SuperResolution plugin 1.0

SuperResolution plugin 1.0 offers an effective tool which helps you to use information from neighbor frames to upsize current frame. It provides more details than any known upsize method. Now you can convert SD video to HD! The plugin contains two modes of super-resolution and a Lanczos resize method which can serve as a fast high-quality replacement for bicubic resize. All modes give much sharper and detailed video than built-in scale transform. The upsize method used in this plugin works only with progressive video (not interlaced). The plugin can also be used to downsize video with good quality.

You may use this free trial as long as you want. Unregistered version adds watermark over the video. Register to turn off the watermark.

Where it works?

This version was tested in After Effects 7.0 and Premiere Pro 2.0 but may probably work in other versions (reported to work in AE 6.5).

Warning: this upsize method works only with progressive video. If you want to upsize interlaced video you should either deinterlace it or separate fields and recombine them back after upsizing. 

Comparison of different video upsize methods

1. Included methods:
   • Zoom - simplest method of enlarging each pixel 4 times, also called "nearest neighbor".
   • Bicubic resize - internal resize filter of VirtualDub, bicubic spline interpolation. Same resize method is used in vast number of players and apps.
   • Lanczos3 - same VirtualDub filter, Lanczos3 method.
   • Lanczos3+sharpen - sequential application of two internal VirtualDub filters: first Lanczos3 resize and then sharpen filter with its parameter set to 40.
   • Video Enhancer - using super-resolution in high quality mode. This technology is also available as Adobe After Effects plugin (see SuperResolution plugin).
   • Topaz Enhance - a plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 was used, Enlarge filter with default parameters.
   • Instant HD - a plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 from Red Giant Software. Demo variant was used that leaves "watermark" on result, so it was impossible to correctly calculate objective metric (PSNR) for this method.
   • DA Resizer sharp - Resizer v2.2 from Digital Anarchy, a plug-in for Adobe After Effects, best sharp mode.
   • DA Resizer smooth - the same plug-in, best smooth mode.
2. Process of comparison
   • Five video sequencies, 45-100 frames each, were taken. Each video was downsized 4 times by applying twice bilinear resize (to half size) in VirtualDub, so 5 low-res videos were created. Then each low resolution video was upsized 4 times using different methods described above. Then for each video an objective metric of similarity between original hi-res and upsized video was calculated. For such metric Y-PSNR was chosen (quite standard way for comparing videos, used in industry and science).
3. Results
   • Below you can see a table of Y-PSNR values for each video. Each value is average PSNR for whole video, not for particular frame. Roll your mouse over table cells to see sample video frames. By moving your mouse up and down you can easily compare amount of details provided with each method (and its artifacts, if any).

Major Features:

1. Convert SD video to HD
2. Uses information from neighbor frames to upsize current frame.
3. Accumulates information
4. Process the more sequential frames
5. Have  3 quality modes: High speed SR, High quality SR and Lanczos.
   • First two modes differ in speed and result quality.
   • The last one is just Lanczos upscaling without super-resolution. This mode is also used when you set "low quality" for chosen layer in After Effects.
     

Requirements:

• Adobe After Effects
• Premiere Pro