TLDR: DS9 upscale is here. Skip all the way to the bottom for instructions on where to get it. We've opted to release it in 1080p+ Reddit·r/startrek
The swirling colors of the wormhole gain immense depth.
DS9 was shot on high-quality 35mm film. However, to save money and speed up production, the footage was transferred to composite NTSC videotape for editing and visual effects. star+trek+deep+space+9+s01+ai+upscale+4k+2020+better
: Upscaling a single episode could take anywhere from 6 to 15 hours depending on hardware, often requiring powerful GPUs like the NVIDIA RTX 2080 .
$$Scaling\ Factor = \frac3840720 \approx 5.33$$ TLDR: DS9 upscale is here
Season 1 (broadcast in 1993) suffers from several unique visual hurdles:
For DS9, the economics didn’t work. The later seasons’ Dominion War CGI was rendered at 480i. To do a proper remaster, they would have to rebuild every digital ship battle. So, officially, DS9 remains 480p on streaming services. When you watch DS9 on Paramount+ today, you are watching a low-bitrate, de-interlaced mess from 1995. DS9 was shot on high-quality 35mm film
⏱️ Expect 2–6 hours per episode on a high-end GPU (RTX 3070+).
As a result, official streaming versions of DS9 are locked at 480i resolution, plagued by color bleeding, interlacing artifacts, and a lack of fine detail. The 2020 Breakthrough: Enter AI Neural Networks