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Upscaling old tv show intros with AI -- Tales from the Crypt tested first.

Kinggroin

Kinggroin

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Update, more added:

Edit: Audio is loud
youtu.be

Tales from the Crypt - intro (4K)

*Headphone users -- this audio is loud*Taken from the Demon Knight source DVD and scaled up with machine learning. Unfortunately the original full frame 4:3 ...
youtu.be youtu.be


youtu.be

Goosebumps - intro (HD)

Wow, this one came out phenomenal. Source is the US DVD.Not much else to say here; I'm very pleased with the results -- enjoy!
youtu.be youtu.be
.
youtu.be

Monsters - intro (HD)

Based on a decent SD Youtube upload, and put through two passes, here's a squeaky clean (maybe too clean) version of the Monsters intro.Side bar:There's actu...
youtu.be youtu.be

Takes From the Darkside
youtu.be

Tales From the Darkside - intro (HD)

Taken from the excellent starting point uploaded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwHte61YC_Q Gave this a double pass through the AI upscaler to pull in...
youtu.be youtu.be
Freddy's Nightmares

So I have a 30 day trial of Topaz' AI upscaling software and decided to use that time to process old opening intros to horror tv shows that never saw an HD release (or an HD sample on YouTube). For funsies.

I did Tales from the Crypt first (using a Demon Knight source DVD) and the results -- at least on mobile -- aren't bad. The original 4:3 source from the tv show opening couldn't be used due to the horrible combing artifacts, even when taken through a deinterlacing application. So for now, cropped is the best I can do. Enjoy.
 
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kai3345

kai3345

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Oct 25, 2017
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it's probably already been done before but maybe the buffy the vampire slayer & angel intros?
 

ThreePi

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Dec 7, 2017
4,773
I'd need to see before/afters because it didn't seem that spectacular to me. I remember registering for a trial for Topaz AI thinking I'd use it to try to up-res some old videos I had only to realize that it would take literal days to do one video on a 1080.
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

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Oct 27, 2017
5,804
I'd love to see if anything can be salvaged from Married With Children. My finacee has asked me to add her DVDs to the Plex server, and holy crap is that show's picture quality really low.

I'd also be curious to see if you could do anything to something from the early SD seasons of Mythbusters.
 
Bradford

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Aug 12, 2018
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It does look good, but there's a lot of grain on the source, it seems. It also looks like it only uploaded up to 1440p on youtube.

That being said, would love to see more.
 

Deleted member 11985

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I'd watch it. It loses a bit of that foggy, fever dream-esque quality that I seem to remember that show having, but watching it in HD would still be an interesting experience.
 
louiedog

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Oct 25, 2017
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I have the Nvidia Shield TV Pro and the upscaling for old SD shows can look absolutely amazing. I'm sure it doesn't compare to something rendered separately and given the time to do it right, but being able to do it in real time with just about any source I throw at it is extremely convenient and useful.
 
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Kinggroin

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ThreePi said:
I'd need to see before/afters because it didn't seem that spectacular to me. I remember registering for a trial for Topaz AI thinking I'd use it to try to up-res some old videos I had only to realize that it would take literal days to do one video on a 1080.
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I have the original DVD release and the Demon Knight DVD, and the intro (especially in the former) look god awful. Super smudgy stuff filled with interlace artifacts, although the original series DVD set at least has it in the correct aspect ratio.

This AI upscaled version isn't great by any means, but it's better than all the stuff I have on hand.

Hopefully we get an official Blu someday.

Bradford said:
It does look good, but there's a lot of grain on the source, it seems. It also looks like it only uploaded up to 1440p on youtube.

That being said, would love to see more.
Click to expand...
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I chose an algorithm that retained the grain in the source. Felt right to do so.
 
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Kinggroin

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If anyone cares, I also added The Munsters.
Goosebumps is being worked on now (holy shit it's current sources are in really bad shape)

youtu.be

The Munsters - intro (HD)

Sourced from POP COLORTURE's amazing colorization found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmiBjJFOSA Upscaled using Topaz' AI Video software, first to S...
youtu.be youtu.be
 
Darknight

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Oct 25, 2017
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I feel like the awful YouTube compression is making these look worse than the actual outcome from the upscale.
 
