Star Trek: Borg - 4K AI Remaster Comparison

Channel:

Owen Davies

Subscribers:

12,800

Published on October 31, 2020 1:47:13 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOsRegrBJB4

Game:

Star Trek: Borg (1996)

Duration: 2:14

1,163 views

39

Well, I knew this one would be a challenge...

This is an attempt to remaster Star Trek: Borg, the 1996 FMV game/"interactive film", to 4K using AI.

We're really butting up against the limitations of what the technology can do, here. As well as being low resolution (only 232p) and low frame rate (15fps), Borg's FMV also uses a low colour palette (looks like around 256 colours to my eye) and the source footage is littered with dithering and dot-patterns that further confuse the AI.

As usual, I used DAIN to increase the FPS to 30, Topaz Video Enhance AI for the 930% upscale(!) and my own AVISynth+ routines for further refinement.

While the frame rate is a definite improvement and the AI did a good job of cleaning out the dithering and compression artefacts, I'd say we're beyond the limit of what can be achieved when clawing back detail from a low resolution source. Faces are always a challenge, and poor old John de Lancie does not come out of this with his fine looks intact.

Still, it's always good to have more John de Lancie in your life :^)

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