Upscale a video to 1080p

Turning 480p or 720p footage into Full HD is the most common upscaling job, and the one where AI makes the biggest visible difference.

What scale factor do you need?

Source	Scale to 1080p	Expect
720p (1280 × 720)	1.5×	Excellent. Hard to tell from native 1080p.
576p PAL DVD	1.875×	Very good after deinterlacing
480p (854 × 480)	2.25×	Good on faces and edges; fine textures are partly reconstructed
360p	3×	Usable; check faces carefully

Steps

1. Check the true resolution with the video checker. Many files are upscaled already.
2. Trim to the part you need. Shorter clips process faster.
3. Upscale with an AI video model. Upsampler's free video upscaler handles 720p→1080p without an account.
4. Export H.264 at 8–12 Mbit/s (or CRF 18–20) for web.

Without AI

A Lanczos resize in FFmpeg is free and fast. It won't add detail, but it avoids the blur of a simple bilinear stretch. Use the FFmpeg command generator.