Dodongo

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Oct 25, 2017
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HBO getting full rights to Tales and remastering it is one of the things I want most in life.
 
CatAssTrophy

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Watched them back to back and couldn't really make out much difference to be honest. I think the source footage itself is too hazy and out of focus in a lot of areas to really tell, especially the opening shot of the house/lawn.
 
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Kinggroin

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ElRenoRaven said:
And already claimed by NBC/Universal
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ROFL. In the US and Canada anyway.
What's wild is that the colorized source is at nearly a million views with seemingly no copyright strikes.

*sigh*

Darknight said:
I feel like the awful YouTube compression is making these look worse than the actual outcome from the upscale.
Click to expand...
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At full res (4K desktop or 1440p mobile) vs the original version posted in the OP, there should be a noticeable difference. But you're still right, YouTube compression does these compares no favors. Doesn't help how poor looking the source was to begin with as well.
 
PennyStonks

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May 17, 2018
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I have the first two seasons of DS9 up-scaled. They look fantastic. I'm waiting for a better GPU before I bother with more tho. Takes like 6 hours for an episode on my 1080ti
 

nitewulf

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Nov 29, 2017
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In motion there are a lot of artifacts but during more static shots it does look pretty good. I used Topaz for denoising some of my low light photographs, that capability was pretty decent.
 
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Kinggroin

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Nida said:
Think you'd ever do a full season, or maybe a best-of collection?
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Unless it looks completely hopeless that we'd get a Blu-ray release, probably not. Wouldn't be worth my electric bill honestly.

Though I'll likely do my top ten favs.

wlatham92 said:
Doing god's work. This looks fantastic.
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Thank you kindly, but the people who come up with these machine learning algorithms are the ones deserving of praise. I'm just doing what any horror fan in my position would (should?) do.
 
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Kinggroin

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Landy828

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Kinggroin said:
As promised (not as good as I would have hoped, but given the low quality sources floating around, it's at least something)
youtu.be

Power Rangers Season 1 Intro (HD)

Upscaled from SD source ripped from a DVD
youtu.be youtu.be
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Thanks!

I watched it side by side with an OG Res version and it definitely cleans up peoples faces/hair well. It does well on regular scenery, and makes bright graphics pop. Seems the only thing it has trouble with is thin text or really smooth/round objects.
 

Deleted member 8752

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Can you do Reboot?
71gE4jOdpoL._RI_.jpg
 
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Kinggroin

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Landy828 said:
Thanks!

I watched it side by side with an OG Res version and it definitely cleans up peoples faces/hair well. It does well on regular scenery, and makes bright graphics pop. Seems the only thing it has trouble with is thin text or really smooth/round objects.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yep, agreed. The AI definitely has problems dealing with visual artifacts and anomalies. It doesn't know to clean up stuff like ringing or ghosting or dot crawl, and instead attempts to enhance it.

I'm curious to see if another kind of AI can do a better job here. Something like Ergan perhaps.

Peltz said:
Can you do Reboot?
71gE4jOdpoL._RI_.jpg
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If I can I'll update this thread.

Also, looks like this initiative has gained the attention of bigger press
https://bloody-disgusting.com/video...sic-intro-hbos-tales-crypt-glorious-hd-video/
 
holtz

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Seeing this makes me dream of DS9 being completely AI remastered someday.

 
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Gaia Lanzer

Gaia Lanzer

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Oct 25, 2017
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Speaking about Tales from the Crypt and old anthology shows, there's a LOT of them filmed for TV that could benefit from this sorta thing. I recall watching a youtube vid about the 80s Twilight Zone episode with the Shadow Man (I think it was directed by Joe Dante) where they said there'd be no way to release such episodes on blu-ray because how they used to film these tv shows back in the day. Seeing those 80s shows, including stuff like Darkroom, Monsters, Tales from the Darkside, Freddy's Nightmares, hell, even extend that into the 90s Are You Afraid of the Dark and Goosebumps, that could be brilliant as fuck!
 
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