The fifth episode of Star Fleet Academy was filled with memberberries for Deep Space Nine. So now I want to re-watch this magnificent Star Trek show. I first watched it, back when it aired in the 1990s.
There are many versions of it available: DVD, Laserdisc, free streaming on pirate websites, legal streaming, pirate DVDRips, pirate AI upscaled versions.
Pirate streaming ended up being a muddy picture, mislabeled episodes and such. So I checked out torrents and found a whole zoo of DVDRips and AI upscaled versions. Some upscaled versions have gigantic file sizes of hundreds of GB.
DVDRips
There are DVDs following the analog video standards PAL and NTSC. PAL has a higher vertical resolution of 576p compared to 480p for NTSC. The colors of PAL are also better. PAL is sped up by 5% to 25 fps, leading to a slightly shorter runtime and pitched up audio. Some say the PAL version makes people speaking sound like chipmunks. I don't think it's that noticeable, if you don't compare it directly.
The version I'm currently watching is called Star Trek Deep Space Nine - Complete Series - 576P - Multi Subs - DVDrip - X265-HEVC - O69. Each episode is around 250 MB encoded in x265. The DVD extras are included and a lot of fun. It's acceptable quality wise. However the image is too dark overall. I added a gamma adjustment filter of 0.9 to bring out the contrast and details in the shadows in my video player.
Legal Streams
Use the DVDs and recompress them. So at best as good as a DVDRip.
AI Upscale
There are a bunch of different upscaled versions, and new ones are regularly. These are just a few examples of many.
DS9: Redefined
Is a newish project for an actually good upscaled version. They use LaserDisc as source, correct the colors, and then upscale.
Their demo videos actually look pretty great. Sadly I couldn't find where to actually download the completed video files. Do you know?
Other upscales
https://berglyd.net/blog/2023/08/upscaling-startrek-ds9/ shows only a slight difference. Noise and grain are reduced, sure. Details like the pips on Sisko's collar are smudged and arguably worse.
https://community.topazlabs.com/t/star-trek-deep-space-nine-upscaling-project-by-leland-kovich-pal-dvd-to-1080phd-in-4-3/92214/8
Noise and grain is suppressed, but also the texture. Too much saturation, too much contrast, sharpening, ringing. Sisko's legs are an abomination, see the parallel line in the water. The rocks went from background blur, to sharp. The whole image has lost depth and looks flat.
Upscaling can be ok but I honestly hate the way upscaled content looks. Faces end up looking mushy and motion is often awful (since some nerds think the frame rate needs to be interpolated, which makes it look awful.) So I still watch my DVD SD rip which is good enough for me.
I won't poo poo the idea of watching it upscaled if that's what you want, but I'd stress that you should keep good notes on your files (via filename) so that you know what modifications have been made. This is only because metadata of video files are too lacking in this new era where videos are often modified, and it's becoming really difficult to fine the original authentic files for anything these days. Assuming you care about that sort of thing.