: Often considered the gold standard of that era, this project released all seven seasons in 1080p+ . They first upscaled the footage to 4K to maximize detail retention before downsampling it back to 1080p for better file size management.
The improvement is immediately noticeable. Textures on Starfleet uniforms, the gritty details of the Promenade, and even the Cardassian architecture pop with newfound clarity. The AI upscaling does a solid job of reducing compression artifacts and mosquito noise without scrubbing away all film grain. Edges are sharper, and background details—like the busy docking ring or Ops consoles—are now readable. For a first season that sometimes looked overly soft, this is a revelation. Colors are more stable, and black levels feel deeper, giving the station’s darker corridors a more atmospheric punch. star trek deep space 9 s01 ai upscale 1080p 2020 2021
If the source DVD had severe compression artifacts, the AI sometimes mistook those artifacts for real detail, accidentally sharpening the video noise. How to Experience the DS9 Season 1 AI Upscale : Often considered the gold standard of that
| Metric | DVD Source (480p) | AI Upscale (1080p) | |--------|------------------|--------------------| | Perceived sharpness (SSIM) | 0.71 (reference) | 0.84 | | Compression artifact reduction | High (blocking visible) | Low (blocking removed, some AI-generated texture) | | Temporal consistency | Good | Moderate (minor shimmer on text/LCARS displays) | | Facial detail | Soft, blurry | Reconstructed (some hallucinated wrinkles) | Textures on Starfleet uniforms, the gritty details of
with AviSynth/VapourSynth to de-interlace the video (converting 29.97fps to 23.976fps), correct colors, and reduce artifacts. ② AI Upscaling where Topaz Video Enhance AI analyzes each frame, using models like "Proteus" for general detail or "Iris" for faces, to hallucinate missing detail and quadruple the pixel count from 480p to 1080p. ③ Post-Processing where enthusiasts manually check for motion artifacts, blurring, or unnatural "AI hallucinations" that can appear in complex scenes like the wormhole or ship battles.
DS9 is inherently darker, both tonally and visually, than TNG. On modern high-resolution screens, the DVD releases appear washed out, murky, and riddled with compression artifacts.