How To Make A Low-Quality Video Look Better

Even with today's cutting-edge digital technology and high-resolution cameras, many videos still need additional processing to achieve high-quality standards. Poor video quality can significantly detract from your viewing experience, so a trustworthy video quality enhancer is critical. Unlock the secrets to reviving lackluster videos across all your devices, as we cater to your query of how to make a low-quality video look better on computers, Android devices, iPhones, and iPads. Explore the best software, web-based tools, and apps to correct colors, fix imperfections, and enhance overall video quality to elevate your viewing experience.

Key Factors Affecting Video Quality

Enhancing video and audio quality hinges on a few key factors. Here are three fundamental aspects to focus on:

• Resolution

Video resolution determines how clear and detailed the video image is. A higher resolution means a sharper image, while a lower resolution produces a blurrier picture. Different platforms have ideal resolutions to ensure viewers can see details clearly, regardless of their device. The recommended resolution for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube is 1080 x 1920 PX.

• Frame Rate

Frame rate, denoted as FPS (Frames Per Second), signifies the frequency at which frames or images are shown within a video, determining its smoothness and fluidity. Most platforms have recommended FPS settings to ensure smooth and realistic video playback. For TikTok and Instagram, the recommended FPS is 30–60, while for YouTube, it ranges from 24–60 FPS, depending on the content and your preference.

• Bitrate

Bitrate is the amount of video data transmitted per second by a platform. A higher bitrate results in more precise video quality. However, the bitrate should not exceed your upload speed or the viewer's download speed, as this can cause slow loading times and interruptions, prompting viewers to move on. For social media, a bitrate between 1–45 megabits per second (MBPS) is suitable, with 5–8 MBPS being adequate for high-quality videos.

Different Ways to Polish Your Videos For An Upgraded Experience

On Windows & Mac

Enhancing video quality on Windows or Mac can be efficiently achieved using dedicated desktop video quality enhancer software. Since video files are often large and improving their quality can increase their size further, desktop software provides stable performance and ample storage, reducing the risk of crashes and data loss. Here are seven of the best video quality enhancer software options to turn low-quality video into high-quality.

UniFab All-in-One

UniFab All-in-One leverages GPU acceleration for faster processing times and offers added features like video compression, conversion, and editing tools. Employing super-resolution technology, UniFab uses neural networks to predict and fill in missing pixels, and upscale video to 4K. It converts interlaced signals to progressive scans with an innovative deinterlacing algorithm and uses AI-powered frame interpolation to reduce judder for smoother motion. UniFab's deep learning algorithms automatically remove video noise, and its AI enhances SDR to HDR for richer color and detail. 

Best For: Novice users who wish to upscale low-quality video

Price: Lifetime license of UniFab Video Enhancer costs $299.99

Supported Platforms: Windows&Mac

Step By Step Guide

Step 1: Open UniFab and Select Your Desired Mode

Step 2: Import and Customize Your Video

Add the video you wish to upscale. Configure the output settings, including format, quality, audio, and subtitles.

Step 3: Begin the Editing Process

Press the start button to commence editing. UniFab will efficiently handle the task using GPU acceleration.

Pros 

• Banks on AI to upscale video to 720P/1080P/4K.
• Interpolation technology can deliver a natural motion effect by boosting the frame rate.
• Equipped with an integrated video editing tool, it offers functionalities such as trimming, cropping, merging, rotating, and flipping videos effortlessly.
• It can support videos in 1000+ formats for increased compatibility.

Cons

• It has high system requirements.

PowerDirector 365

PowerDirector is the top AI video enhancer, suitable for all skill levels. It offers many features, including lighting adjustments, video and audio denoise, color correction, and stabilization. Advanced tools like Color Match, HDR Effect, and AI Restoration Assistant ensure high-quality results. Users can enhance videos with visual effects, color grading, and AI Sky Replacement. PowerDirector supports various formats and allows direct social media uploads, making it a comprehensive tool for creating professional-quality videos with state-of-the-art AI capabilities and NVIDIA broadcast support.

