"cleaning-up" video

[lizandeen]

I know I'm probably asking the impossible, but is there a program that cleans up/sharpens video in the manner of all those 'csi' type shows out there? Yours more in hope than anticipation, lizandeen

[2F4U]

I am not sure if I understand correctly what you mean. The VLC video player has "sharpening" effect:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6924374_sharpen-vlc-player.html

I guess you need to do some tests to see if it is what you are looking for.

[lizandeen]

Thanks, I've had a shot with VLC and it did help to a small degree but I was hoping for something that could drastically improve matters! (forgive me for asking this, but does windows have anthing that would do the job if I can't use Ubuntu?) Thanks again though

[vanadium]

Bad video remains bad video. You cannot work miracles on it.

That said, under Linux, avidemux is an application where you can apply filters to change/improve video quality, including sharpening.

[lizandeen]

Thanks, I'll try that.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Make sure to say "enhance" when you're sharpening the video. It makes it more dramatic.

[cmargolin]

"Enhance" is a good word, since the process can't increase the original resolution of the image, only remove noise and mathematically smooth (average) the pixels. Some of those TV shows treat images as having infinite resolution that can be zoomed in on to see any detail from any distance.

[lizandeen]

So, are there many/any good one-click enhancing programs?

[evilsoup]

There's an ffmpeg filter equivalent to VLC's sharpen option (unsharp), but I don't think I'd call that 'one-click'. And it won't work miracles. There is no tool on any platform that can give you CSI-style 'turn these four pixels into a recognisable face', and there never will be, because such a tool is physically impossible.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

There is no tool on any platform that can give you CSI-style 'turn these four pixels into a recognisable face', and there never will be, because such a tool is physically impossible.

What do you call this then?