I use Selur Hybrid to restore 8mm home video tapes. I have been experimenting with the RealESRGAN resizer tool (Filtering - Vapoursynth - Frame - Resizer). I am still trying to understand how these fit into restoration. When I turn off all other filtering in Hybrid and use only the RealESRGAN x2-plus model, the result is a video that appears as denoised as when I use QTGMC. However, the RealESRGAN realesr-general model leaves in more noise, perhaps because it sharpens the image more (?).
These two Models are the ones I have found to be the best so far for 8mm home video tapes:
I have attached some images that show each of these two Models. And then a version with QTGMC denoise 2.0 thrown in. And another with CAS 0.2 sharpening added to the mix. Finally, for comparison sake, I attached an image without these models, but with my regular method of QTGMC denoise (6.0, temporal smoothing 1) and CAS 0.3.
My preliminary conclusion is that RealESRGAN with the x2-plus model is the best choice. I seems that it takes care of the denoising automatically and maybe other aspects of restoration, too. Not sure. It's not easy in February 2023 to find much about how people are using this for 8mm tape restoration and how it fits in with the other filter tools.
P.S. I tried a bunch of the models in the VSGAN resizer, but I didn't yet find anything as good as the RealESRGAN for 8mm home video tape.
P.S.S. The images were shrunk down after I uploaded them, so unfortunately, they aren't as useful at that resolution to compare.
