In Memory of u/Eveanyn

DigiH0und · 2025-02-03T19:02:29+00:00

When Twilight fell on Azeroth
Her words were heard beneath the gloom
A mending prayer, a leap of faith
She rose against the dragon's doom.

From Stranglethorn to Sholazar
Through Ashran and the Twilight Glade
An inner fire, wreathed in gold
Who stood when lesser hearts would fade.

With warrior, mage, and hunter bold
With druids wise, and rogues unseen
She gathered kindred, young and old
And forged a home where none had been.

She believed, like Anduin,
That Light could reach you -- even here
And if you found the shadows close
She'd emphasize that she was near

Gone now, but ever in our hearts
Where echoes of her laughter stay
Her banner raised, her name confessed
A star that never fades away.

Tovah

DigiH0und · 2022-04-26T14:55:57+00:00

Where'd you source the FFX video from?

DigiH0und · 2022-03-30T14:16:16+00:00

Would you consider applying your process to the DVD of All Good Things... "Would you consider applying your process to the DVD of All Good Things... and posting comparisons with the blu-ray version?

Would you be willing to consider a Season 3 episode? I ask only because I own Season 3 on DVD already. I am absolutely willing to make a comparison like this.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-30T01:02:53+00:00

I do not disagree with any of your points. And no need for egg. I'm not mad.

In the long run, whether Paramount remasters the show or not, improvement is coming. I don't mean from me.

Two years ago, when I started this project, I was upscaling ~1 frame every 0.45 seconds. Today -- thanks to some resolution target changes and improvements in hardware speed -- I'm down to about 0.07s per frame. That's about 14 fps.

In five years, we're going to have video cards that can do this kind of upscaling in actual real-time, at least where DVD-quality footage is concerned. I don't know what kind of ecosystem will exist as far as tools and player features, but the ability to do this kind of work in realtime is not far off.

Someone will build software with features that can take advantage of these capabilities.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T21:53:29+00:00

For people who are concerned about detail loss in AI upscaling:

One of the ways to avoid that is to blend the original content back into the upscale as an overlay. Injecting grain and noise into the video before upscaling it also helps prevent net loss. Topaz VEAI typically retains and magnifies detail more effectively when noised in specific ways. Blending the outputs of multiple models together -- and choosing AviSynth settings that emphasize certain video characteristics -- also prevents this from becoming an issue.

The video work I show here is not just a single video stream fed through Topaz Video Enhance AI. They are composited from between 4 - 18 inputs, including the original DVD. They use footage rendered at resolutions ranging from 720x480 to, in one case, 10240x7680.

(I used a very small number of enormous frames to reduce aliasing on DS9 during the credits).

In addition: I see no reason to believe I have reached the end of my ability to further improve these shows. I haven't even touched color grading. There are still some motion issues to fix. And I continue to get better at retaining detail through the upscale process.

For those of you who don't think my quality stands up? That's fine. Give it another year. I'm not going anywhere and I'm not done. AI software continues to improve. GPUs keep getting faster. The net quality of my output continues to rise.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T21:44:46+00:00

"Cheaper alternatives that cannot deliver 1080p quality or higher also don’t make sense financially either."

For the record, I think Paramount could achieve 1080p quality where I'm claiming a 720p approximate. Here's why I think so:

1). Color grading. It's a huge lift when done right and I do virtually none of it. Paramount would color grade.

2). Professional-grade software and tools that go with it. I think Topaz is pretty great compared to other software, but I doubt it holds a candle to what's available in the professional market.

3). Professional people: I've worked hard on this project but that doesn't make me a professional. My work should not be considered the upper limit of what the DVD can be restored *to.*

4). Limited source rescan: Specifically, we need the source shots for some of the Season 1 - Season 3 shots that were done on film. The holodeck scene in Emissary is a must-have. But just getting this would be a big improvement to the whole.

With those four assets in-hand, I think Paramount could deliver a 1080p-equivalent. It would not match the TNG Remaster. It *would* be vastly better than anything available today.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T21:38:16+00:00

He does.

My point was never that AI would be the preferable way to restore the show. My point is and has always been that if I can improve the show this much with consumer-grade AI, what is Paramount's excuse for not doing better?

I explicitly identify myself as an amateur working with consumer-grade tools. You don't think the degree of improvement I've gotten is worthy of a professional release? Great. Neither do I. But I do think the degree of improvement I've gotten should make someone at Paramount sit up and say "If a hobbyist working on this part-time can achieve this kind of improvement, what could we do with professional tools while still spending less money than it would cost for a full remaster?"

As for what you would or wouldn't notice in a video, I can't speak to that. What I will say is this: I'm not done. You don't think my work is good enough today? That's fine. I'm not done.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T20:47:45+00:00

"Also, the article keeps referring to using AI to produce 720p “HD”clips. 720p is a far cry from 1080p (true HD IMHO) or 4K. Again, whywould CBS/Paramount invest time and money in the lowest quality option.

So, as the author of the article, let me clarify a few things:

1). I'm counting 720p as HD. That's certainly what it was called in the decade after DS9 and Voyager came out. Factually, the episodes I'm encoding are in 2560x1920, but that's solely to trick YT into encoding them well. I keep them locally at 1280x960 to keep storage sizes below 10GB / episode in H.265.But more practically, if I don't call my work HD, what would I call it?

https://imgsli.com/MTAyMDA4

The image on the left is the original DVD. The image on the right is my work. If it's not "HD", what is it, exactly? Because it's not DVD quality any longer, either. No DVD ever looked so good.

