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Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines

(waxy.org)
363 points jay_kyburz | 4 comments | 26 Aug 25 04:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.667s | source
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ulrikrasmussen ◴[26 Aug 25 06:15 UTC] No.45022875[source]▶
I think AI-"upscaled" videos are as jarring to look at as a newly bought TV before frame smoothing has been disabled. Who seriously thinks this looks better, even if the original is a slightly grainy recording from the 90's?

I was recently sent a link to this recording of a David Bowie & Nine Inch Nails concert, and I got a serious uneasy feeling as if I was on a psychedelic and couldn't quite trust my perception, especially at the 2:00 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yyx31HPgfs&list=RD7Yyx31HPg...

It turned out that the video was "AI-upscaled" from an original which is really blurry and sometimes has a low frame rate. These are artistic choices, and I think the original, despite being low resolution, captures the intended atmosphere much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6KF1IkkIc&list=RD1X6KF1Ikk...

We have pretty good cameras and lenses now. We don't need AI to "improve" the quality.

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1. conradfr ◴[26 Aug 25 06:41 UTC] No.45023060[source]▶
That's hilarious https://i.imgur.com/TVfncya.png
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2. moefh ◴[26 Aug 25 07:37 UTC] No.45023436[source]▶
That's insane. Here's the same-ish frame from the original: https://imgur.com/a/dWS20oP

The extreme blur here was obviously a creative choice by the director/editor, the rest of the video has lower resolution but it's not nearly that bad (which is why Bowie still looks like himself in other parts of the upscaled video).

The process used to upscale the video has no subtlety, it's just "make everything look crisp, even if you have to create entirely made-up faces".

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3. ygra ◴[26 Aug 25 08:10 UTC] No.45023677[source]▶
Seems like they ignored the non-square pixel aspect ratio as well for the upscaling, which may have changed face shapes as well.
4. janfoeh ◴[26 Aug 25 08:55 UTC] No.45024038[source]▶
Between 2:07 and 2:08, the guy on the right loses his glasses. Over the course of a couple frames, they just fade into nothingness.