Product Updates
Since last month’s update you can now seek or trim by frames, enjoy faster frame interpolation, and access legacy AI models from previous versions.
Seek or trim by frame
You can now display playhead position by frame # after selecting the option in Preferences → General → Timecode Display Format
:
This means that you can now seek or trim by frame number instead of timecode:
After enabling this option, you can also specify desired preview duration in frames rather than seconds. We’ve put a lot of effort into improving timeline accuracy as part of this change, so you will get a more consistent seek experience with both frame and timecode. Read more in the Trim documentation.
Significantly faster Apollo model
You can now select a new “Apollo Fast” model in the Frame Interpolation filter:
While we’ve also increased the speed of regular Apollo, Apollo Fast is still about 300-400% faster for generating 2x or 4x frames:
There’s a few things to consider when you select a frame interpolation model. In general:
- Use Apollo when you need exactly 2x, 4x, or 8x frame count multiple. For example, converting from 30 → 60fps at 200% slow motion would require exactly 4x the frames.
- Use Apollo Fast when speed is a factor and you require exactly 2x or 4x frames.
- Use Apollo when you desire the best quality or if you need 8x frames.
- Use Chronos (Fast) for other frame multiples, like converting from 24 → 60 FPS.
These aren’t hard and fast rules; sometimes one model might unexpectedly give you better results than another more “optimal” model. We also plan on further improving the quality of Apollo Fast in a future update. For more details and recommendations, please read the Frame Interpolation docs.
Enable legacy AI models
If you want to use an AI model from a previous version of the app, you can now enable this option in Preferences → Application
:
You will be then be able to select earlier versions of most AI models in each filter:
Our core value comes from the quality of our AI models, so we’ve shipped dozens of model releases over the last few years. While newer models will generally perform better on most videos, because of the nature of model development we can’t guarantee that they will perform better on all videos. This new feature makes it convenient for you to use older versions if you already know they perform well on your footage.
That said, we want to focus all our energy on developing new models instead of maintaining older ones that will likely become obsolete soon. Thus, we consider the Legacy Models unsupported, and we won’t optimize them or fix future compatibility issues. We’ll continue working hard on improving model quality, but we hope this option gives you more choice in the meantime. Read more in the Legacy Models docs.
Other improvements
- Added a preference option to automatically remove older previews
- Maximum Processes preference includes warning for higher settings
- Added overwrite warning for image sequence exports and fixed export location
- Fixed persistent temp files on export
- Double-clicking Mac title bar now maximizes correctly
- Removed the timeline preview duration indicator
- Many interface, stability, and quality of life improvements
For the full list of changes, please read the individual release threads for v3.2.6, v3.2.5, v3.2.4, and v3.2.3.
Coming Soon
We’re focusing on improving model visual quality and app usability in the next couple of months:
- New enhancement and upscaling model with better face recovery (beta)
- Add scene change detection to improve Stabilization and Frame Interpolation quality for videos with multiple scenes.
- Add option to pause and resume exports.
- Faster playback and seeking in the in-app preview.
- Allow applying a second Enhancement pass without exporting and re-importing.
- Improve Themis (Motion Deblur) quality with object motion.
- Improve Output Settings interface and audio transcode options, including bitrate control.
- Improve Video Output list interface for comparing multiple previews and parameters.
Topaz Video AI is intended to be a visual quality tool for professional creators, so in the longer term we’re also considering closer integration with popular NLEs. If you’re interested in testing new features before they’re released, please apply for the video beta program.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks for using Topaz Video AI!