Best For: Video enhancement & edits irrespective of your skill level.

Price: Annual plan at $54.99/year (under the annual plan) 

Supported Platforms: Windows & macOS

Pros:

• Can auto-detect faces to apply blur effects on multiple faces in the videos.
• Allows speeding up or slowing down any clip as required.
• It makes it easy to fix unwanted camera shakes.
• HDR effect helps bring out the color and highlights of your footage. 

Cons:

• You will be bombarded with constant advertisements to upgrade. 

Topaz Video Enhance AI

Topaz Video Enhance AI is a top-tier video quality enhancer for desktop users, leveraging advanced artificial intelligence to improve and sharpen video footage significantly. Using machine learning algorithms, it analyzes video patterns and fills in missing details by adding new pixels, reducing noise and artifacts for a cleaner, polished final product. Notably, it creates natural slow-motion effects by generating seamless new frames, avoiding the stuttering common with traditional methods. It can upscale video from SD to HD and up to 4K, 8K, or even 16K, preserving detail and minimizing flicker. 

Best For: Slow-motion old footage whose video quality you wish to enhance. 

Price: $299

Supported Platforms: Windows & macOS

Pros:

• Users can upscale to 16x for creating naturally enhanced footage.
• Nyx AI Model helps fix compression artifacts and remove noise from 4K footage.
• Chronos & Apollo models can create new frames for super smooth results.
• It can stabilize the frame while reducing motion blur caused by slow shutter speeds and motion.

Cons:

• It comes with a high price tag and system requirements. 

Adobe Premiere Pro

To enhance video quality, Adobe Premiere Pro is a top video editing software, particularly for 1080P content. It provides various tools to improve video quality, such as the Unsharp Mask Effect for sharpening blurry footage by adjusting parameters like Amount, Radius, and Threshold. The software also boosts contrast and clarity, fine-tunes vibrance and saturation, adjusts shadow tint, and can give videos a cinematic look. Widely used by professionals, it supports nearly all video formats and has been utilized in popular films and TV shows. Premiere Pro's nonlinear editing platform includes the Lumetri Color Tool for extensive color manipulation and robust audio editing tools for enhancing dialogue and removing background noise. 

Best For: Professional video editors who wish to make low-quality video high quality.

Price: $22.99/month

Supported Platforms: Windows & macOS

Pros:

• Offers text-based editing to reorder, refine, and trim clips easily.
• Users can choose from the library rich in transitions and effects to create professional-grade results.
• Powerful correction and grading tools can deliver the correct result for your video.
• Pro audio tools help enhance dialogue and reduce noise.

Cons:

• It's evident for new users to feel overwhelmed by the complex interface. 

AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI

AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI stands out for its exceptional facial recognition capabilities. It uses a blend of facial recognition and motion tracking to deblur and enhance faces, whether they're stationary or in motion. Its automated multi-frame super-resolution feature upscales videos from SD to HD and further to 4K or 8K while keeping them uncompressed and eliminating unwanted parts for a more natural look. Designed with beginners in mind, it offers easy-to-use tools to upscale video resolution without quality loss. For how to enhance video quality, head to this guide.

Best For: Face recognition & refinement from highly noisy video. 

Price: Yearly plan for Windows & Mac at $119.95 

Supported Platforms: Windows & macOS

Pros:

• The interface is easy to navigate.
• AI Video Denoise helps reduce grain automatically.
• You can naturally colorize black-and-white videos.
• Users can blur faces for privacy reasons.

Cons:

• It imposes high system requirements.

HitPaw Video Enhancer

HitPaw Video Enhancer is a top choice for beginners, offering seven AI models: Denoise, Animation, Colorize, Face, and Repair, that can be applied with a single click. Its Face Model is impressive, sharpening facial details to reveal individual eyelashes and hair strands. This tool can upscale videos from low resolution to 1080p or 4K, and even from 4K to 8K, preserving quality while enlarging up to eight times. Compatible with Windows and Mac, it simplifies the enhancement process into three steps and features video background removal and sky replacement, making it ideal for creators seeking professional results.

