Video Roadmap Update (March 2023)

Product Updates

Since last month’s roadmap update, you can now get vastly improved slow motion and FPS conversion with a new version of the Apollo AI model.

Better Apollo frame interpolation

We’ve released a completely new version of Apollo that produces significantly more natural results for difficult footage. This new release outperforms our older Apollo / Chronos AI models and decisively surpasses optical flow for footage with nonlinear motion.

Let’s compare slow motion using Optical Flow (left) vs Topaz Video AI’s new Apollo model (right). Notice the interpolation quality in areas of rapid motion, such as on the dog’s paws:

For this next video, follow the arm from the top left as it moves through the frame:

Finally, observe how natural the dancer’s hair and arms appear:

Introduced in v3.0, the first Apollo model specialized in interpolating frames for nonlinear motion and blurry footage. This new Apollo uses a completely new model architecture and improved dataset to achieve sharper and more natural results than the initial release. We’re very proud of these results and hope you find Apollo useful!

Use Apollo for up to 8x frame interpolation

Apollo always generates 8x frames from your input video and drops unneeded ones depending on your desired output. In general:

  • Use Apollo when you require 8x or fewer frames
  • Use Chronos Fast when you require more than 8x frames, or when reducing FPS

For example, use Apollo if you want to convert a video from 30 → 60 FPS and slow it by 400% since that requires 8x the input frames. If you’re not sure which model to use, queue up a preview for both Apollo and Chronos Fast, then toggle between the two versions to see which one you prefer.

We’re now quite satisfied with the quality of Topaz Video AI’s frame interpolation, so will now refocus on improving our general enhancement models.

Other improvements

We’ve also improved the stability, performance, and quality of the app over the past month:

  • Slightly improve Motion Deblur quality and fix some edge cases
  • Detect and re-download corrupted model files
  • Temp files are deleted more consistently
  • App now releases file when input file is released
  • Performance benchmarking tool
  • Upgrade to FFmpeg 6
  • Fix various crashes and stability issues
  • Improve tooltip and error messaging
  • [Win] ProRes 422 HQ/LT output takes less disk space
  • [Win] Nvidia H.265 output plays in Mac native apps

To see a full list of weekly changes over the past month, read the v3.1.9, v3.1.8, v3.1.7, and v3.1.6 release threads.

Roadmap Update

We’re actively working on a few priorities to improve the core value of Topaz Video AI:

  1. Improved quality enhancement model that gives more natural results with faces.
  2. Smoother in-app preview experience with better scrubbing / seeking and preview syncing.
  3. Further improve processing speed and better support running multiple processes.

Also on deck are more quality of life improvements like crash recovery, trim experience, and batch-downloading models. To improve general stability we’ve been actively investigating your bug reports and fixing appropriate issues in our weekly releases.

Thanks in advance for your feedback. We look forward to delivering another month of improvements to you!

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Sounds good BUT I am really waiting for pause/resume. That is the most important thing for me. I hope that is on the horizon.

Cheers

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`Please please make cropping something I don’t need to do manually each time and show the cropping numbers so at least I can write them down. I really want cut and paste for cropping and the above would at least help.
I’m very often processing video that has been through the same cameras etc and on occasions more of the same footage. Unless the cropping is identical when I have to edit the two outputs together there will always be a jump.

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Can’t wait to try the new Apollo model: frame interpolation in Topaz - and the software in general - has saved my skin on several occasions since I bought it a few months ago… amazing work, folks!!

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Cool thank you for always improving the product, as you say, this makes it still valuable if not more as time passes. Not all people are looking for the same features, but eventually some come anyways.

" 1. Improved quality enhancement model that gives more natural results with faces."

This would be great. I feel that including a process that improve faces, such as with Photo AI, would for sure slow the process, but if you can implement it as an option, leaving us the choice to deal with a longer process, some will be willing to choose the sacrifice for the sake or way better faces. Until it can become more natural of course.

I am sure that if this is implemented, I would not hesitate to renew my upgrades subscription another year.

