
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It appears that Topaz management is worse than I thought with their lack of communication not only to their customers but also to their own support staff.
Also - why has this topic been moved from Bugs and Issues? It’s apparently not a bug - but it certainly is an issue.
Andy
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The GUI is extremely limited with codecs and it’s available options and doesnt even have x265 nor does it preserve HDR metadata. So where is the cli so that I can pipeline to an own ffmpeg which has not all codecs removed and I can encode how I want to?
The cli missing is very bad move just like the subscription payment too. But the earlier versions were already a sub model if you think about it. Just 1 year Updates for 300€ was a sub model already lol. I would consider leaving test version of old version when it wouldnt be a sub model and if it would be not just 1 year updates, rather like 4 years for 300€ software, or a very heavily discount if you keep 1 year updates to renew.
But in its current state it all is way too expensive. And sub model for a local software is mindblowing bad. I would never order that …
The missing cli now is even more pulling me back 
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Kind of, but not really. Unlike a subscription payment model, when my update license expired before TVAI 5.3 came out, there was nothing included in it that I wanted, so I did not renew my license and was able to keep using TVAI 5.2. The only reason I renewed for TVAI 6 was because they added the ability in the CLI to error out if it is about to process in trial mode.
Them removing it is a very bad and unfriendly move—just like moving to only a subscription payment model.
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Topaz will be of no use to me without command line. Absolute useless waste.
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A full statement is being worked up about the changes to CLI and will be shared as soon as it is ready for release. Apologies for the delay on this but this has been the subject of many meetings.
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So the reply I received from @dakota.wixom (below) about the change to the EULA regarding the CLI was deliberately misleading to me and other customers.
What an utter disgrace of a company Topaz has become. All you care about now is GREED and CONTROL, not the quality of your products or customer satisfaction.
Andy
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No deliberate misleading or confusion meant there Andy. Dakota posted what was available at the time and that still stands within version 1.0.0. I have passed along your feedback to the devs and have been requesting an official statement to be updated for all users as soon as that can be given. There are still meetings going on about this and a few other things with the app.
My original question was regarding changes to the EULA which now prohibits the CLI being used by personal licence users starting from v1.0.0.
IF the EULA for v1.0.0 was incorrect, why was it not updated in later versions despite Dakota Wixom saying it would be? As “Director of Product”, one can assume he knew what was going on.
Will Topaz issue an updated EULA allowing the CLI to be used by personal licence users for Topaz Video versions 1.0.x?
If not, then who / what are we to believe?
Andy
Understood Andy, I dont have an answer on why the EULA has not been updated for that language. The CLI workflow is still available within version 1.0.0 for users to access and use. There are larger discussions and meetings that have been going on for months now about this aspect of the app and how it fits into the future of it. Once that is flushed out and defined then I believe the EULA can be revamped and sorted out.
Users can use the CLI workflow in v1.0.0 with a personal subscription and all users can use it with a perpetual license in the previous releases of Video AI.
The support team has been pushing for this to be worked out and an official update shared to ensure clarity for all users going forward and we are hoping to have that in the near future.
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What are the open questions?
Is there a concern that runner.exe is a red-headed stepchild that doesn’t fit well with the clean ffmpeg integration of the earlier (non-Starlight) models?
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This is disappointing bordering on dishonesty. I purchased a one-year subscription based on the availability of a command line interface and improved models from v6. I now find out, around 10% into said subscription that the command line is being removed, not to mention that Starlight (MacOS 26) is unusable. I’m willing to wait a bit for Starlight, no complaints there.
There is no excuse for removing the command line, especially WITHOUT WARNING. The command line, for those of us that know ffmpeg, is extremely handy. Consider a workflow where I generate (or automatically record) a video, run it through open-source ffmpeg to, say, decimate, deinterlace, etc, – or even through a custom filter that I’m creating – then take that through Topaz, and take that back into open-source ffmpeg for final compression (or, again, through a custom filter or compression or analysis engine). Doing that with the GUI would be frustrating at best, let alone impossible to automate.
Please reconsider.
Cheers.
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The user interface is okay for attempting new settings and figuring out commands for new models. It’s not great at it. It never has been.
On a typical DVD, I need to use another program to deinterlace and cut it into smaller clips, then I use TVAI on those clips, then I need another program to convert to the final video codec, then I need another program to merge all the sound, chapters and subtitles back into the final video and append all the clips.
I have automated this process with the command line. For making previews, it is better to have them in the final codec. I tell my script what TVAI models to run and set the clip to be about ten seconds long, then tell it to go. Without needing to intervene, I get a preview in the final output codec and I can change the model parameters to make another one that will be easier to directly compare against the first one in an external movie player it ever has been in TVAI.
VEAI 2 was a pain to use because there was no command line interface. I still had to do all those same steps to get a preview that would be in the final codec, but I had to manually run each step of the process.
TVAI 3 is where I was able to start using the AI models as the tools they were made to be.
TV 1.1 is still usable in that same way, but it has become harder to figure out new commands. It feels like I am being punished for wanting to use it. TV 1.1 is driving off a cliff and I am not going to foolishly keep riding on it.
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I understand there were holidays, but at this point it’s been over two weeks with no meaningful update. We still don’t have CLI documentation, official guidance on CLI usage, or any clarity on whether automated workflows are still supported.
I purchased Topaz Video AI Enhancer specifically for offline, local upscaling, not cloud usage. The lack of information around CLI support is a serious issue for users who rely on automation — including personal-use users.
If there is no update that restores and documents CLI functionality, I will not be renewing my subscription. Since purchasing in July 2025, there has been little to no publicly available documentation on how to use the CLI for automated workflows.
For those asking about runner.exe: this is not what should be used for CLI processing. The correct binary is the ffmpeg executable included in the Topaz program files. The open-source or self-installed versions of ffmpeg will not work. Topaz Video AI models are exposed as an ffmpeg video filter built directly into that custom-distributed binary, and the same parameters used in the GUI — including model selection — can be passed to that filter via the CLI.
At this point, users need clear, official documentation and confirmation that local CLI-based workflows are still supported. If no response is received and no documentation is provided publicly, it is reasonable to conclude that Topaz no longer supports CLI workflows.
I’m not a lawyer, but for users who purchased the product based on representations of local and automated usage, this may provide a legitimate basis for chargebacks due to being misled.
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An official statement is being worked on at this time from the Product team about this workflow and feature. Everyone’s feedback is being considered and shared with the Product team by us here on the support side.
CLI is still available with the older app Video AI and in the first few releases of Topaz Video, and that is not changing. Users can still use the workflow as they were before within those versions, with their original perpetual license purchases and under those agreements.