Best For: Repairing anime videos with precision.

Price: For Windows (Monthly license at $42.99, yearly license at $99.99) & Mac (Monthly license at $69.99, annual license at $109.99)

Supported Platforms: Windows & macOS

Pros:

• Batch processing helps upscaling multiple videos together.
• Users can restore the picture clarity in both 2D and 3D animations.
• Can restore old and corrupted videos by banking on deep learning AI.
• It supports video enhancement up to 8K standard. 

Cons:

• It needs proper video editing tools.

Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro by Apple Inc. is a premier choice for color grading and enhancing video quality in 4K or 1080p. It offers extensive filters and correction tools to adjust brightness, white balance, contrast, and gamma levels and apply effects like sharpening, blurring, fisheye, pond ripple, and whirlpool. Additionally, it includes tools to alter color, hue, luminance, or saturation using an eyedropper tool and apply color changes to moving objects with the object tracker. Audio enhancements like background noise reduction and level optimization are also included. 

Best For: Adjusting focus and fixing low-quality videos on Mac

Price: One-time fee of $299.99

Supported Platforms: Mac

Pros:

• It comes packed with pro-level color tools to deliver pixel-level adjustments.
• A nonlinear timeline makes it easy to make low-quality video high-quality.
• Duplicate detection helps find audio and video appearing multiple times quickly. 
• A dedicated color inspector helps deliver superior color grading. 

Cons:

• It lacks a Windows variant.

Using Online Tool

Web-based applications can be your best bet if you prefer to avoid downloading heavy-duty software on your devices. Let's look at the best online utilities that can answer your query about how to make a low-quality video look better.

1. Flixier

Effortlessly create videos with the Flixier online editor, with features to add text, images, sounds, transitions, and auto-subtitles. Trim, cut, or crop videos within minutes without downloading software. Flixier's intuitive drag-and-drop interface is designed for users of all experience levels, making it simple to produce top-quality content. Enjoy the convenience of built-in motion titles, transitions, and access to over 2 million stock files, enabling you to create captivating videos for platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Best For: Creating social media videos with custom resolution. 

Price: Free

Supported Platforms: Web-based

Pros:

• It can be used in basic computers without any high-level skills.
• An easy-to-understand interface makes it well-suited for novice users.
• Offers ready-made transitions for imparting a professional look and feel to your videos. 
• You can choose between 50+ transitions from its built-in stock libraries. 

Cons:

• Frame rate tends to drop while reviewing videos.

2. Clideo

This online tool helps you create, edit, and add music to your videos seamlessly within a single screen. With a user-friendly interface and multi-track timeline, managing media is simple. Customize your videos by adding and personalizing text and adjusting fonts, sizes, colors, and backgrounds. By manually positioning images and videos, you can easily create picture-in-picture, split-screen videos, or any other composition. Clideo supports adjusting aspect ratios for social media and modifying volume, speed, brightness, and contrast without downloading or installing. 

Best For: Novice users looking for a low-quality to high-quality video converter. 

Price: Free

Supported Platforms: Web-based

Pros:

• It can clear background noise like fan or wind sounds from the video.
• It saves draft variants of the project automatically.
• It offers a multi-layered timeline with simple tools.
• Users can upload clips from Google Photos, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

Cons:

• It imposes a limit of 500MB on file size.

3. Kapwing

Kapwing is an online video editor designed to create fast and efficient videos. Featuring a powerful drag-and-drop timeline, it allows users of any skill level to edit videos quickly. Kapwing's content repurposing tools make resizing, converting, and compressing videos for different platforms accessible. Users can trim videos by editing auto-generated transcripts, speeding up the editing process. AI-powered tools enhance productivity with one-click automation, including Smart Cut for automatic silence removal and Magic Subtitles for accurate, editable subtitles.

