Topaz Video AI Beta v4.0.0.1.b

[luke.roche]

Hello everyone,

We have a new beta available for testing. This beta is the improved AB comparison update!

The beta overhauls how you typically interact with Topaz Video AI. Instead of the typical input, output view that you are used to, now, you will have two views that models can be applied to. With these views you can build and compare different combinations of models to find out which model configuration works best for your original input. You can see more information on how to use this beta below!

4.0.0.1.b

• Windows
• Mac - DMG | PKG

Changelog from 4.0.0.0.b

• Major UX/UI Changes
• Crash / Player improvements
• Fix Panning/Zoom related issues
• Better logic for when you may create previews
• Multiple inputs working as expected
• Various other bug related improvements!

Known Issues:

• Differing FPS values between views will cause playback issues.
• Favorites may sometimes lose previews it once had, and then may intermittently bring them back.
• Using “left” arrow key to seek back into a preview will not show the preview, just the input, despite being in the preview range.
• Seeking in and out of previews fast will result in a very slow response.
• Seeking/PlayNext/PlayPrev in slow motion area will not work as expected on the player.
• Sometimes, seeking inside a preview will result in the player rubber banding

Information about the beta

The main goal of the change is to allow you to make the best decision about what model configurations to use. To accomplish this, we think it’s best for the user to be able to apply different models and see the results side by side.

For example, you can apply Proteus to your A view and Artemis to the B view to see which one has the result you prefer. At any time, you can revert to the original input to compare with the original. This is different from before where you must apply one model configuration at a time and always be comparing to the original.

Details about how to use
The first difference is you must select which view to focus. If you click the left view, A will be highlighted. If you select the right view, B will be highlighted.

When you have a view highlighted, the models/filters you add to the view will be specific for that view. So if you want to see how “Recover Original Detail” works you could give view A & B Enhancement, then give them different “Recover Original Detail” values.

When you have made the changes to the filters you want to see, you can click “Process Next …” to see these two different combinations of filters applied to the input.

When you do this, a progress bar will be applied to the timeline. This is the area of the video where you chose to see the filters be applied. You can watch this section to see how the input has changed. At any time, you may right click a view and click “Reset to Original.”

When you have a combination of filters that you really like (lets assume it’s the filters applied in view A) you may click the A view and click export.

We think this is the best way to be able to find the best mix of models to get the best results possible. Let us know what you think about the new previewing workflow established with this beta.

[david.123]

Wish my GPU RMA would hurry up so I could test this tasty goodness

[20rushtonj (Alaska)]

The Split preview setting is greyed out and can not be clicked.

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If you enable the Split preview mode in preferences, then the Split preview mode will load when you import a video, but it doesn’t work properly (The split bar in the middle can’t be clicked and dragged).

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While in the Single preview mode, or Split preview mode, I couldn’t figure out how to select “Preview 1” to adjust it’s filter settings. I can adjust Preview 2, but not Preview 1

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There still doesn’t appear to be support for queing up work on the same video. (E.G. Queing a Proteus Auto and Manual preview, then queing a Iris Auto and Manual preview).

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There still doesn’t appear to be support for queing up work between videos. (E.G. Importing a video of a Cat, creating a Gaia preview. importing a video of a Dog and creating a Proteus preview)

If you do this, as soon as you go the Dog video and select Protues, the preview for the Cat video is removed.

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Sometimes when swapping between videos, the play head will be in the wrong position (E.G Importing a video of a Dog, adjusting the playhead, Importing a video of a Cat, adjusting the playhead, then click on the video of the Dog and the playhead will be in the wrong position).

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The “Filter information” section below the preview windows, doesn’t tell you which model you were using for enhancement (E.G. If I select Proteus, it says I’m using Enhancement: (Auto). If I select Iris, it says I’m using Enhancement: (Auto), etc)

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There doesn’t appear to be the ability to “unfavourite” something.

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The UI naming is inconsistent. The “Save Settings” button should be renamed to “Favourite” or the “Favourites” section should be renamed to “Saved settings”.

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You can favourite the same thing multiple times. Just create a preview then click the “Save Settings” button multiple times and it will save that setting each time you click.

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The Only Keep One Preview option doesn’t appear to do anything anymore. It says that when it’s off, all previews will be kept until you delete them, but this isn’t the case.

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The “Save Settings” doesn’t work properly in some situations. For example, if you click on “Preview 1 (Left preview)”, then click on the “Save Settings” button on (Preview 2) right preview, it will save the settings of “Preview 1” (left preview)

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Loading a favourited preview doesn’t load it into the preview Window. For example, if I run Iris on the right preview, then favourite it, then run Gaia on the right preview, then click on my favourited Iris, then the UI will tell me it’s switched to Iris and the preview has been processed, but the video being shown is Gaia, not Iris.

