To create an official 4K or even 1080p Blu-ray release, Paramount would have to:
However, around 2020, a technological revolution quietly changed everything. Using advanced Artificial Intelligence, independent video editors and fans began doing what Paramount wouldn't: upscaling Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 1 into glorious, crisp 4K resolution.
By 2020, consumer graphics cards and machine learning algorithms advanced to a point where automated video enhancement became viable. Software suites—most notably Topaz Video Enhance AI (now Topaz Video AI)—introduced neural networks trained specifically on low-resolution video data. star trek deep space 9 s01 ai upscale 4k 2020
By 2020, fans took matters into their own hands using rapidly improving AI technology. The Fan-Led Restoration
, successfully addressed the "washed out" colors of the DVDs, providing a more vibrant and modern palette. Comparison Table: 2020 Key Projects I'm watching 'AI upscaled' Star Trek and it isn't terrible To create an official 4K or even 1080p
The mechanical details of the Cardassian architecture suddenly pop. You can see the grime on the bulkheads and the flickering lights of the monitors.
Context
This was a labor of love, requiring not just skill but serious computational power. Joel Hruska described working on two high-end workstations, including an AMD Threadripper 3990X and Intel Core i9 systems, each paired with an Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics card. Processing a single episode could take , even on this powerful hardware.