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The article talks about image comparisons but does not say what the best way to extract an image is.

If I want the best possible quality image at a precisely specified time, what would I do?

Can I increase quality if I have some leeway regarding the time (to use the closest keyframe)?

Is there a way to "undo" motion blur and get a sharp picture?


You'll need to settle on a decoder. I personally just use my video player for this, mpc-hc.

In mpc-hc, you can framestep using CTRL+LeftArrow (steps a frame backward) or CTRL+RightArrow (steps a frame forward). This lets you select the frame you want to capture. You do not need to be on a keyframe. These keybinds are configurable and may be different on the latest version.

Then in the File menu, there's an export image option. It directly exports the frame you're currently on, to disk. Make sure to use a lossless format for comparisons (e.g. PNG).

I'm aware this can be done in other players - like mpv - as well, although there I believe no keybinds are set up for this by default, and the default export format is JPEG.


I usually use a shortcut in mpv to extract the screenshot. If I want to do it via the command-line:

  ffmpeg -ss 00:00:12.435 -i '/Users/weinzieri/videofile.mp4' -vframes 1 '/Users/weinzieri/image.png'
The means “go to 00:00:12.435 on the file /Users/weinzieri/videofile.mp4 and extract one frame to the file /Users/weinzieri/image.png”.

> Is there a way to "undo" motion blur and get a sharp picture?

Not really, no, any more than there is a way to unblur something that was shot out of focus.

You can play clever tricks with motion estimation and neural networks but really all you're getting is a prediction of what it might have been like if the data had really been present.

Once the information is gone, it's gone.


If the estimation is good it might be enough for some use cases. Is there any software out there that specializes in this? Similarly to maybe AI colorizing or upscaling, which both guess information that is not there anymore.

it's not gone, just more difficult to extract

video has certain temporal statistics which can allow you to fit the missing information

only true blurred white noise is impossible to recover


It really is gone. You can predict what you think it might have been, but you can't know what it was.

it's gone in a single still frame

but across many consecutive frames, the information is spread out temporaly and can be recovered (partially)

the same principle of how you can get a high resolution image from a short video, by extracting the same patch from multiple frames

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_super-resolution


That looks interesting. Is there ready-made software that can do this? Doesn't have to be easy to use just useable with a time commitment of a few days.

No, it's not "restoring detail". The information is gone.

It is predicting what the information might maybe have been like.


"Don't use Topaz AI, Anime4k, RealESRGAN, RIFE, etc. Trust me, just don't."

Why? I only know Topaz and I always thought it had its narrow but legitimate uses cases for upscaling and equalizing quality?


Can't mind read the guy obviously, but the usual motivation that I'm aware of is that you pretty much fuck over everyone else that comes later. Upscalers improve over time, but in terms of distribution, recency bias is strong and visual treats are inviting. So when those much better upscalers eventually come around, what's more likely to still be available is the secondary source you distributed, which is already upscaled once with a then-inferior upscaler. This leads to a form of generational rot.

Other likely explanations are:

- them not liking how these upscalers look: you can imagine if they can nitpick minor differences between different encodes that most people don't notice, they'll hate the glaring artifacts these filters usually produce

- boycotting AI


Topaz looks bloody awful. Instead of big blocky upscaled pixels you've got weird artifacty "oil painting effect" smeary blobs.

If someone has anti-AI opinions and spends zero effort explaining their position, I assume they have "AI Derangement" [1], a hate/fear perpetrated by the Big Scare media and podcasters seeking like/subscribes.

You can spend a tremendous amount of time using these tools to accomplish pretty stunning results already:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tii9uF0nAx4 - Made by a film school grad as a demo of real filmmaking combined with AI VFX.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAQWRBCt_5E - Created by a Hollywood TV writer for an FX show you've probably seen. Not the best animation or voicing, but you can see how it gives a writer more than just a blank page to convey their thoughts.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWZYP5jn5w4 - Music video. Slightly MAGA-coded, but made by a Hollywood VFX person.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAAiiKteM-U - Made by a film school grad as a Robot Chicken homage. If you're going to tell them "don't use AI", then are you going to get them a job at Disney? Also, all the pieces are hand-rotoscoped, the mouth animations are hand-animated, and every voice is from a hired (and paid) voice actor.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4NFXGMuwpY - Made by a film school grad as a Robot Chicken homage. See previous comment.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_KXYpaTe_8 - Another slightly MAGA-coded music video. Made by the same Hollywood VFX person.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hlx5Rslrzk - Amazing Spider-Man vs. Carnage anime created with ComfyUI and other models.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqoCWdOwr2U - Christmas Grinch anime.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKYeDIiqiHs - Totally 100% cursed. Made by a teenager following the comic book's plot. Instead of this teenager spending 100 hours on Fortnite, they made this.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps5Dhc3Lh8U - A Pixar-like short film

[1] Creators and artists using AI have been harassed, doxxed, sent death threats, name-called, sent shock images, etc. by anti-AI folks at such volume, that we've become bitter about these people. This is literally just a new tool in the tool box. We shouldn't be treated like this.


