Upscale video to 1080p online

Stretching is not upscaling

Any editor can change a 640 by 360 clip into 1920 by 1080. It simply spreads each pixel over a bigger area and smooths the gaps with interpolation (bilinear, bicubic or Lanczos). The file is bigger, and it looks as soft as ever, because no new information was added. Many "upscalers" are exactly this.

AI upscaling works differently. The model has learned what sharp edges, skin, foliage and text look like, and uses that to draw plausible detail at the new size. When it works, it looks like the video was filmed at a higher resolution. When it does not, you get a slightly waxy look, which is why seeing a preview matters.

Why 1080p, and not 4K

We stop at 1080p. A 480p source has fewer than five per cent of the pixels of a 4K frame, so a 4K result would be nearly all invention, and it would be four times the file size for a picture that is not four times better. 1080p is the sweet spot: it matches almost every phone, laptop and TV viewing situation, it uploads quickly to social platforms, and the quality gain is believable.

If you really need 4K for a project, upscale to 1080p here and let your editor or the platform handle the last step.

Which sources upscale best

Based on what we see in testing:

• 720p to 1080p: modest but clear improvement, smoother edges.
• 480p (SD, older phones, DVDs): the biggest visible gain.
• 360p or lower: improves, but sets lower expectations, especially on small faces.
• Already 1080p and soft: usually skipped, since there is little to gain.

Common upscales

Aspect ratio and orientation

We keep your proportions. A vertical phone video stays vertical, a 4:3 clip stays 4:3, and nothing is cropped or stretched. When the target is 1080p, we fit your video so that the short side is at most 1080 pixels, which means a vertical clip comes out at 1080 by 1920 when the source is large enough, and smaller when it is not.

A note on sources

The cleaner the source, the better the upscale. A 480p file straight from a DVD rip or an old camcorder export upscales more convincingly than a 480p copy that has been saved from a social platform, because platform copies carry added compression damage. When you have a choice, use the oldest copy.

Screen recordings, animation and cartoons upscale especially well, because their flat colours and sharp lines are easy for the model to predict.

Frame rate and format

Output is H.264 MP4, which plays on practically everything: phones, browsers, TVs and editors. Frame rate and audio are preserved. We do not interpolate frames, so a 24 fps film stays 24 fps and your motion keeps its natural look.

Upscaling for different destinations

For YouTube, upload at 1080p, which also gets you a better bitrate allocation than a 480p upload. For presentations, 1080p is plenty on any projector you are likely to meet. For archives, keep both the original and the upscaled copy, since the upscale cannot be undone.

Upscale video to 1080p in three steps

1. UploadDrop your 360p, 480p or 720p video in the box.
2. PreviewSee 15 seconds upscaled and compare with the original.
3. DownloadPay once and download your 1080p MP4.