As I’ve already mentioned, the “StarLight” project is still in its infancy. It will get better. So yes, for the moment, depending on the sequence, it can work well or not so well.
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Yeah, I know. I’m just stating my observations with it. 
Yeah haven’t found Rhea to be useful for me as it exaggerates aliasing/moire even moire. I usually do a two layer pass as well. Sometimes Artemis LQ/HQ then Proteus. If the image ends up looking too plasticy, I layer some stock film grain in Final Cut Pro. I don’t like using the add grain feature in Topaz. Doesn’t look as organic.
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I don’t do two layer pass, except for Chronos. I use both upscales as layers in Premiere. This has proven the best solution for me.
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I just tried a 10 second free trial of project starlight on some really bad quality 8 mm film that was converted.
Wow!
It improved it so much!
One click…. Simple.
I am really excited about this in one sense and kind of confused and disappointed in another sense.
If I no longer need the desktop application to get this kind of simplistic, excellent quality in old 8mm, 16mm and VHS……
Why am I paying for the desktop version anymore and all of the constant cost upgrades?
The second disappointment is the cost of this wonderful feature looks absolutely prohibitive at the moment.
I realize this is a beta and a first offering, but I guess I have to seriously decide whether I’m going to continue to spend money on a desktop application and instead spend money on credits or whatever on a web based application.
If they can get the cost down to at least reasonable I am in. What I threw up to project starlight was pretty bad stuff and what I got back was entirely viewable. At least that 10 seconds was. And the whole process was so simple…. One click…… No tuning tweaking getting test versions and trying different models over and over again. Simple, I like simple.
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I haven’t upgraded my license this year, it ended a week ago. I find the cost to be asking a bit to much. Topaz lab has a decent product, had it now since the start when it was in beta under it’s old name. But the last video I converted, I used Reha and then I used another program on the same original 360p footage and had way better results. That other software which was originally designed to copy videos and convert them added in AI upscaling as a toss in and doesn’t cost even half the price. So this is why I won’t pay $150 USD for a upgrade license.
When I seen this upgrade, I had hope. I thought we finally may have something that tops it all and will do wonders on these low quality low res videos. But then I seen this credit and online processing part. Only thing that went through my mind at this point was “money grab”.
If this can work standalone, from desktop using my CPU and GPU; I couldn’t care if it takes a week to process a 20 min video. It would feel much better, and I do feel that upgrades shouldn’t be as costly or you should offer a cheaper 1 time upgrade at least. Then we could buy a 1 time upgrade when the software actually has a feature or fix we are interested in, instead of paying a high price for 1 year.
Awesome, would it be cool to see the before/after clip?
I think a local model will eventually get here, but it’s gonna take time (maybe a year or more). I’m curious about their other models though that they hope to release this year.
I use HitPaw with its very simple interface and get better results many times on really low grade stuff…. conversions of 16 mm, 8mm, and VHS. But there are some older vids that if I spend a ton of time on with Topaz…trying different models, tweaking….I get pretty good results. But it’s never simple with Topaz.
What software did you use?
I tested this new project starlight and was blown away with the quality and simplicity. (Just one clip though ….not a large test.)
But I don’t want to spend money on a desktop platform AND a web based subscription thingy…
Right now it’s just beta and the proposed costs are waaaay outside my price to value point anyway.
I am in wait and see mode.
The total ease and quality I experienced in Starlight though is quite appealing. Exciting actually….
By the way I very much recommend the FilmConvert Nitrate filter. It’s leagues above the rest of the competition when it comes to grain.
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Which program was that?
I see your new model Rhea XL on your store front when does it get released?
A bit of what I been working with has been VHS quality converted / digitized.
I’m not saying Topaz isn’t up to par, you can definitely get the results. But like you said it’s never simple.
When we first got Reha, I thought it was going to be pretty much a model that you could shove the video into and let it do it’s thing and it just spit out a decent upscale. Reha XL may do that but I wouldn’t know, it has never worked for me ever. Always crashes on me, so I can only use Reha, not Reha XL.
