Dragon Ball Kai Blur Removal

[Peenoisedbfanboi]

so i tried sharpening Dragon Ball Kai on Filmora using the Luma Sharp,Sharp and Film Grain effects and here's the result:

https://ibb.co/QNLYRFw
https://ibb.co/TW6T4j4

https://ibb.co/yRKWhJN
https://ibb.co/NScrVKy

https://ibb.co/tXJp6Wp
https://ibb.co/VHXrqwg

its not perfect,this is the best that i can do to sharpen it since my laptop is trash

[KPike87]

No offense, but this doesn't look that great; the aliasing and ringing artifacts kind of hurt my eyes.

[Robo4900]

The problem with Kai is that it has a really strong DNR filter, which makes it look really soft.

The Orange Bricks also had that problem, and Funimation attempted to solve that issue for the Season/30th anniversary/steelbook Blu-rays and make them actually look HD, sharp, and non-blurry by applying a sharpening filter, exactly as you're trying... And we know how that turned out. Yes, you're getting superficially sharper results, but the picture looks terrible.

Unfortunately, you just can't resolve Kai's blurriness problem. It'll look sharper and generally better than upscaled standard-def Dragon Box footage on your HDTV, but you'll never achieve an ideal/non-blurry look, it's just not possible. Toei and Q-TEC prioritised grainlessness over sharpness and clarity of the image. You just can't have it both ways on 16mm film material.

[Trachta10]

Try with Topaz Gigapixel

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-seUd9kQN9s&t

[eledoremassis02]

Try with Topaz Gigapixel

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-seUd9kQN9s&t

did a little surface blur

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[jjgp1112]

That gigapixel shit is fucking ASTONISHING.

[Peenoisedbfanboi]

No offense, but this doesn't look that great; the aliasing and ringing artifacts kind of hurt my eyes.

Yeah it doesnt look good,I'm still learning things and I'm trying to buy a new pc so i can properly color correct/remaster the series

[Peenoisedbfanboi]

Try with Topaz Gigapixel

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-seUd9kQN9s&t

That looks fucking good,i'll try it

[Vorige Waffe]

You ain't getting rid of that blur unless you rescan the film. Kai was blurred to hell and back. Plus that gigapixel nonsense introduces obvious edge enhancement artifacts.

Plus the idea of introducing artificial film grain filter to the image is antithetical in "fixing" the image, considering it's basically what Funimation did to the 30th Anniversary blurays in order to make them look "better".

[Lightningexpose]

The problem with Kai is that it has a really strong DNR filter, which makes it look really soft.

Not true... the DNR doesn't cause it to look soft. If they left grain, it would simply be soft image with grain on top. You might like to say "well that grain won't be soft so it's not soft" but that's just intentionally being ignorant.

Here's an example someone sent me of Zeta Gundam once and despite grain being kept way more than DB Kai, it's just as soft:

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It even has the same vertical blur as DB Kai.

And, no, trust me...that's not "just what 16mm looks like".

Here's level sets with strong DNR:

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As you see, DNR doesn't make the levels look as soft as Kai or that Zeta Gundam frame. The vertical smear from poor scanning plays a bigger role than you might think in making the image look noticeably soft.

Like I said in a previous post on another thread, the idea that Kai is soft because "that's what happens when you DNR 16mm" is a myth y'all fellas would be better off dropping now lmao.

[jjgp1112]

One thing I noticed with the Yu Yu Hakusho blu-rays is that for the most part, it looks like the 35mm Kai episodes...but there's the occasional frame, especially as you get further into the series, that looks really out of focus and exactly like regular 16mm Kai. And generally, flashbacks look exactly like 16mm Kai.

[Lightningexpose]

One thing I noticed with the Yu Yu Hakusho blu-rays is that for the most part, it looks like the 35mm Kai episodes...but there's the occasional frame, especially as you get further into the series, that looks really out of focus and exactly like regular 16mm Kai. And generally, flashbacks look exactly like 16mm Kai.

Well, YYH is 16mm and it wasn't remastered ideally for BD but yeah it doesn't have many of the scanning issues Qtec have had on their 16mm scans.

[jjgp1112]

One thing I noticed with the Yu Yu Hakusho blu-rays is that for the most part, it looks like the 35mm Kai episodes...but there's the occasional frame, especially as you get further into the series, that looks really out of focus and exactly like regular 16mm Kai. And generally, flashbacks look exactly like 16mm Kai.

Well, YYH is 16mm and it wasn't remastered ideally for BD but yeah it doesn't have many of the scanning issues Qtec have had on their 16mm scans.

Honestly if DB had the remastering process YYH got I would be perfectly fine. It was clearly DVNR'd but still had a pretty sharp picture and the details weren't smeared to shit. Seems like the intense DVNR and sharpening on top of that is what really fucked up Funi's sets and made them look like artificial watercolors.

Then again, we don't have a well-encoded DVNR-free release to compare the Yu Yu Hakusho BD's to like we do with Dragon Ball, so it might be worse than I think.

[Banduck]

Kai without blur would look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX4hwqNuQQI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJFkxngnIro

I think it looks really good (except the redrawn scenes, they still look weird)

[Shaddy]

Nah it still looks pretty smeary. The shot of Krillin at about 1:30 is particularly bad.

[eledoremassis02]

I think this actually works for kai as it hides the redraws a little better and almost make the show look new. I wouldnt mind seeing it all done like this