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The same issue as above applies to the “Reset to Original” option. The UI tells me it’s the original video, but it’s still showing me the enhanced video.

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When watching a preview, when you reach the end of preview, the preview transitions back to the original and keeps on playing. This is annoying. It should stop, or loop back to the beginning.

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If you load two favourites, the UI doesn’t show the correct information.

E.G. Click on the left preview, select one of your favourites, it will say that the left preview is “Processed”. If you then click on the right preview and select a different favourite, it will say that the right preview is “Processed”, but the left preview is not when it is.

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There is still no performance numbers on the preview windows (E.G. FPS, time taken to process, time left to finish processing, etc)

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Sometimes the preview bars on the timeline are in the wrong position.

For example, I created a preview near the end of the time line, then created another near the beginning. Both preview bars show up on the time line, but when doing stuff like loading favourites, only the bars near the end of the timeline would light up, when the favourites are for the start of the time line.

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Probably other stuff. In the 20 minutes of testing it, many things just keep breaking and it’s hard to tell if it’s the same as some other issue, or even how to reproduce it.

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Aside from all the negative feedback above, thank you for fixing some of the issues I had with the previous version.

[chane2k1]

This new A/B comparison view is confusing to me. To parrot 20rushtonj I also can’t figure out how to set filter settings for preview 1. Can this A/B comparison view be a toggleable feature? I wasn’t having an issue rendering out multiple previews and comparing them before. I liked that the my previews were easily selectable in a list and looped playback in the old UI. I don’t like that in the new view they only seem to be selectable on a small sliver of the timeline. I also like to delete my previews shortly after previewing them, and I don’t clearly see a way to delete my previews in the new view. The Reset to Original option appears to do this, but it also erases the enhancement settings I was testing.

[Imo]

• When I type in the max. memory usage in the preferences the application does not take my input and reverts back to what was set before. Only the slider works.

• First attempt to get a preview failed.
  

  

• 2nd attempt to get a preview failed
  

  

Could be an issue with the 0.1 sec. preview?

• the right split slider does not work before I use the left slider

• I can’t figure out how to get the live preview, or did you get rid of the live preview completely maybe because as an act of desperation?

• “close video” does nothing

[Imo]

Omg my GPU (?) issues returned. Happens maybe twice a week only but still.
These things happened:

• sudden black screen
• sudden black screen and gpu fans ramp up
• sudden shutdown/standby
• sudden rainbow color flickering and black screen gpu fans ramp up after

[joachim.ehrhardt]

Preview while “Process Next …” works fine. That is really usefull! But:
Preview while “Export” does not show the ongoing process: when moving the processing slider, it shows only the processed frames of last “Process Next” followed by the unprocessed original.

[1021258462]

[Processing: U]SMYEP3]Q$P1TIO{9_PU9.png…]()

where is A/B ? i can’t choose A
Running VEAI makes the screen go black and I have to cut the power to shut down and restart the computer!

[mxrevolution]

Hi,

It’s nice that Video AI is getting better and better.
Especially the preview possibilities are important.

ONLY … one important function is missing since V1.7

I do not know how others work.
I usually import 5 or 10 or even 30 videos at the same time.

And if I then have found the right settings for each video in 2h or 3h of previewing…
I let Video AI process the whole queue.
This can take 2 or 3 days.

And then the PC has a problem, apart from Video AI, and must be restarted.
And then you’re rid of the entire queue that you’ve painstakingly created.
It would be very helpful if you could save the queue to import it again if necessary.

I have been asking for this for 2 years.
It would be great if this would be possible in the future.

Thanks Mike

[domdom]

Crash on exit seems to be resolved on Mac, thank you.

If the goal is to pick the right model, could you make the process more efficient by enhancing frames one by one in real time on both windows? then we browse around with left and right arrow keys. each time we pick a frame, enhance that frame on both models. Sure I can choose to generate 0.1s, but this takes more time.

Thanks

[20rushtonj (Alaska)]

@1021258462

where is A/B ? i can’t choose A

You can only choose between A and B in the “Side by Side” preview mode

[joachim.ehrhardt]

Regardless what you choose:
1 is always the original (however indicating your settings), and
2 display processing

[christian.young-6942 (BobOki)]

I am seeing everything this posted stated and I will add some stuff.

There still does not seem to be any way to tell the speed processing is going at, nor is there any % to tell me how far along it is. You hit process next and all you get is Processing until it is done.

