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ANSWER

How do you upscale AI video to 4K?

Short answer

Render at 720p, edit the cut, then upscale only the finished master with a dedicated video upscaler. We use Topaz video upscaling at about $0.07 per output second, roughly $42 for a 10-minute film, which costs far less than rendering every shot at a higher resolution.

Upscale the cut, not the clips

Most AI video models render natively at 720p or 1080p. A 4K deliverable almost always comes from upscaling. The order matters: cut the film first, then upscale only the seconds that survived the edit. Our BROODFALL cut kept 364 of 972 rendered clips, so upscaling every render would have cost several times more than upscaling the 10-minute master. It is labelled as what it is: a 3840x2160 upscale of 720p renders, not native 4K.

What we tested

Video upscalers we compared on painterly AI footage, 2026-10-08
UpscalerResultVerdict
Topaz video upscaleClean edges, kept the painted texture, lowest flicker; 3840x2160 or 2160x3840, HEVC 10-bit, same frame countUsed for our 4K masters
ByteDance's video upscalerPosterized, oil-filter look with halos; padded one or two duplicate end framesRejected
SeedVR2Capped at 121 frames per job, too short for most shotsRejected

Topaz cost about $0.07 per output second and took about 35–60 s of processing per 5–9 s clip. The Emperor's Pleasure Court was rendered at 720p on Seedance 2.0 Fast and upscaled to 4K after the edit.

Steps

  1. Render every shot at 720p and approve the edit at that resolution.
  2. Export a high-bitrate master of the finished cut, keeping the original frame rate.
  3. Upscale the master (or each final shot) and pass the source frame rate explicitly; some upscalers default to 30 fps and will retime a 24 fps film.
  4. Check that the output has the same frame count as the input, then remux the original audio.
  5. Spot-check faces and fine texture: upscalers can smooth stubble and skin.

Rendering at 1080p instead

Going from 720p to 1080p at render time multiplies the list price by 1.00× (Veo 3.1) to 4.00× (Luma Ray 3.2) across the models in our price index. Seedance 2.0 goes from $0.243/s to $0.547/s. You pay that on every take, kept or not; an upscale at $0.070/s is paid once, on the finished runtime.

Model prices on this page are Atlas Cloud list prices quoted 2026-10-17 with its free /calculate endpoint, as published in our AI video price index. Source: Atlas Cloud model catalog and /calculate list prices (atlascloud.ai/models), checked 2026-10-17

Where Katechon Arc fits

Arc renders at 480p, 720p or 1080p (1080p on Seedance 2.0 only) and exports the assembled film, which is the master you hand to an upscaler.

Arc does not upscale to 4K. Use a dedicated upscaler on the exported film; we used Topaz outside Arc for every 4K release.

People also ask

Is it worth rendering AI video at 1080p?

For hero shots and short ads, often yes. For a long series it usually is not: 1080p costs 1.00 to 4.00 times the 720p price on every take, while upscaling the finished cut is paid once.

How much does it cost to upscale an AI film to 4K?

Topaz upscaling cost us about $0.07 per output second, so about $42 for 10 minutes and $189 for 45 minutes.

Related answers

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