OP makes zero comments about content generation, and the complaint is about upscaling introducing artifacts not in the original source. No different than hating a bad 4k remaster / sharpening.

That advice is not universal, and without context it's simply wrong.

You wouldn't upscale a classic film in this way, but there are plenty of low-resolution shots that benefit. Especially with VGA resolution renders and modern AI workflows.

Just looking at the Topaz marketing, you can see a lot of places where it indeed does work. And 20-year industry professionals are using it today for their day jobs.

If you want to say "don't upscale a classic film in Topaz", say that. Because context makes the advice correct. This blanket "do not use" statement is flat out wrong.


In any case, blindly apply upscaling is just wrong ..

You apply it to where it is needed. Not every scene need the same treatment.


The article simply says "Trust me, just don't."

No it doesn't. It says “don't, Unless you're extremely surgical with it and know exactly what you're doing”.

Which is a sensible piece of advice.


> Don't use Topaz AI, Anime4k, RealESRGAN, RIFE, etc. Trust me, just don't.

Is what the submission says about Topaz and similar.

> Applying any kind of post-processing[4]

Is what the footnote you quoted is linked to.


Somehow it did not get much attention, but Signal president Meredith Whittaker (together with Udbhav Tiwari) spoke about the risks and threats from AI-enabled systems.

AI Agent, AI Spy

https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-ai-agent-ai-spy

I also found the talk about Asahi interesting, both from a technical standpoint but also as a nice update what the current status is.

Asahi Linux - Porting Linux to Apple Silicon

https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-app...

Finally, not recorded, but workshops like

Foundation workshop: Hands-on, how does the Internet work?

by Ingo Blechschmidt, is congress at its best. Getting a diverse set of people with various backgrounds and knowledge levels to ARP spoof in a little over an hour is art.

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/hub/event/detail/foundat...


To add some context and to spare readers who, like me, know nothing about Joscha Bach and only little about Epstein from having to go through all the linked material:

The allegations do not appear to involve abuse or moral complicity with Epstein. Instead, they seem to focus on emails Bach exchanged with Epstein concerning IQ, race, and possibly sex. Bach denies these allegations of racism and sexism.

That is at least how I understand the material based on the provided links.



Similarly, a rolling wheel (without slipping and on flat ground) does a pure rotation around the touch point and not its center.

"I’m posting this from a library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop because I am technically under a massive NDA. I don’t care anymore. I put in my two weeks yesterday and honestly, [..]"

The first paragraph already triggers all the red flags that the story is made up.


Maybe read more than just the first paragraph :]

I did. Didn't raise my confidence in the story.

"Burner laptop", really? Then "I put in my two weeks yesterday". Why put in the effort for a burner laptop and then dox yourself in the next sentence?

Nah, I wouldn’t be surprised if the companies pocket the tips, but this story smells.


It's a convenient little invention but "the fact that there wasn't a simple way to know which side of a vehicle the gas tank was located on" is not quite true.

Usually, if the vehicle is of Japanese or British origin, the cap is on the left, otherwise it is on the right.

Source: I’ve driven dozens of different vehicle models all over Europe for decades. This rule always worked well enough for me.


Anecdotally I’ve driven far fewer cars; my Mazda 323 BG has the filler on the left, but my Subaru Forester SG is on the right, despite both being of Japanese origin.

My Forester is likely to be an exception rather than the rule, however I do feel that the everyday person isn’t going to make the connection between the country of origin and filler side, especially so if it’s not consistent.

I never noticed the Moylan Arrow on my Forester for a year in owning it, and often mixed up the side for that time. Interestingly, my 323 doesn’t have the Moylan Arrow, but the Ford Laser equivalent does.


What do people do with the vinyl then? Collect it like baseball cards?

Funnily I'm in the complete opposite cohort. I own a record player, because stereo sets used to come with one even when vinyl was on the decline already. I have less than a handful of records which I ever only played out of curiosity.


Long time Linux on the desktop user here. I don't feel Linux has become significantly better recently. It's more that Windows reached a new low that is just below the threshold for many. Also, Apple, what are you doing?

A large part of it is that for most people, the vast majority of their computer use is in a web browser. Even "standalone" programs are often just an Electron app so they don't even have to use their computer differently than they are used to. Yes Windows has gotten bad, and Linux no longer has some of the major issues people would frequently run into (e.g. hardware compability is largely a non-issue, audio just works, etc.), but I think it is mostly that things are just way more platform agnostic today.

I'd say it's both... In particular 6.16 seems to be a defining point in terms of stability and performance at least for me. My RX 9070XT is finally running with no issues since 6.16 that I've noticed in any of the admittedly few games I play.

Mesa, the kernel drivers and Proton have all seen a lot of growth this past year combined with a bunch of garbage decisions MS has doubled down on... not to mention, enough Linux users in tech combined with Valve/Steam's efforts have made it visible enough that even normies are considering giving Linux a try.


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