Best For: Content creators looking for an affordable solution on the go.

Price: Start for free and upgrade to the Pro plan at $16 per member per month (on annual billing)

Supported Platforms: Web-based

Pros:

• Kapwing can generate videos from simple text prompts, creating clips, subtitles, music, and transitions based on your description.
• You can add music and effects while removing background noise from the audio.
• Users can highlight important information in a video by adding movement and energy.
• AI-enhanced tools help clip, trim, and merge music tracks to your video file.

Cons:

• It lacks advanced features like color correction, motion tracking, and noise reduction. 

Using A Dedicated Application

Are you a smartphone user wanting to upgrade low-quality videos to high-definition? Look no further! We've got two top-notch enhancer apps that you should try out.

1. Pinnacle Studio 26

Pinnacle, designed for near-professional enthusiasts, offers a variety of video enhancement tools to elevate your video quality. It also includes features to smooth out shaky footage, which is ideal for handheld camera shots. You can adjust the white balance, correct underexposed scenes, and use Selective Colors to emphasize specific elements. The app also offers LUTs and filters for instant color grading effects and special effects to set the desired atmosphere in your films. Additionally, Pinnacle provides themed templates and overlays to streamline your projects and achieve stylish, professional-looking videos.

Best For: Professional video enthusiasts who wish to edit and enhance videos.

Price: $69.99

Supported Platforms: iOS & Windows

Pros:

• You can stylize your productions with color adjustments, creative filters, smooth transitions, and more.
• The drag-and-drop timeline allows edits across six tracks simultaneously.
• Easily navigable interface packed with features.
• Support for 3D masking & editing.

Cons:

• It comes with a high price tag.

2. Videoshop

Videoshop provides extensive video editing features, making it a versatile tool for enhancing your videos. You can quickly refine your footage with capabilities like trimming, merging, rescaling, and adding music or sound effects. The app enhances video quality primarily through filters and effects, including Instagram-inspired filters and ten transitions. Advanced features like split-screen, picture-in-picture, green screen, motion tracking, keyframing, advanced color tuning, audio detaching, scene detection, and video stabilization allow professional-level editing. 

Best For: Creating high-resolution videos and sharing them instantly over social media channels.

Price: Free

Supported Platforms: iOS & Android

Pros:

• An easy UI makes it well-suited for users of all skill levels.
• It offers a rich library of filters, with new ones added daily.
• Allows adjusting video speed from slow to fast.
• You can select among four transitions to animate your videos.

Cons:

• It is not suited for processing large videos.

Conclusion

The current boom in content creation sees countless videos being recorded, edited, and shared on social media platforms every moment. However, only some videos hit the mark with their audience, often due to subpar quality. Video enhancers have become especially popular to refine your recorded footage significantly, ensuring it looks polished and professional. 

In this arena, UniFab Video Enhancer stands out as the premier choice for your query on how to make a low-quality video look better. With its advanced features and user-friendly interface, UniFab ensures your videos reach their full potential, delivering superior quality that resonates with your audience.

FAQs 

1. Is it possible to enhance a poor-quality video?

Yes, there are various methods to improve your video's quality. Adjusting settings on your equipment and optimizing lighting can help you capture better footage initially. Moreover, a video editor like UniFab Video Enhancer can enhance the quality of already recorded videos.

2. What are some ways to improve video quality?

Video editing software like UniFab Video Enhancer AI provides multiple techniques to enhance your footage. If your video is too dark or too bright or has color issues, color correction tools can help. A denoiser can be effective for grainy or pixelated videos. If you have shaky footage from an action camera, you can use a stabilizer and lens correction to fix the common fisheye effect.

3. Can AI tools clarify a blurry video?

AI tools can significantly enhance video clarity, although the extent of improvement depends on the video's original quality and the specific type of blurriness present.