Video-ESRGAN

Automate video upscaling with Real-ESRGAN & FFmpeg – extract, enhance, and merge frames in one click.

Prerequisites

1. Download realesrgan-ncnn-vulkan

You need to download the realesrgan-ncnn-vulkan executable from the official Real-ESRGAN repository:

Download Link: https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN/releases

1. Go to the Real-ESRGAN releases page
2. Download the appropriate version for your operating system:
   • Windows
   • macOS
   • Linux
3. Extract the downloaded archive
4. Place the realesrgan-ncnn-vulkan executable and the models directory in the same directory as the enlarge script.

For more information about Real-ESRGAN, visit the official repository.

2. Install FFmpeg

FFmpeg is required for video processing (extracting frames, merging frames back to video).

Windows

• Download from FFmpeg official website
• Or install via package manager:

  # Using Chocolatey
  choco install ffmpeg
  
  # Using Scoop
  scoop install ffmpeg

macOS

# Using Homebrew
brew install ffmpeg

# Using MacPorts
sudo port install ffmpeg

Linux

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg

# CentOS/RHEL/Fedora
sudo yum install ffmpeg
# or
sudo dnf install ffmpeg

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S ffmpeg

Verify Installation

After installation, verify that both tools are available:

ffmpeg -version
./realesrgan-ncnn-vulkan -h

Usage

Basic Usage

To enhance a video, simply run the enlarge script with your input video file:

./enlarge input_video.mp4

What the Script Does

1. Extracts frames from your input video using FFmpeg
2. Enhances each frame using Real-ESRGAN with the realesr-animevideov3 model (2x upscaling)
3. Merges enhanced frames back into a new video while preserving the original audio

Output

The script generates:

• Enhanced video: enhanced_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.mp4 - Your upscaled video
• Temporary folders:
  • tmp_frames_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS/ - Original extracted frames
  • out_frames_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS/ - Enhanced frames

Features

• ✅ Progress tracking with real-time progress bar and ETA
• ✅ Automatic framerate detection from source video
• ✅ Audio preservation - copies original audio to enhanced video
• ✅ Unique timestamped outputs - prevents file conflicts
• ✅ Error handling with detailed feedback
• ✅ Processing statistics - shows total time and frames processed

Example

# Make the script executable (first time only)
chmod +x enlarge

# Enhance a video
./enlarge my_video.mp4

# Output will be something like:
# enhanced_20241224_143052.mp4

Tips

• The script uses the realesr-animevideov3 model which works well for anime/cartoon content
• Processing time depends on video length, resolution, and your hardware
• You can safely delete the temporary frame folders after processing
• For best results, ensure your input video has good quality (not heavily compressed)

Example Files

Check the example/ directory for sample input and output files to test the script.