Advice on settings for cleaning up highly compressed video

[Perseverant]

Ahhhhhh.  I thought everything above the name "MCTemporalDenoise" would pertain to the previous selection (KNLMeansCL).  Thank you.

[Perseverant]

Selur,

I'm really impressed by the combination of MCTemporalDenoise and BasicVSR++.  Check out the before/after:

https://imgsli.com/MzQyMDgw
(I removed despot because it was damaging the image more than helping)

The ability of BasicVSR++ to faithfully enhance detail without altering the original look of the animation is very impressive.  I've done plenty of experimentation with upscaling animated video and while BasicVSR++ isn't upscaling things in this case, the improvement in detail/quality is among the best I've ever seen.  I tried to research BasicVSR++ and didn't find much info out there.

Questions:
1) Do you have any tips on when it could be recommended/not recommended to use BasicVSR++?
2) Is it possible to upscale in Hybrid using BasicVSR++ or is exclusively used for restoration?

[Selur]

1) Do you have any tips on when it could be recommended/not recommended to use BasicVSR++?

Using BasicVSR++ under 'Others' (sometimes masked, just for the chroma or just on some scenes) is mainly meant for restoration, the lower the source resolution the stronger the smoothing&co effects are (so sometimes it makes sense to upscale before applying BasicVSR++).
For cartoons with low details, I usually at least try the effects of BasicVSR++. It does strong cleaning and line enhancement there.
I would not use BasicVSR++ on stuff that is already high quality or on content where I want to preserve small details (at least not unmasked).

Is it possible to upscale in Hybrid using BasicVSR++ or is exclusively used for restoration?

BasicVSR++ under 'Frame->Resizers' is meant for upscaling, here unlike with the restoration a 'high' quality source should be used. BasicVSR++ here isn't meant to clean the source.

Cu Selur

[Perseverant]

BasicVSR++ under 'Frame->Resizers' is meant for upscaling, here unlike with the restoration a 'high' quality source should be used. BasicVSR++ here isn't meant to clean the source.

Thank you.

Is there any documentation explaining which use-cases the various models are best suited for? (REDS, Vimeo-90K (BI), Vimeo-90K (BD), NTIRE 2021).

[Selur]

Not that I know of.

Cu Selur

[Perseverant]

Another Quick Q:  Is the normal workflow for resizing with BasicVSR++ that you set the resolution in the Crop/Resize tab, and that BasicVSR++ will override whatever the selected resize method is (e.g. 10 - bicubic spline)?

If not, can you tell me where I should be putting the resolution, when upscaling with BasicVSR++?

[Selur]

Yes, that is the correct and intended way.
Crop/Resize does the general setting. (The resizers there are available in FFmpeg, MPlayer, Avisynth, Vapoursynth).
"Vapoursynth/Avisynth->Frame->Resize->Resizer" overwrites the resizer selection and offers more settings for the resizer.

Cu Selur