Upscaling to 4k and a later version of h264vid.exe

[hutch--]

I have put a video test piece on Youtube so that the results can be seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KXWJD6KbTA

There are two files in the attached zip file. One is a minor update to h264vid.exe to use larger fonts in the two text boxes and it now has a dark interface to cut down eyestrain.

The second file is the one I have spent the last week writing and nitpicking, an app to upscale lower res video to 4k. I have been experimenting with a technique or multi pass sharpen for some time and the design is to make multiple passes starting with a large radius (matrix size) and progressively reduce the matrix size while increasing the amount of unsharp mask sharpening.

It does 4 preset passes where the sharpening rate is user defined and a final pass where the user can set the details of the final pass. If the results are a bit too soft, the h264vid.exe app can do an extra pass if needed. Results so far have been good in that the final pass does not have to be as strong which reduces the outlining that over sharpening often delivers.

You cannot add more detail that is not there but you can if you get it right enhance the detail level so the results display at 4k and looks OK.

Note that the technique is not designed for old or damaged low res video, it requires reasonably good quality low res footage to get decent results. It has been good on high quality 1080 footage and can produce a usable result from 720 footage if it is well done.

The "About" button explain most of what it does and there is a "pauses" button and option that allows a pause between each pass for laptops and computers that do not have the cooling for high workloads.

Something I should have added, you must have "ffmpeg" installed on the path of your computer. If you don't have a late version, download the Windows version from the ffmpeg web site.

https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-release-full.7z
SHA256: 3b18ea042dcc0865435f1a03d2c363f7bfd7cf8b52a3081253bc9d6afd1d823f

I have never had a problem with the downloads but some folks like to use the SHA256.

[hutch--]

Source is attached. Its reasonably tidy but it was "knife and forked" a number of times as I changed my mind a number of times while developing it. I have been getting good results upscaling good quality 1080 to 4k but it is not well suited for very low quality video or very old video made from film shot long ago as it will amplify any video noise and scratches and produce very ugly results.

[HSE]

At least last tool tottally 64 bits

[stoo23]

thanks