NNEDI for FFMPEG

[Koopa Luath]

What is the best way to use FFMPEG to upconvert a 480p file (either native or converted from 480i using the Yadif filter) to 1080p with the NNEDI filter? Because I was thinking of using it for my projects, along with Valeyard's Motion-Adaptive script, both as necessary.

[Jetrell Fo]

Isn't that kind of a stretch, going from 480p/i to 1080p? I mean, there's got to be some residual issues that would stick out, maybe I'm wrong too. LOL

[Koopa Luath]

No, I'm pretty sure NNEDI was designed for upscaling, unless I'm missing something.

[Stamper]

For upscaling best to use TVIscale in Nuke. Major films are upscaled that way to 4K.

[Koopa Luath]

Thanks, but unless I can afford it, or else it has a free version which isn't too severely limited, I tend to shy away from proprietary software. Is there an alternative to Nuke which involves freeware or free-to-use shareware?

[zoidberg]

I've never used NNEDI but I know PDB uses it in some way for his upscale projects. Hopefully he can offer some advice at some point.

[spoRv]

NNEDI is a great for upscale; best result, according to many, is achieved upscaling by the power of 2 (2x, 4x, 8x) then eventually downscale using another algorhythm, like spline or other...

What I can say, there is no one-fit-for-all upscaling (and downscaling) technique, your mileage may vary!

[PDB]

I've never used NNEDI but I know PDB uses it in some way for his upscale projects. Hopefully he can offer some advice at some point.

I do indeed. I believe the general consensus is that right now NNDEI is the best scaler in Avisynth and if you want to exploit it; learning Avisynth is your best bet. I can back up NNDEI being the best through all the tests I've done but there are some much, much better Avisynth wizards here who can chime in. I do have to say that I don't use straight vanilla NNDEI but use it as a multiplying scaler in superresolution.

Running back to what Stamper said. TVIscale is also very good at what it does. It uses inpainting to "guess" details similar to high end scalers. It has been used in some productions to scale footage for 4K delivery. You can get a free version of Nuke from their site, just look for the non-commercial version which limts you to 1080p output (you just have to add a downscale node at the end of your chain and set it to 1080p).

Both ways will get work done it just what are you more comfortable with. Avisynth is made by fans and is tailored to that have tools to fix the inherit errors in SD footage. Nuke is professional and is more tailored to that. It is also graphic and node based which some people find easier and some harder.

I general use Avisynth more since Nuke is better with image sequences then straight video. Avi also has better tools for fix crappy DVDs.

(Ultimately I'd like to use both together and get the temporal scaling done by SR in Avi and then spacial scaling done with TVI in Nuke)

[Koopa Luath]

So basically, the idea would be to use NNEDI and AviSynth to upscale it by 4x in VirtualDub and then downscale it using a spacial scaling filter? This looks like a job for the new laptop I plan on getting at some point in the near future, but for now I think my Core i3 350M processor should do the job fine. Right?

[PDB]

Yep that's it and downscale with spline as spoRv suggested. You'll have to test whether your i3 can do that.