When viewing my videos while processing I’m seeing a beatiful upscale.
Colors and black levels are exactly as original.
This is exactly what I want. Just a great upscale.
But when I’m viewing the output videos they are all boosted garish looking.
Even black and white video output I can’t use.
Is there any way to avoid this?
Or could a function be added to avoid it?
As is, the software I paid for is completely useless to me.
I cannot confirm this.
My results look good during upscaling AND when i watch them on my pc with kodi on a 82" QLED TV.
Remember the upscaling control screen on the right is much smaller than the final viewing in fullscreen. On smaller screens many videos look better than on on biscreen/fullscreen.
Now the question is HOW do you watch your results/videos?
Are the player settings correct? ALL Color settings, not just saturation.
Some users recommended disableing any digital enhancements on TV’s.
Sharpness settings.
And yes it makes a difference when i watch my videos direct from pc/kodi with hdmi to the TV/Screen OR from USB stick in the TV OR as a stream from kodi on the same pc (network(not hdmi)
I must confess when i zap through my collections, i often have to change my TV/player settings for each video individual. Too bright, too dark, to sharp, not sharp enough, too much color, not enough color… almost every video is different. And then comes your personal taste in …
My mother likes the same movie with color boost settings at 100%
I get a headache from that colorbomb …
IN some videos i like to have that extreme soft wax skin look, on others i like it ultra sharp and real.
There is NO “1 for all” setting.
I screencapped it. There’s a huge difference.
The software applies post processing after the upscale.
I have also seen many example other than my own where I know what the video is supposed to look like. same thing.
I sometimes put a lot of work into videos to restore the colors. Work that is thrown out by this software.
All I want to do is upscale without post processing.
It shouldn’t be impossible.
Try to use Pro Res format as output and use 10 bit when compressing the final video, it will not only increase the quality / size ratio of the final video, but also much less color issues.
The Pro Res output is already post-processed.
The damage has been done.
Strange. this only happens to me if I feed VEAI already burnt whites / crushed blacks, or if I feed it 8bit footage. This never ever happened with any of the models since I have started feeding 10 bit footage to the program.
Quite easy to make this happen in my workflow as I restore old interlaced DVD footage, and for this I use Staxrip with QTGMC using x264 10bit as output codec.
I did exactly what you said.
The VEAI output is exactly as I described.
Completely oversaturated.
It must be related to your workflow or your source footage, I have done some tests and I can only reproduce your problem in situations I described in my previous messages.
It also sometimes happens if I enable 16-235 → 0-255 shader in my video player (MPC-BE) on some high contrast footage.
All the other videos I have processed so far have no issue at all with burnt whites or crushed black…
Do you have an example of video giving you these results ?
It could also be an issue with your player using a default colorspace that is inappropriate to your video. Try enforcing the correct colorspace on the output video.
It’s not the source or the player.
I’ve tried many sources. I’m playing in VLC. Side by side on the same screen.
I’m quite convinced VEAI applies simple “enhancement” to saturation and contrast.
I just ran some video with little contrast and washed out colors.
The result has the change, but looks reasonable with the original being so bleak.
Then I ran another video that was overly saturated to begin with.
It also has the boosted effect and now looks completely over the top.
Any half way professional product would allow me to opt out of such changes.
There are minute color changes most of the time that you cannot simply disable. It’s a side-effect inherent to the way the neural network works. However I’ve never seen anything on a scale you mention. Why don’t you post a side-by-side so we can see for ourselves?
I’m not seeing any minute changes in the software.
The left and right preview show the exact same color and contrast. Exactly what I want.
The differences are only in the output file.
I’ll see if I get the time and inspiration to make an example.
Well if you don’t provide a sample for reproduction or at least a comparison I don’t what anybody can do to help.
This is not to show how bad it can get. An image with more saturation and contrast to begin with would be much worse. But it shows what I’m talking about.
I tried MP4 output after I tried ProRes, but the output has yellow skintones. Too much work to salvage.
For ProRes output I applied a lowering of saturation of exactly 10%, and the same for contrast.
It brought the image right back to what the preview looks like.
In other words, I was right that the output is manipulated.
I also found another problem in that StaxRip is unable to process the file.
It complains about colorspace. I don’t understand the error.
I’m not used to any other program that can adjust colors on output, so I’m stuck there.
Thanks for showing us these. I think I know understand why I didn’t notice the problem before : simply because of perception of quality. As you know video quality has a strong subjective aspect (beyond obvious objective quality aspects). I realize that my perception bias tells me your ProRes output looks better, and that is wrong.
First let me tell you that you did indeed exaggerate : there is no way you can consider this as having burnt whites or crushed blacks. But you are indeed correct when considering the result should reflect what the preview shows you - for obvious reasons.
Now I still can’t replicate a similar situation, and even had to face the opposite, until I realized MPC-BE player does not handle color space properly when trying to play ProRes.
In all fairness, your best bet for now is to use that 10% correction that seems to fix it, in the hope Topaz Labs will investigate this.
As for Staxrip, my version (2.1.7.0) opens the generated ProRes files without any issue. But If you are using x264 codec, make sure you choose vspipe y4m in your input/output options sections, and try to set profile as automatic. If you use x265, just set profile to automatic.
As for the filters from AVISynth and VapourSynth, some unfortunately have color space restrictions that require to add a conversion before using them.
That is indeed odd. Could you post details about the video (MediaInfo is a great tool for that)? It must be in an odd colorspace or pixel format that forces VEAI to do some conversions.
I was completely wrong on this.
It’s VLC player that doesn’t play the file correctly.
Sorry for wasting people’s time.
I have better eyes than knowledge about video processing.
If I had been able to process the ProRes file I would have figured it out early.
Thanks for the suggestions on StaxRip, it removed the error messages.
Unfortunately the program still won’t process the file.
Sorry.
Just in case someone needs it, I finally was able to get StaxRip to accept ProRes files.
I followed Macadamia’s tips above, but also set “Source” as “LibavSMASHsource”
Then after the file loads I switch source to automatic, then back again to LibavSMASHsource.
After that it works.
Without flipping source it won’t work, that was my problem.
Actually, it is not VLC. I have the same issue when I import in premiere. My original has a nice soft tone to it and the processed files have on import crushed blacks (so higher contrast) and more saturation.
