InstantHD

J

John McManimie

New member
Has anybody here tried Red Giant Software's InstantHD (http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/instanthd.html) to scale (uprez) video? It seems to be similar to Algolith (I tried an early version of Algolith and was impressed by the results but it was s-l-o-o-o-w) but at only $99 it sounds like a geat deal and might offer an alternative to the Photozoom Pro method.

(Please forgive me if a post on this product already exists, I didn't see one.)
 
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Does anyone know how the photozooom pro method works (not the work flow, the algorithm).

The Red Giant instant HD is supposed to be a Nearest Neighbor Algorythm, which is supposed to be the least sophisticated and destructive --

EDIT: not nearest neighbor -- they compare it to nearest neighbor which is the worst way to uprezz.

-- but their grabs look pretty good to my eye and if Photozoom Pro uses nearest neighbor also then you're right this might be a better way too uprezz, which I'm mostly interested in doing to blow up to 16X9 from 4:3.

But apparantly no professionals use nearest neighbor uprezz.

Graeame Nattres is working on Magic Uprezz that will supposedly have even better results buts he's stuck on some part of the code that he was hoping to get help with at NAB last weekend.

Maybe he's cracked it ... who knows.

Once he does there'll be a short turn around time I'm sure in terms of him getting it online to download.

Maybe I'll ask him to chime in here to let us know if NAB yielded any "eurekas".
 
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that's right I remember now ... so the answer is No .. Instant HD not as good as photozoom pro, but definately quicker.

Maybe I will try Photozoom Pro on next prject but i've been waitting with great anticipation for Graeme to pull off a miracle.
 
What's Graeme planning on selling his proggy for?

Also, it's possible that the nearest neighbor algorithm for InstantHD is improved over Photozoom. The algorithm is just a method, and it has the ability to be improved.
 
Whatever it is I'm sure it will be reasonable since his most expensive set is $99 -- although this is a horse of a different color and if its gonna be as awesome as it seems there will be lots of demand ... still I bet it would be under $100 but that its mere speculation on my part.

Also - while Graeme is quite obviously brilliant, his Magic Uprezz is one of those fabled promises like so many 35mm adaptors that we are waiting and waiting and waiting on.

sure he can do it if anyone can though :thumbsup:
 
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Magic uprez is a really cool algorithm I have, but I'm having awful difficulty with it for a number of reasons - interlaced video, openGL and quicktime. Handling interlace properly is tricky, but I do now have a fab GPU shader based deinterlace, so that bit is close to being solved. I have the algorithm running partially on the GPU and partially on the GPU, and I'm trying to make it run fully on the GPU for lightning speed. Tricky, but I think it can be done. And then, I'm just really , really busy with work.

I tested the Redg Giant plugin for FCP to see what it was like. It, to me, looked no different from FCP5 scaling. None at all. Their comparisons show their algorithm (without stating it's mode of operation or algorithm at all) compared to nearest neighbour, which is the worst method of blowing up video, so no wonder theirs looks better.

Graeme
 
So it will be processing fully off of your graphics card?

I can see how interlacing would be a REAL trick to work on.

Would you ever consider sacrificing the option of interlaced video and concentrate soley on progressive? Progressive would still have to the odd pulldown frame, so that'd have to be deinterlaced as well. If the footage is interlaced, could you have it automatically deinterlace before it runs the algorithm on it?

It sounds like your program, rather than rendering out frames, uprezing and converting back to video, you're just doing the video directly?
 
Graeme_Nattress said:
Magic uprez is a really cool algorithm I have, but I'm having awful difficulty with it for a number of reasons - interlaced video, openGL and quicktime.
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like DJ said -- might consider releasing a progressive only version first -- in fact the Instant HD is progressive only.

Graeme_Nattress said:
Red Giant ... comparisons show their algorithm (without stating it's mode of operation or algorithm at all) compared to nearest neighbour, which is the worst method of blowing up video, so no wonder theirs looks better.
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Ohhhh I thought you meant it used nearest neighbor as its algorithm -- I get it now -- before = nearest neighbor, after = undefined alogorithm ... gotcha!

Good luck sir ... for my ears, you might as well be talking about changing lead into gold when it comes to programming. I made a little triangle shaped "turtle" move around the screen in Computer Lit class in highschool back in 86-90, but that's where my programming experience ends.

Come to think of it, though, alchemy is a pretty apt description of what you are doing. :laugh:
 
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I didn't mean that as a knock in any way, but the basic idea is to spin gold from yarn.

I heard someone in another forum say that graeme awas trying too turn a skatebaord into a mac truck or something ike that and he basically said 'exactly' or words to that effect.

can't wait til he pulls it off :thumbsup:
 
Anyone tried this yet?

In the end, is it better or worse than Photozoom. (I didn't get if Graeme was saying yes or no to that question.)
 
Kholi said:
(I didn't get if Graeme was saying yes or no to that question.)
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I don´t think he did at all, he was just saying for him the instantHD picture looked the same as the normal FCP scaling - but this method shouldn´t be very sophisticated either...
well, I also need a solution for uprezing soon, does someone know how disjecta´s method works with 16x9 SD footage?
If I recall correctly, he was first cropping 4:3 to 16:9 and then uprezing to HD...?
Or did he do HD at all...?
 
as far as I can tell it doesn't come close to photozoom by a mile, its almost indistinguishable from upscaling in FCP as far as I can tell, although FCP is one of the NLE's that's better at this than others which just do a horrible job, but photozoom pro is way nicer.
 
Ok, without bringing interlacing into the question, are any of these products any better than rendering out an uncompressed image sequence, and then batching a bicubic resampled uprez in Photoshop? Or do these algorithms rely on interframe information as well? Cause if they're just looking at individual progressive frames one at a time, it would strike me as odd if Adobe hadn't already put some dough into giving PS top of the line resampling algorithms...
 
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