/quickdesign

When to use

• Final concatenated video is too low-res for the delivery channel (1080p reel posted to a platform that prefers 4K masters)
• Source footage is older / lower res and you want to clean it up before publish
• Text-heavy / detail-heavy frames need extra crispness

Don't use as a substitute for generating at 1080p in the first place. Seedance R2V at 1080p produces a cleaner master than 720p + Topaz upscale, in most cases.

Hard facts (live)

quickdesign cost topaz-video-upscale -d 24 -r 4k
quickdesign cost topaz-video-upscale -d 24 -r 4k --fps60
quickdesign video models | jq '.data[] | select(.slug=="topaz-video-upscale")'

• Cost: per_second × resolution. 720p=1cr/s, 1080p=2cr/s, 4k=8cr/s.
• 60fps multiplier: ×2 if --fps60. Use ONLY if downstream playback is genuinely 60fps; most social platforms are 30fps and the bump is wasted.
• Sibling: bytedance-video-upscale is similar with a different cost ladder + a pro_multiplier. Compare via quickdesign cost --category video_upscale.

Pipeline placement

Always run after the final concat, not per-segment:

# generate segments at native resolution
quickdesign video generate ... -o seg1.mp4
quickdesign video generate ... -o seg2.mp4

# concat (mux-only, no quality loss)
ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i concat.txt -c copy final.mp4

# upscale ONCE
quickdesign video upscale ./final.mp4 \
  --provider topaz --resolution 4k -o ./final-4k.mp4 --wait

Per-segment upscaling wastes ~Ncr × duration and can introduce inter-segment quality mismatches.

Gotchas

1. Doesn't help with motion blur / shake — purely a resolution upscale. Pre-existing motion artifacts stay.
2. Doesn't add detail — invents plausible textures from neighborhood context. Faces hold up reasonably; fine product detail (engraving, label text) can soften.
3. 60fps inflation rarely worth the 2× cost for short-form social. Stay at native 24/30fps unless the platform requires otherwise.

Cross-references

• UGC final concat step → ../pipelines/ugc-video.md (final concat section)
• Subtitle post-processing (run BEFORE upscale or after, doesn't matter) → ../references/auto-subtitle.md