To understand why the 2020 upscale was such a breakthrough, one must recall the pain of watching DS9 in the 2010s. Streaming services and DVDs presented a soft, interlaced, low-bitrate nightmare. The space battles looked like pixelated blobs. The intricate Cardassian architecture of Terok Nor was a smear of gray. CBS (now Paramount) had no incentive to fix it.
I recently acquired what the community calls the "S01 AI Upscale 4K 2020 Top" version—specifically, a 50GB collection of the first season. Here is the unvarnished truth.
The Good:
The "2020 Top" Specifics: This particular build is revered because of the motion handling. Early 2020 upscales often introduced ghosting or the "wobble" effect (where static backgrounds breathe like lungs). The "Top" version used a multi-step process: de-interlacing, then AI doubling, then a final compression pass using HEVC. The result is motion that feels stable—Odo’s liquid transformations don't break into digital confetti.
The Compromises (Be Honest): It is not native 4K. A 1993 set light will always look like a 1993 set light. The black levels are still slightly crushed (a source limitation), and some of the comedic Ferengi scenes in season one show AI "hallucinations" where it tries to turn Grand Nagus Zek’s robes into a fuzzy, undefined mess. Furthermore, this is a fan edit. It isn't Dolby Vision or HDR. It is SDR 4:2:0 8-bit color. However, for 90% of viewers on a standard LED TV, it is indistinguishable from a professional remux. star trek deep space 9 s01 ai upscale 4k 2020 top
In 2020, dedicated fans launched the Deep Space Nine Upscale Project (DS9UP) —most notably Project Defiant —to address the lack of an official HD remaster for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
. Because the series was finished on low-resolution videotape rather than film, an official remaster is considered prohibitively expensive by Paramount. The "Project Defiant" 4K Initiative In May 2020, a fan known as The Defiant Project
) released an AI-upscaled version of Season 1 in 4K resolution. Primary Tool : The project primarily utilized Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI
, specifically the "Artemis" and "Gaia" models, to interpret and add detail to the original 480p DVD source. Hardware Requirements To understand why the 2020 upscale was such
: Upscaling a single 45-minute episode to 4K required massive computing power, often taking 10 to 20 hours per episode on high-end NVIDIA GPUs (like the RTX 2080 or GTX 1070). Final Format
: While initially released in 4K, later iterations of the project (such as for Seasons 3-7) moved to a
format. This involved upscaling to 4K first and then downsampling back to 1080p using the x265 codec to preserve detail while keeping file sizes manageable. Technical Challenges Project Defiant: DS9 4K Upscale of Season 1 Now Available
To understand the value of the 2020 top AI upscale, you must understand the original source. DS9 was shot on 35mm film (great), but edited on standard definition videotape (terrible). When Paramount remastered TNG, they had to rescan the original film, re-edit every episode from scratch, and recompute all the CGI. It cost over $12 million. For DS9, with its Dominion War battles and more complex CGI, the cost was deemed prohibitive. The "2020 Top" Specifics: This particular build is
As a result, official releases (streaming, DVD, even the now-defunct broadcast reruns) are all derived from those 90s SD tapes. On a modern 65-inch 4K screen, the image is a ghostly, artifact-ridden mess: jagged edges, smeared colors, and compression blocks the size of a Runabout.
It is important to manage expectations regarding the visual effects. Because the CGI space battles were rendered in SD in the 90s, the AI upscale has its limits here.
While the AI does an admirable job smoothing out pixelated starfields, the difference between live-action footage and CGI spaceship shots becomes more noticeable. The live-action actors look crisp and detailed, while the CGI Defiant or Runabout might look slightly "painted" or smooth compared to the background. However, it is a massive improvement over the blocky artifacts of the DVD/Streaming versions.
| Pros ✅ | Cons ❌ | |--------|--------| | Sharper character faces & ship exteriors | No official studio involvement | | Better for large 4K screens | Some fine details may be hallucinated by AI | | Restores some detail lost in compression | Motion artifacts possible in fast action | | Free (fan project) | Inconsistent quality across episodes |