Faces are an issue for old low res video no matter what, always a mess. Nothing I have used can seem to do a decent job on that front.
I never mentioned the software name because usually that’s frown upon to name a product from another company like that within a competing company site. I will say it’s results look similar to the product you mentioned. It also looks similar in design to another paid program out there. So it leads me to believe that they may be using the same models or are some way connected but no way for me to know that and I could be wrong. No matter what Topaz gives more models and options, that is for sure. I just can’t justify the price tag on the upgrade license each year. The other software I don’t really recommend for personal reasons. Never liked company’s that don’t tell you where they are based on their about page. I did come across a Reddit page as well of the software from a year ago being compared to Topaz Video AI for simple video upscaling with no extra settings. The take away was that it was hit or miss and you’ll get more from Topaz in the long run (Which doesn’t surprise me when comparing the price tag). If you want to try finding it, that’s up to you. I bought it on sale from a site that sells games, books, and software bundles for charity causes at times back in 2023 for like $13. They did the same bundle deal months ago. When I bought the bundle, I wanted it to try out the iPhone Manager at the time and the video converter I don’t think had the AI upscaling till an update sometime after but I could be wrong, as I literary only try the converter at the time to convert an old video format to mp4. But I did get a 360p video that came out better in 4K then what Topaz Reha had spit out at the time for that video. Although it is most likely hit or miss.
If Starlight can output the results as claimed and goes standalone and can be run on my i9-9900k and RTX 2080 Ti, then I’ll consider the upgrade, but it still a very steep price tag. And the more I look, the more AI upscaling software seems to pop up. So I feel like this space is becoming way more competitive, which is a good thing.
I’ve done so. No solution. Source window and settings windows display show incorrect FR. Can’t trust for broadcast unfortunately.
The Rhea XL has been available since V5.4.
Here are some comparisons between the Iris 2, Rhea, and RXL.
I upgraded to 6.1.0 but don’t see the offer to try Starlight? Can anyone advise me?
Thanks for the response.
I have zero problems mentioning a competitors results or prices.
As you say…competition is good for an industry….and certainly for a consumer. It drives prices down and innovation up.
I looked through the forum rules and don’t see anything mentioned about not comparing products.
This forum should just be a friendly exchange of idea and help. And a way to ask questions to the folks from the team. At least IMHO.
I think it does a pretty darn good job of that actually.
Agree on the “links” to some of these competitors to “other stuff” and the way they hide their identity. Seems a bit shady but in the end……price and effectiveness matters. My suspicion is they are far outside Silicon Valley or other Western development hubs and don’t want to have folks see their original origin because of “politics.” Or be looked upon as “lesser.” With today’s world….probably a good business decision.
BTW…
Since version 6……I have had Far…FAR fewer issues with Topaz on my New M4 Mac Mini……then my high end PC.
In fact….I pretty much gave up trying to use it effectively on my PC and just use Mac.
6.1 may have “fixed” a lot….PC side…
at least so far….I can actually view the comparison screen…big improvement.
5.3.6 was stable as heck on my PC.
Here’s a Chronos 1.4 slowmotion clip shot at 640 x 240 at 8810 fps (367 times slowmo)! upscaled with Starlight. Once again, it does a great job of cleaning up the aliasing and moiré. It does an okay job restoring, considering the very low resolution, but it smooths out noise and textures a bit too much. Also, it didn’t resolve the flickering problem I had.
So I took the clip, did a Proteus pass, fixed the flicker with Neat Video, and added film grain. It made a significant difference. I know there’s a love/hate relationship with film grain, but after many tests, I feel it’s necessary to use when restoring a very low-resolution clip. At the moment, Topaz smooths things out a bit too much. In the video below, the first clip is the original, and the second is Starlight with Proteus, Neat Video to remove the flicker, and film grain added.
You have to have a video open. It will be in the upper right next to codec settings.
