View Full Version : How well does "super resolution" work?


Alen Koebel
August 19th, 2011, 08:44 AM
There are several products out there that claim to be able to scale SD video to HD resolution much better than a standard re-sizing (re-sampling) operation, such as bicubic or Lanczos. Apparently, the concept is that the extra information available in successive frames can be used to reconstruct additional detail. Before I spend any money on one of these products (e.g., Video Enhancer (http://www.infognition.com/VideoEnhancer)) or invest the time to test trial versions I'd like to know if anyone else has tried them. Do any of them actually work? Frankly, the improvements in actual resolution comparing to standard re-sizing shown in some of the comparisons of single frames seem moderate. Is the difference more noticeable on actual moving content?

Andrew Smith
August 24th, 2011, 02:53 AM
I expect there would be an even better way.

The manufacturers of large screen TVs would have learnt all the tricks of de-blocking (removing subtle compression artifacts) and up-rezzing SD footage for display on a HD screen. I've seen footage that I shot played on one of these screens from a DVD and looking pretty stunningly sharp.

What I would suggest is playing your footage through one of these TV sets and capturing the HD version through the video output connections. If you have a TV where this is possible then it's worth a try.

Andrew