Upscale 1080p to 4k using ffmpeg

upscale_1080p_to_4k_using_ffmpeg.md

Upscale 1080p to 4k using ffmpeg

Just use the command below:

ffmpeg -i INPUT_FILE \
  -vf scale=3840x2160:flags=lanczos \
  -c:v libx264 \
  -crf 13 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 512k \
  -preset slow \
  OUTPUT_FILE

Where:

• INPUT_FILE is the path to your input file
• -vf scale=3840x2160:flags=lanczosis the new resolution using lanczos
• -c:v libx264 is the codec H264
• -crf 13 is the desired quality - From 0 to 51, the higher the number the worse. The smaller the number, the larger the file size
• -c:a aac -b:a 512k is the audio codec and bitrate
• -preset slow is the preset used. To go faster, use ultrafast
• OUTPUT_FILE is the output file

Hope it helps.

If you want something that you can copy and paste into your terminal:

function upscale_to_4k { \
ffmpeg -i $1 \
  -vf scale=3840x2160:flags=lanczos \
  -c:v libx264 \
  -crf 13 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 512k \
  -preset slow \
  $2
}

Then you can use upscale_to_4k input.mov output.mov

Is lanczos algorithm better than default for upscaling?

This gist is great thanks for posting it and thanks to @jbrower95 for the awesome function. I made one minor tweak which was to add "" around the positional parameters to handle files with spaces in the names. Works flawless. Thanks again @luizomf!

function upscale_to_4k { \
ffmpeg -i "$1" \
  -vf scale=3840x2160:flags=lanczos \
  -c:v libx264 \
  -crf 13 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 512k \
  -preset slow \
  "$2"
}