I don’t think Starlight works well with fast moving objects. The building and ground look good.
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Yeah I agree. I have been doing more tests and in my slowmo videos where there’s a lot of action or fast jarrring movement, I see ghosting. Hope this an be fixed. I had earlier success with it but they were on slower moving subjects.
Unfortunately, after doing a lot more pixel peeping and experimenting with more slowmo footage with faster action, there seems to be pretty bad motion inconsistencies with a lot of ghosting/jerking/flickering/tearing (birds head when it moves). See below. Is this something that can be fixed Kevin? After seeing this, I’m thinking Starlight is actually not a real good model for this unless it can be fixed. Artemis LQ doesn’t have this motion problem.
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The explosion in Starlight is like the frames are reduced. Jerky explosion.
Actually when I stop the compare player and scroll the video with the mouse everything is there, it is the playback player that makes it look jerky.
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The jerkyness in fast motion happens even when I download the enhanced version of my video and play on my own player. I think it has to do with the Starlight model. That’s a bummer since Starlight does so well in anti-aliasing/moire reduction but with faster motion, the jerkyness/motion inconsistencies is much more jarring and is a nail in the coffin for me. I might have to stick with Artemis LQ for now (even if it does not rid of all aliasing) until Starlight fixes this along with the other issues I mentioned in earlier posts. 
I was just about to purchase this product but the fact id have to but credit to use the best part of the programme, i wont bother now
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I did the math.
There are several problems with the idea of using Starlight to upscale Star Trek: Voyager, not the least of which is how much the credits would cost, or even the processing time–but the QUEUEING time!
I bought a bunch of credits thinking I was going to do a single 90-minute piece broken out in chunks.
NOPE! The free demo processes right away. But, if you PAY, you get to sit in queue for 12 HOURS just to do 2.5 minutes of 60fps video! So you have to figure in the waiting time for PAID users–for EACH CHUNK (nice, huh?).
Here’s the breakdown I did for Star Trek Voyager. Grab your popcorn and buckle up:
Broken into chunks of 9000 frames:
- 24 fps: 9,000 frames ÷ 24 fps = 375 seconds (6m 15s per chunk)
- 30 fps: 9,000 frames ÷ 30 fps = 300 seconds (5 minutes per chunk)
- 60 fps: 9,000 frames ÷ 60 fps = 150 seconds (2m 30s per chunk)
and remember, you have to QUEUE for 12 hours for each chunk!
- at 24 fps: ~2.7 years to complete. (not including the inverse telecine pre-processing)
- at 30 fps: ~3.1 years to complete. (straight deinterlacing)
- at 60 fps: ~5.7 years to complete. (AI deinterlacing to preserve the 60i motion of graphics and titles).
Here’s what it would cost in USD:
- 24 fps: 557,784 credits × $0.111/credit ≈ $61,914.02
- 30 fps: 696,960 credits × $0.111/credit ≈ $77,362.56
- 60 fps: 1,393,920 credits × $0.111/credit ≈ $154,725.12
Star Trek Voyager was shot on film and posted on videotape giving us “film motion” for the characters and “videotape motion” for animation and titles. AI-deinterlacing of the original material from 60i to 60p would preserve absolutely everything, despite being a waste of resources for regular scenes with the actors. So…your choice.
This cloud thingy is just NOT going to work the way they have it set up now.
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Starlight is still an experiment in progress. It can be useful now if you have a short clip that just won’t enhance satisfactorily with any other model, because a few seconds isn’t long enough for a viewer to notice its flaws, but it’s nowhere near ready for full on production use,
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In my 30-years of experience, there is almost never such a thing as a clip that short that needs that kind of work. If you accidentally shot in the wrong resolution, you go back and reshoot. If it’s from years ago, the whole entire shoot looks bad and it all needs fixing. There’s no in-between. You’re right though, it isn’t ready for full on production use, and it seems more like an attempt by the company to show us they’ve been doing more in the last year than just endless UI facelifts and neglecting core functionality (which is what most customers think looking at these forums…see The process of improving video quality with Project Starlight - #60 by GC64).
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In the days before CGI, VFX often was done by creating an FX scene with different methods (life-sized mockups, models, animations), then jump cutting between short clips to jeep the audience from seeing a single method. A similar edit is often done when characters have “life flashing before their eyes” moments. And then there are instances s where old footage is pierced together to create new scenes. Short clips are used more often than most people notice.
Hello, I just updated to the newest version of Topaz, and for some reason, the DeNoise preset is behaving differently than before. It’s adding a lot more sharpness, especially in faces, whereas the previous version looked much cleaner and smoother. It’s kinda hard to describe fully, but it’s noticeably different. Is there any way to revert to the previous model? This is affecting my workflow, so I’d really appreciate any help as soon as possible!
So the Rendering Time is even worser as every of my calc 
yes I’ts horrible, forget it. Even if the promises are kept and the costs and rendering time gets reduced, this cloud will never be suitable for an entire series, not even for one season. Since such servers are always expensive + maintenance + electricity costs + costs for super-fast Internet connections from Topaz. Then up to thousands of users who want to use them at the same time and therefore you have waiting queues.
Upload original fps is cheaper and do frame Interpolation with the Starlight upscaled one in TVAI. I was thinking about uploading the Voyager opening intro, which I could use in all 172 episodes, but thats it.
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You could make a nice intro and closing credits with Starlight, and then edit each episode to include those clips. At least the opening and closing credits will look a little better, as compared to the upscaled episodes.
Yes this is my plan 
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Aliasing/Moire is actually worse in this Starlight clip then before. Again, still issues with over added contrast/sharpness and color changes. 
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Interesting – we will look into this. I believe the color change may be resolved with more encoding/output colorspace controls, which are coming soon
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Thanks Tony. 
Also, if you could have your team take a look at below when they have time.
Unfortunately, after doing a lot more pixel peeping and experimenting with more slowmo footage with faster action, there seems to be pretty bad motion inconsistencies with a lot of ghosting/jerking/flickering/tearing (birds head when it moves). See below. Is this something that can be fixed Kevin?
It does look like the model is struggling with the “twitchy” or fast movements of the birds there.
Starlight uses a wide rolling range of frames to analyze motion and frame quality, so we may need to allow users to reduce this for rapid movement
This is XAVC footage? Looking into the colorspace swap now
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Okay, got you Tony! Yes, it is X-AVC S footage.
Hello Tony, I just updated to the newest version of Topaz, and for some reason, the DeNoise preset is behaving differently than before. It’s adding a lot more sharpness, especially in faces, whereas the previous version looked much cleaner and smoother. It’s kinda hard to describe fully, but it’s noticeably different. Is there any way to revert to the previous model? This is affecting my workflow, so I’d really appreciate any help as soon as possible!