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I’m still hoping a Premiere Plugin in in the works, so I wouldn’t have to export clips before using Topaz Video AI on them.

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Topaz Team, please do not waste your resources on a Premiere Plugin! That software is trash and you deserve better. Keep doing what you’re doing. The improvements have been stellar!

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I would not have any problem with sacrificing time as long if we can get

  1. Improved quality enhancement model that gives more natural results with faces."
    at the moment artemis moire does work somewhat in removing artifacts of processed videos but we are all waiting for this feature slow motion apollo interpolation is a nice to have but for most of us a feature not a must
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Not to forget the option to select and cut via frame numbers instead of time stamps!

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If Apollo can improve on these issues, I will experience its changes.

I would like an easier trim method. If you want to trim a huge video it’s hard to do. A retrim needs to use the previous trim as a basis, makes it more accurate to trim

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What i loved to see added topaz is an ai automated proces of perspective correction of 3D material. Any release that isnt a super big budjet suffers from this. Its is crusial that left and right images ( every pixel) are in the same height in both left and right channel. Its something the Viewer dont see but the
Ffuther thry are a part the worse the eye comfort gets untill the image stereo brakes down. This would be something that would be super Easy to do with ai to fix but manually huge huge work.

I’m a professional editor. Have ben for close to 30 years now. I edit on Avid, DR, FCPX, and Premiere Pro. Actually, I can edit on anything after about 10 min sit-down with the U! I’ve been using PP since CS 6. Your comet is misinformed, misguided and untrue. PP is a great tool for editing, grading, mixing (Audition), Exporting. I am not a fan boy for any software. But I am an administrator for a professional PP editors group on Facebook. It’s the largest group dedicated to Pro editors that work with PP. So I both troubleshoot issues for members and read every issue posted and troubleshooting advice given. PP is no more problematic than DR, Avid, FCPX and I am a member of professional user groups for each NLE. All NLEs have issues But some would rather whine about an NLE they can’t manage rather than find out the pathway of a solution. Check you baseless opinions at the door. They help no one.

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The idea that Topaz should build a Premiere plugin is absurd. If you have this much time to share to the websites you entertain yourself with late at night then you should have enough time to run your exports through the Topaz Video app where these people are creating miracles. I stand firm on the basis of my comment that they should not waste their time with Premiere.

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I don’t care about your comment regarding waist of time. What you said was that PP is “trash”. You offer just a self-important whine about PP but don’t explain why anyone should take your word for it. You may be foolishly firm on your stance regarding PP being “trash” but I can’t imagine any critical thinker taking you seriously including myself. I’m done with you.

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You folks are seriously kicking butt with the updates and enhancements. And I’m no fanboy. I come to Topaz like others here with a critical eye. I use your software for professional purposes as an editor/film maker and I won’t use anything that’s not ready to please my clients. Thank you for all your hard and intelligent work. Keep up the good fight!

While I’m very happy with all the progress lately, I would like to see scene change detection implemented before we call the interpolation models done and dusted. Generating interpolated frames between scene changes is leading to obvious visual quality degradation and really needs to be addressed before moving on.

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Hopefully they are working on it (it would be nice to know either way) because duplicate frames removal must involve making frame to frame comparisons, with action when a certain level of frame difference is detected. So detecting scene changes (without removing a frame) should hopefully be a fairly simple process as the level of frame difference would be much greater,

Then, work the detected scene change into the interpolation process. Or am I missing something obvious?

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I don’t think it should be difficult to implement, and would also like official confirmation it’s being worked on or at least considered. As it stands the interpolation models are generating blurred mess frames in between scene changes.

Thank you for your efforts!
I hope the variable frame rate videos with repetitive frames (2 or more consecutives), which have choppy playback, are also going to be in your scope later on. :slight_smile:
One example would be, when there’s a recording of a game, mostly 60fps, but at some points it gets choppy, because of a CPU/GPU hiccup, some sudden slowdown or disk I/O congestion. Then, the recording would usually show repetitive frozen frames with irregular fps.