But 8 bit codec could be an issue. The grain in the original helped to disguise colour blotches in the image. They’re there, just not as visible.
you can switch to ffv1 to check it’s the codec or not
Holy moly man! Thank you so much for the help. I’ve never used ffv1 before. Is there many applications that can use it outside of VLC?
ffv1 is mainly used for intermediate/temporary files in the workflow to avoid IQ loss due to multiple lossy compressions when you do several editing steps.
But when the ffv1 output is OK you then can try encoding the final result with a decent h265 encoder (which Topaz hasn’t), e.g. in handbrake.
4 Likes
Also when you use “add grain” into Topaz there is a !huge! difference when you check added noise between lossless FFV1 (or near lossless ProRes HQ) and NVEnc h264/h265.. I don’t use NVEncoder into Topaz
That’s why I don’t add noise to any H264/H265-encoded content.
I add noise at the final part of the workflow, in Adobe Premiere.
3 Likes
A few words about Proteus Natural.
- Proteus Natural starts to muffle noise across large areas too early.
- For FullHD to 4K SDR 2x upscale, I like the NYX-PNAT.
I agree with what everyone else has said. Your best bet is to use a lossless codec like ffv1 then use another program to transcode it to the final viewing format—something that’s 10bit or 12bit.
I’ve been able to get 10bit to not have the color bands, and reduce them in 8bit—but they’re still there. So if your your player and screen can handle 10/12bit, you don’t need to worry about the extra steps I’ve been taking to get 8bit acceptable.
I think 4:2:2 10-bit is not a legal HDMI mode, so there you run into the TV problems, perhaps Hw players like Zidoo can play it? But I’m not sure what the TV then does. Or is conversion to 444 10-bit possible without color shifts?
I’ve never looked since my screen will only do 8bit and truncates to it, looking the worst.
Can you explain more what you mean? You’re saying when you upscale FullHD to 4k or SDR 2x you use nyx? What is PNAT? Which version of nyx do you use? There are 3 models.
I can answer one question.“pnat” is “Proteus Natural”
1 Like
THEY KNEW AT LEAST SINCE JUNE. They knew in JUNE 2025 that they were going to remove the CLI. Because that’s when the CLI docs were deleted, if not before then.
4 Likes
Topaz team, can you contact Jensen to figure out how to speed up starlight mini and starlight sharp when using an nvidia card? I love the quality, just need more speed.
1 Like
Apple must have changed something got starlight mini working on Mac with Version 26.3 Beta (25D5112c) - beta 3. But we need to new time measurement, more like fpm vs. fps… took 43 min for 31 frames for a frame size of 720x480p, enhancement 4x, no other settings changed
Edit: typo in file resolution, this was 480p, sorry
4 Likes
That sounds really promising, putting the speed aside. I’m guessing that was on your M4 Max with 36GB?
I’ve just treated myself to an Apple refurbished M3 Ultra 96GB) which arrived today so I’ll be trying out that 26.3 beta 3 with starlight mini (just at 2x rather than 4x) and see how it goes…
Thanks.
Andy
Sounds great. Yes, I’d thought that Apple could solve this as it also was them who introduced that in 26.2.
So maybe that constant nagging here and in the Apple forums/bug report page had some effect.
(BTW, this is a kind of a deja vu as we had a very similar issue in the first Sonoma Betas with Iris suddenly producing garbage which was solved in later OS versions - unfortunately there Topaz did additionally include their own fix which reduced Iris’ speed - and that side-effect is lasting till now)
1 Like
You can set seconds per frame instead of fps in the apps preferences - this can be much more accurate for those very slow encodes <1fps (but unfortunately gave quite fluctating numbers in some TV versions with Starlight making it quite unreliable as well).
Or, simply measure the time taken and do the math yourself.
Yes, M4 Max 36GB. Will be interested to see how the Ultra performs. Will also try the same video 2x instead of 4x
