P-Video Upscale: make an old clip sharp, one checklist

A clip that looked fine on a phone looks soft on a big screen. The usual reaction is to reshoot, which is not an option for a wedding, a family video or a product demo you only have in one take. P-Video Upscale is the other option: you give it a video, name a bigger size, and it returns the same clip at that size with the same framing and the original sound. It is one of the simplest models on the models page to use well, as long as you do the checklist below first.

Step 1: decide what the clip is for

The target size should come from where the clip will be shown, not from the biggest option in the list. A clip that goes on a phone feed gains nothing from the largest size, and a clip that goes on a large display or into a print-quality edit gains a lot. Write the destination down before you touch a setting; every other choice follows from it.

Step 2: fix what an upscaler cannot

• Cut first, upscale second. A shorter file is quicker to process and quicker to check. Trim the clip to the part you need before you upload it.
• Stabilise before, not after. Shake turns into smeared detail when it is enlarged. If the clip needs stabilising, do it in your editor first.
• Fix the exposure. A crushed shadow stays crushed at a bigger size; it just becomes a bigger crushed shadow.
• Keep the file whole. The upload can be large, up to 512 MiB, so there is no need to compress it down first. Compression you add yourself is detail the model cannot get back.

Step 3: pick the settings

There are only three, and all of them sit under the advanced options. The source aspect ratio is always kept, so nothing gets cropped or stretched, and the source audio rides along unchanged.

• Target resolution: 720p, 1080p, 2k or 4k, with 1080p as the default. Go one step above your destination, not three.
• Frame rate: 24, 30 or 60, with 24 as the default. Match what the clip was shot at. A 60 frames per second output from a 24 frames per second source does not add real motion, it only makes the file heavier.
• Turbo: off by default. It runs faster in exchange for a small loss of quality.

Step 4: check the result in the right places

Do not judge the clip from its first frame. Scrub to the moments with fast motion, to any text on screen, and to faces turned away from the camera. Those are where an upscaler either earns its keep or makes things up. Fine textures such as hair and grass are the most common place for it to look slightly painted.

The honest limits

• It cannot rescue what was never recorded. A tiny, blurry face in the background becomes a larger blurry face. If the detail was never in the file, no model will find it.
• Long clips can be shortened. The description says that an overlong video is trimmed from the start, depending on the target size and frame rate. How much fits depends on the target size and the frame rate, so for a long clip, upscale it in pieces and join them in your editor.
• It changes pixels, not content. It will not fix a bad edit, remove a logo or change the lighting. For that, start from a video-to-video model instead.

If the footage started life as a still, you may get more from making the clip from a good big image in the first place; how to turn a photo into a video covers that route, and choosing an AI video model helps you compare the options. For photos that need the same care, see faithful or creative upscaling. When your clip is ready, upload it in the studio.