There still is nothing showing up in export, you still do not have a way to cancel the processing. App still crashes if you close the app while it is processing, and ffmpeg remains open in background and will process the whole file I assume as I left it running for 20 min.
Once preview has completed, as known issues stated, if they are different frame rates they will show differently in both windows.

I can verify mine did loop back when it was done playing… however both A and B then switched to original videos, B side which I had processed changed to Not Processed and then both A and B continued to loop the original video. I do like the hamburger pulldown options, that is nice to have and right there to open in external player or folder.

One other odd thing is the color grading on both A and B are different. Even before I process anything the picture on the right is brighter, like the saturation or brightness was a few points higher.

Making great forward progress, keep it up guys!

edit throwing in benchmarks too:

Topaz Video AI Beta  v4.0.0.1.b
System Information
OS: Windows v10.22
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz  31.87 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060  11.845 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060  11.845 GB
Processing Settings
device: 0 vram: 0.9 instances: 1
Input Resolution: 1920x1080
Benchmark Results
Artemis		1X: 	09.99 fps 	2X: 	07.50 fps 	4X: 	02.11 fps 	
Iris		1X: 	10.01 fps 	2X: 	05.84 fps 	4X: 	01.90 fps 	
Proteus		1X: 	09.92 fps 	2X: 	07.19 fps 	4X: 	02.07 fps 	
Gaia		1X: 	03.20 fps 	2X: 	02.19 fps 	4X: 	01.48 fps 	
Nyx		1X: 	04.04 fps 	
4X Slowmo		Apollo: 	12.84 fps 	APFast: 	43.17 fps 	Chronos: 	07.62 fps 	CHFast: 	12.43 fps 	

Again this is my slower older box, so I test betas in it.

[Westyjester]

Unfortunately this release seems unstable on my system. After starting any export with v.4.0.0.1.b almost immediately getting blue screen BSOD crashes. The BSOD error before restart says SYSTEM_EXCEPTION_FAILURE. Made three attempts after restart - changing different settings like reducing recover original details to 0, or turning off live preview but get a crash every time.

This was upscaling a 640 X 480 file to 1280 X 720, Proteus auto, H264, MKV container, bitrate dynamic, quality high, audio copy.

Latest Windows updates and RTX 4090 drivers are installed.

Topaz Video AI Beta  v4.0.0.1.b
System Information
OS: Windows v10.22
CPU: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900KF  63.845 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090  23.59 GB
Processing Settings
device: 0 vram: 1 instances: 1
Input Resolution: 1920x1080
Benchmark Results
Artemis		1X: 	45.86 fps 	2X: 	20.78 fps 	4X: 	05.51 fps 	
Iris		1X: 	43.55 fps 	2X: 	21.77 fps 	4X: 	05.67 fps 	
Proteus		1X: 	44.44 fps 	2X: 	19.17 fps 	4X: 	05.31 fps 	
Gaia		1X: 	15.32 fps 	2X: 	11.51 fps 	4X: 	05.07 fps 	
Nyx		1X: 	17.82 fps 	
4X Slowmo		Apollo: 	46.55 fps 	APFast: 	90.99 fps 	Chronos: 	34.51 fps 	CHFast: 	37.75 fps 	

[jo.vo]

I like it much better that the first processed video now is automatically on the right side (as it was with the 3.x versions).
The missing progress indicator, missing fps and remaining time is very annoying.

And while the preview often runs much better / in normal speed it sometimes gets fully stuck (especially if you try to scroll while processing is not fully completed).
And: even after you waited the processing to complete, the preview sometimes shows the original video again and not the processed one:
first as it should be (Iris V1 did quite a good job on Delacing and cleaning up, btw.):

After some scrolling suddenly the original interlaced video is shown in both windows:

[jo.vo]

Oh, and Iris still is abysmally slow on AppleSilicon. About half the speed of Proteus/Artemis while it was only a bit slower in the past, and with the 2x model even more so (about the same speed as 4x).

What about a switch in prefs to force the use of the GPU instead of Neural Engine on Apple Silicon (maybe in the GPU selector?) - as that is MUCH faster on machines with high GPU core count at least for SD material?

[david.123]

Maybe check Windows Event Viewer > System and see what the entries are around the time of your crashes:

It might give some detail as to what’s causing the crashes.

[tony.topazlabs]

Just letting everyone in the thread know: our dev team is super appreciative of your feedback and testing! We’re reading every comment and we plan to have another beta build out soon.

[domdom]

Couldn’t agree more on performance with Iris v1 & v2 on Apple M1 Max (and other Apple Silicon I guess).

[myerpj]

Not bad, pretty good for version 001. It replaced my 3.x version, so, I guess I’m committed now.