Told my coworker that AI upscaling was fake for anime fans, then watched him fix a 480p scene from 1995 Berserk in 10 minutes

He ran it through something called Real-ESRGAN and the difference was so clean I actually thought he just grabbed a different source file, has anyone else tried this on shows that never got a proper remaster?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley585d ago

Wait is that the same thing that people use for old video game textures? I tried it on some really crusty fansubs from the early 2000s and it fixed the compression artifacts way better than I expected. The results were honestly kind of spooky, the faces actually looked like real faces instead of blocky smudges. I did notice it added a weird oily sheen to some darker scenes though, like it was trying too hard to smooth out the grain. Still way better than the official "remasters" that just crank the sharpness and call it a day.

terry_hayes185d ago

That oily sheen thing reminds me of how everything's getting that weird smooth digital facelift lately... even my grandma's old photo albums look like plastic when they go through those restoration apps. It's like we're so scared of imperfection that we strip away all the realness. Same with music, those old vinyl pops and hisses get scrubbed clean until it sounds sterile. I guess we traded character for cleanliness across the board, movies, photos, even how people talk with all those filters now. Doesn't feel like progress, just... polishing until nothing has texture anymore.