Is this only true for SLP or also for SLM?
ExactlyâŠfor better quality sources, I recommend Starlight Sharp to 1080p and then use a second pass of Proteus or Iris, depending on what sort of remaining processing you want. According to your tastes, you can add grain, sharpen more, reduce noise, recover additional detail, etc.
I think SLM does not, but Iâm not sure
Most of time I use SLP for upscale because reconstruction level is unbeatable, but Iâve had cases where running SLP first didnât work well because human skin and faces looked much worse.
However, SLM first can be the better option, pends on source. If the upscale looks too soft, you can also post-process it with Deblur. The pixel structure simply needs to be made coarser, with larger and more pronounced blocks. working with soft results is generally not a bad thing because it reproduces very small things good, and there are ways to make it sharper afterward, for example using Iris MQ 1x + Gaia as second model. In this step, you also can add grain if you like.
I want to convert some SD TV shows (480pâ576p with a very low bitrate and macroblocks) as a hobby for Plexâshows that no one will ever remaster, so the quality has to be good enough to trick the brain and avoid that cringe moment when someoneâs face changes. Iâve seen the workflow: Starlight Precise 2.5 to 1080p â Nyx 1080p â Proteus x2 + HDR colors and grain in DaVinci.
@Dianac, I work as a programmer at a large company that sells computer hardware (I can buy a computer at cost price, without the storeâs markup), so from what Iâve seen, the difference between a computer with an RTX 50070 Ti and one with an RTX 5080 is about $150â$200, so I think Iâd rather pay the extra than regret it later.
And in the futureâwho knows how these models will evolveâit would be good to be a video editing specialist in my area.
I am doing the same thing. I just finished a months long project to upscale the entire Star Trek Deep Space Nine series. I have also upscaled a number of Film Noir movies that are in the public domain and which are only available as 16mm transfers.
My technique is to use ffmpeg to convert the SD originals to a standard resolution of 540x720 at 29.97 fps. I also make sure that display aspect ratio is the same as stored aspect ratio and, if necessary, convert from VFR to CFR.
I then use Starlight Sharp (for reasonably good quality DVD rips) or Precise (for blurry 16mm transfers) to go from 540p to 1080p. I avoid Nyx, since the Starlight output is already somewhat denoised. I then upscale from 1080p to 2160p with Proteus, using manual settings, to repair any remaining issues (additional noise reduction, anti-aliasing, detail recovery/enhancement, etc.).
I am currently working on upscaling âThe Streets of San Franciscoâ, with âThe Invadersâ and â12 Oâclock Highâ in the queue. I may need to add some storage to my Plex server to hold them! 
As an example, Taking the 540p original as described above, upscaling a 45 minute TV episode from 540 to 1080 takes about 41 hours. The Proteus step takes about 2 hours.
This is on a PC with an i9 14900 CPU, 64GB system RAM, and an RTX 5080. The 5070Ti takes 50 hours and 3 hours for each step, respectively.
Look at the womanâs expression in the original frame and then at each of the upscaled ones. Her expression shifts slightly with each of the upscale models, and it actually shifts the tone of each of the scenes. Probably not an issue when you see it in motion, but interesting to see at the frame level.
@dianac Also a PM here, was head of the Platform team at Marketo, where I designed and created 100+ Splunk dashboards (that was how I relaxed, oddly enough). It was like hunting for buried treasure.
â
I am currently working on upscaling âThe Streets of San Franciscoâ, with âThe Invadersâ and â12 Oâclock Highâ in the queue. I may need to add some storage to my Plex server to hold them! â
And HDDs are, unfortunately, ridiculously expensive right now 
âI am doing the same thing. I just finished a months long project to upscale the entire Star Trek Deep Space Nine series. I have also upscaled a number of File Noir movies that are in the public domain and which are only available as 16mm transfers.â
Donât you use DaVinci to first aggressively remove compression blocks and reconstruct details using some model, and then use Starlight to repair the sections cut out in DaVinci and replace them with the ones that had artifacts?
Of course, this wonât work in severe cases, especially for someone with a keen eye for spotting any artifacts , but itâll do the trick with higher-quality footage.
At least your series is available on DVDâthe first one I want to upscale is a 150 Mb / 25-minute web rip
Iâve had really good results using Topaz and Davinci Resolve (the free version) together. Two examples:
- For dark footage that canât be easily brightened (because saturation/clipping etc.) I use the SDR to HDR Hyperion 2 model and boost the luminance as needed. Then I overlay that clip on the original in Davinci and use the Composite âluminanceâ mode at 50% opacity. That pulls the light from the Topaz clip but keeps the original coloring and minimizes artifacts I previously got from boosting luminance on the original.
- Topaz is already pretty good at de-banding, but I can also take the Topaz clip, duplicate it in Davinci, and apply the debanding effect. That softens the clips details, so I overlay it on top of the base clip with Composite mode of âColorâ and opacity of 50%. That blends the softened colors but keeps the underlying detail.
The two work really well together and it means I donât have to be a color-grading expert to get pretty good results.
The one drawback is that sometimes Topaz rendering slightly offsets the clip frames. Iâve learned how to use sub-frame slips in Davinciâs Fairlight audio engine to line those up, but it can be a bit of a pain. Still much fast than trying to do a full color grade on sub-optimal footage though; as it can sidestep the need for key-framing
I actually use DaVinci after completion of the upscale process for content that came from DVDs. However, I have one Film Noir that is a real mess. It is a bad transfer to digital from a 16mm film that was then super compressed down to around 400Kbps. There are scenes that just look like a black screen with some vague movement in the dark. I ran that through Resolve first, adjusting brightness, contrast and gamma, adding gain control (blended back into the original) and fully desaturating the output. I also need to resync the audio track that was slightly behind in the original.
I then ran it through Starlight Precise followed up with a run through Iris to clean up the faces that SLP recovered. Unfortunately, I donât have the original file on hand or else Iâd post a before and after.
SLP was amazingâŠI almost think it was trained on Brian Donlevyâs faceâŠit created a very accurate reconstruction in scenes where his face was just a smear.
