Earlier in the month, we reported ArcSoft’s SimHD technology, a video enhancement technology that supposedly could take DVD quality video and make it into passable 1080p. At the time, we were understandably skeptical, especially since the claims were accompanied by images that were extremely easy to fake. But SimHD rolled with it and just recently sent us this little reel showing off the tech in HD. And it looks like I was wrong. The video looks better at full size, by the way.
I guess I underestimated the power of parallel processing. CUDA allows them to refine the image in real time without stressing the CPU too hard. Now, it’s worth noting that CUDA is obviously limited to NVIDIA cards, so if you’re a Radeon man, you’re out of luck.
On the other hand, Cyberlink’s PowerDVD uses a CPU-based method that upsamples, interpolates, and increases contrast and such. I can’t make a real comparison between the two, but I’d guess that SimHD is higher quality since it’s doing more complex enhancements. That said, it requires a CUDA-compatible video card, so it’s hardly a universal choice.
At any rate, I’m a little less skeptical now about upsampling quality and video enhancement.