Content creators often want to upscale their videos to support big and modern screens. Generally, an average creator doesn't record with an expensive high-definition camera. Therefore, video upscaling becomes necessary when enhancing the quality of recorded video. In this tutorial, we'll guide you through upscaling videos directly on your desktop using one of the best open-source tools that is free to use. It not only saves you money but also ensures privacy. The tool we're going to use works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Let's get started and learn video upscaling on a desktop through a free application.
📷 Step-By-Step Guide to Upscale Video on a Desktop
Although one can use online tools powered by AI, they're expensive, and privacy is not guaranteed. The tool itself is easy to use, even for beginners, and works flawlessly even for long-duration videos.
If you are using a low-end computer, I'll share a trick to upscale videos on it without burning your CPU. I use this trick for rendering long videos on my old Windows laptop. Let's upscale videos!
Why Desktop Video Upscaling Works Better Than Online Tools
Before we learn using our video upscaling tool, let's go through the advantages of doing it on the desktop versus using an online tool. It'll help you get a clearer picture of why this option is better.
Desktop Software Pros
Video Quality: Maximum (up to 8K Ultra HD)
File Size Limit: No limits
Speed: Fast (if a high-end GPU is present)
Privacy: Your data remains on your PC
Online Tools Cons
Video Quality: Max 1080p
File Size Limit: Limited size accepted
Speed: Slow for longer videos
Privacy: Your data resides on their servers
You get better quality and privacy with a desktop application.
1. Download and Install the Video Upscaling Tool
Get the HandBrake installer for your operating system and install it on your computer.
It's available for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
It's open source and is completely free.
It can upscale videos up to 8K Ultra HD.
Once installed, start and open it on your desktop.
2. Load Your Low-Resolution Video
Start by opening your low-resolution video in the application. To do that:
Either click the File option to select the source video or drag and drop the video file into the box provided on the right side.
Wait for it to scan the video content and metadata associated with it.
Once the scan is complete, you can see all the video details on the Summary tab, viz., format, tracks, filters, and size.
3. Choose the Output Format
Next, choose the output format. In most cases, the file is in MP4 format, so you don't have to do anything. In case it is not, choose the MP4 format.
📷 Choose MP4 format for the best results
But why should one select the MP4 format? Here are the reasons:
This format works on every platform, out-of-the-box.
File size is comparatively smaller than some other formats.
The video quality doesn't degrade.
Now, let's move on to the most important part of this video upscaling process.
4. Manually Increase Video Resolution (The Upscaling Part)
Now, let's configure the settings to upscale our low-resolution video. To do that:
Go to the Dimensions tab.
In the Resolution and Scaling section, choose the desired upscaled resolution of your choice.
📷 Select the resolution you want to upscale to
In this example, the original resolution was 1080p HD, and the new resolution I'm choosing is 2160p 4K Ultra HD.
Next, you have to enable upscaling manually for the source video.
📷 Enable upscaling by checking the relevant checkbox
By default, upscaling is disabled. Simply selecting the higher resolution is not going to upscale the video. Check the Allow Upscaling checkbox to enable this feature. After enabling it, you can see the new scaled size that the video will upscale to.
Pro Tip: Do not change the aspect ratio, or else the video will get distorted.
Leave all other settings as they are on this tab. Fiddling with any other setting on this tab may not give you the desired result.
5. Set High Quality Export Settings
Now it's time to tweak a few of the video export settings. It'll ensure you get the best version of the upscaled video.
First of all, go to the Video tab.
📷 Tweak video settings to get a better upscaled version
For Video Encoder: Choose either H.264 or H.265.
Make sure to keep the Framerate unchanged.
Adjust the Quality slider on the right to anywhere between 18 and 20.
Keep all the other settings on this tab in their default state.
6. Upscale and Export
And lastly, we'll start the upscaling process to get the final video.
Before starting the process, you can specify the destination and the filename through the Save As option at the bottom. Once done, click the Start Encode on the top menu.
How much time the encoding (upscaling) process will take depends on the following three factors:
The length of the video.
The upscale resolution you've selected.
And the computing power available on your system.
If you have a low-end PC with no GPU, use this method to upscale your videos without putting stress on your computer's CPU. This method works on Windows.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Now pay attention! Before you start the upscaling process, make sure you are aware of the following mistakes. Avoid them, and you'll get the best results, every single time!
Never change the original aspect ratio. Otherwise, it'll distort the video.
Do not upscale a very low-quality video to 4K. This result isn't going to be what you are expecting.
Do not use high sharpness, or else it'll create halos in the video.
And lastly, do not use online upscalers for huge videos.
Conclusion
Upscaling videos on desktop is free, fast, high-quality, and involves no watermarks. With the right settings in HandBrake, you can transform blurry clips into crisp HD or 4K-ready videos in minutes.
Image Credit: All screenshots and image alterations by Rajeev Edmonds/FreshTechTips
