To do a "proper" 4K remaster, Paramount would have to find thousands of boxes of original film, re-edit every episode from scratch, and completely recreate every CGI sequence and phaser blast. The cost is estimated in the millions—a price tag the studio has been hesitant to pay. 2020: The Year AI Caught Up
When played on modern 4K television screens, the official DVDs look blurry, muddy, and plagued by digital artifacts. The dark, industrial, Cardassian architecture of the station became a soup of gray and brown pixels. Details like the ridges on Klingon foreheads, the intricate textures of Ferengi clothing, and the sprawling starfields became completely lost.
Ultimately, while we wait for a future where studios find it economically viable to fund a true remaster, the work done in 2020 by Joel Hruska, Billy Reichard, and other dedicated fans remains the best way to experience Deep Space Nine on a 4K screen. It's a testament to the idea that where a studio sees a lack of profit, a fan sees a labor of love. star trek deep space 9 s01 ai upscale 4k 2020
Import the files into Topaz Video AI. Popular models used for 90s television include Artemis Low Quality , Proteus , or Gaia .
Creating a watchable 4K upscale of DS9 Season 1 wasn't as simple as clicking a button and waiting. The process required hundreds of hours of trial, error, and post-processing. Fan-editors generally followed a rigorous workflow: To do a "proper" 4K remaster, Paramount would
On the positive side, the AI upscale brings dramatic improvements:
: Because the source is interlaced video, rapid movements can occasionally cause shimmering or "ghosting" artifacts that the AI struggle to interpret correctly. CGI and Special Effects Mixed Results The dark, industrial, Cardassian architecture of the station
Using models like Artemis, Gaia, or Theia (in Topaz) to reconstruct facial lines, fabric textures on Starfleet uniforms, and the intricate metallic hulls of the Cardassian station.
The 2020 surge was driven by the maturation of machine learning tools like Topaz Labs' Video Enhance AI
For years, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has been the "forgotten child" of the High-Definition era. While The Next Generation received an expensive, film-scanned Blu-ray restoration, DS9 was left behind due to the high cost of re-scanning and re-compositing its extensive visual effects (CGI and models).
For the first time, fans had the computing power at home to attempt what was previously impossible: upscaling all 20 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 1 into glorious, crisp 4K resolution. The Process: How Fans Restored Season 1