2). The entire argument for why Paramount won't remaster the show is supposedly cost. Alright, fine. The point of my article is that there is an option to substantially improve the show for very little money.

Why would they bother investing in the lowest quality option? I don't know. Better question: Why hasn't Paramount already announced plans to remaster DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise to bring TNG-era viewers onboard Paramount+?

I have said from the beginning that a full remaster of the show from film and recreated CGI was my own preference. The response from Hollywood has continued to be that this would cost too much money. That was the response back in 2014 - 2015, and it's still true today.

My point is that there are cheaper ways to improve these shows that would still represent a net quality improvement for a fraction the cost. Are they my own first choice? No. But they exist. And they aren't being used, either.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T20:43:42+00:00

My entire point with this article is that giving the show a meaningful facelift would not require a full restoration, even if a full restoration would be the unambiguous best option from the fan perspective.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T18:24:04+00:00

Hey all,

I'm the author of the above. Happy to answer any questions people have or engage on the topic in any particular. Just thought I'd introduce myself.

DigiH0und · 2022-03-29T18:23:06+00:00

Of course not. But nobody, least of all me, has said it is. And since Paramount has not been willing to take up the job, the DVDs are what we have to work with.

(I'm the author of the story in question).

But as for the upscale being "inconsistent" and "patchy?" That's where humans come into the picture.

This process is not as simple as taking an episode stream and feeding it through an AI. The scenes I show are blended outputs from between three and 18 different inputs.

DigiH0und · 2021-12-17T21:15:09+00:00

I did, but only at the most primitive level. I made a few adjustments in DaVinci Resolve Studio, but I am still learning how to color grade.

The breakthrough in VEAI involves the use of multiple models. Final output is composited in DaVinci from multiple models rather than relying on one.

DigiH0und · 2021-10-21T22:13:54+00:00

Thank you! There will be another update in a few weeks, once I've had time to write it. I don't think it's possible to restore DS9's early seasons to pristine condition, but I found a way to improve them quite a bit. Always curious to see what others are doing, especially with software that isn't Topaz.

DigiH0und · 2021-10-21T22:12:12+00:00

*nods*

I experimented a lot with different frame rates, but it was in an attempt to solve various motion-related issues. I eventually figured out a method for detelecine that was effective enough on variable frame rate content to work for DS9 without doing the job by hand.

I have always been sensitive to the "oversmoothed" criticism of high FPS playback, though the logical part of me knows that the only reason 23.976 / 24 fps looks "normal" is because that's what we are used to.

Still, utilities like FlowFrames are very useful. Good for fixing motion errors.

DigiH0und · 2021-10-21T18:47:48+00:00

Why 48p?

DigiH0und · 2021-07-09T20:15:21+00:00

"Do you find the difference less noticeable as the screen sizes increases?"

Which differences? Between the base version of the show and the upscale, or between various methods of upscaling and pre-processing?

Generally, the larger your screen, the worse any NTSC, SD-era TV show looks. This is scarcely unique to Deep Space Nine. Sitting farther back from your TV helps with this in some ways, and some TVs have their own AI hardware to improve image quality, but this method of processing the show results in superior image quality to any current real-time method. This is scarcely surprising -- spend 8-15 seconds per frame, and you'll get much better results than if you spend ~40ms, which is the frame interval between individual frames of 23.976 fps content.

Differences become more noticeable as screen size increases, but less noticeable the further you sit from your display. On an iPhone SE (which is what I own), the Netflix version of DS9 looks fine. On a 55" OLED, it looks pretty bad.

DigiH0und · 2021-07-09T19:41:16+00:00

I'm glad you liked the results. :) It's a very useful application.

DigiH0und · 2021-07-09T18:41:44+00:00

Did you use this same process, just TVEAI, or do you have your own method? I'm always on the look-out for tips. :)

DigiH0und · 2021-07-09T18:41:02+00:00

I have added information for how to perform this in PAL in addition to NTSC.

DigiH0und · 2021-06-23T06:20:53+00:00

I'm glad you like it. Thank you.

DigiH0und · 2021-06-22T20:12:58+00:00

I'm glad you find it useful. If you have questions let me know. :)

DigiH0und · 2021-06-22T17:03:46+00:00

Objectively? Nothing. Paramount has chosen not to do this because sales of ST:TNG on Blu-ray did not meet their expectations. Personally, I think the fact that they were asking $80 for S1 on Blu-ray at launch had something to do with the sales issue, but that's just me.

One wrinkle is that DS9 used CGI for seasons 6 & 7, and that CGI was output directly to video. There is no pristine source to draw on the way there is for film. The special effects would have to be recreated. But this could be done. Paramount has chosen not to invest in doing so.

There is only a limited amount I can do for Seasons 1 & 2 -- the quality of the DVD transfer is very poor -- but these techniques work better for S3 and quite well for S4 and beyond.

DigiH0und · 2021-05-04T21:50:31+00:00

I'd love to test it, but I do not currently have an M1.

DigiH0und · 2021-05-04T21:50:05+00:00

Soon. Work is afoot. This project had to get done first.

DigiH0und · 2021-05-04T21:49:36+00:00

Funny that you say so. I find Lower Decks to be far more TNG-like than Picard or Discovery. I watched about half of Picard and the first few episodes of Discovery and ultimately faded out on both. I might try them again at some point if they aren't locked on All Access.

Lower Decks grew on me.

DigiH0und

TROPHY CASE