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# 16K Upscale
- URL: https://www.michaelverdi.com/16k-upscale/
- Published: 2024-09-07T16:35:17.000Z
- Updated: 2025-08-09T15:30:47.000Z
- Description: Upscaling 8K video to 16K with Topaz Video AI.
- Author: Michael Verdi
- Tags: Process

I've seen a few VR180 creators on Reddit talk about turning their 8K footage from the Canon R5C into 16K. The examples I've seen do look better so I thought I'd try it out. I used [Topaz Labs Video AI](https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-video-ai?ref=michaelverdi.com) to upscale a 30 second clip that I shot while we on vacation in Guerneville, CA a couple of weeks ago.

It took about 26 hours (!) to upscale the video on my Mac Studio (M1 Max processor). I just used the default settings. I imagine I can get better results in the future. Here are crops from the original and upscaled video.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a1/71/a1713dff-1c20-4537-94e7-fbc621840054/content/images/2025/08/8kcrop.jpg)

Original 8K video - [click to view original](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a1/71/a1713dff-1c20-4537-94e7-fbc621840054/content/images/2025/08/8kcrop-1.jpg?ref=michaelverdi.com)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a1/71/a1713dff-1c20-4537-94e7-fbc621840054/content/images/2025/08/16kcrop.jpg)

Upscaled to 16K - [click to view original](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a1/71/a1713dff-1c20-4537-94e7-fbc621840054/content/images/2025/08/16kcrop-1.jpg?ref=michaelverdi.com)

The difference is more apparent when viewing them on the Apple Vision Pro. Try it out. Download the videos and view them in [Spatialgen](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spatialgen-spatial-streaming/id6479330358?ref=michaelverdi.com).

- [Download the 8K file](https://exp.michaelverdi.com/immersive/house8k.mov?ref=michaelverdi.com)
- [Download the 16K file](https://exp.michaelverdi.com/immersive/house16k.mov?ref=michaelverdi.com)

Along the way I learned a few things (thanks [Mike Swanson](https://blog.mikeswanson.com/?ref=michaelverdi.com)!):

- MV-HEVC supports 7680x7680 per eye. So I upscaled my side-by-side, 8192x4096 video from the Canon R5C to 15360x7680.
- I used [Mike's Spatial video tool](https://blog.mikeswanson.com/spatial/?ref=michaelverdi.com) to create the MV-HEVC version but...  
  - My M1 Mac can only do 8-bit video at that size (the R5C video is 10-bit). I could have made an 8-bit version but that would have take A LONG TIME.
  - Instead I processed the video on an M3 MacBook Air. M2 and M3 processors can do this size video in 10-bit or 8-bit.
- I tried various bit-rates for the 16K MV-HEVC file. The one above is 200Mbit/sec. It has slightly less compression artifacts than the 150Mbit file I made. I also tried 250Mbit/sec but players on my Vision Pro had a lot of trouble playing that back and it didn't really look any better than the 200Mbit/sec file.

Given how long it takes to upscale video to 16K I'll only be using this for special final projects. I do have a bunch of SD footage that I want to incorporate in immersive projects. Next I'll going playing with upscaling that stuff to HD.