Congratulation for you, your wife and your daughter!
But, you know that you are the hope of all FCP junkies... Hehe...
Frankly, I wish the scaler is going to work in FCP as native, or at least links tightly through XML. Yes, the FCP's YUV-RGB conversion is the problem for RGB mastering, but I expect that it would be addressed eventually. As you said, YUV 4:2:2 to RGB 4:4:4 conversion is the really tricky part in squeezing the best out of the original.
Yesterday, I found that Algolith AE plugins are working in 8 bit!!!! Shocking!!!!!!!! The point of my workflow suggestion above is all about scaling-up in higher bit depth, since such process creates the real and new pixels of the in-between values of the original pixels.
I, of course, have taken a look on the test of your new scaling tool. My impression combining with what you said in your letter before is, you put Less-Ringing in front of More-Sharpness. From my observation of numerous tests done by myself and others, I would say that there are two main positive values in up-scaling: The first is the sharpness of the edges that distinguishes the forms each other. The second is the texture of the planes inside the edges. Two factors usually go together, but sometimes not, especially when any kind of edge sharpening is performed. But, as we all know, sharpening has its cost, Ringing.
Sinc function in Anarchy Toolbox (which is apparently supporting 16 bit) is very sharp, but when the scaling ratio increases significantly, it produces quite strong ringing. In fact, sinc function has been available long before in Shake. Regarding the sharpness itself, sinc with quite large area calculation looked similar to Algolith CAS. But the result by Algolith CAS is not suffering from ringing.
Your test picture looks really clean in edges without ringing, but a bit lack of texture, which is kind of a Sony-type look. But as you said it has lots of control over the parameters, I expect it can be adjustable. Balancing between texture and noise is the key of high-end up-scaling.
Here is the link I found long time ago, which is quite interesting tool, in fact.
http://vega.0catch.com/
Especially, this sample was quite impressive! I tried some other tools to scale-up in the same ratio, and found that this result is amazing. If you can deliver this much quality, I suggest you to charge the price based on the buyer's income... Hehe... (I heard that traffic fine in Finland is charged in such way.)
http://vega.0catch.com/overview/chap9.html
We all know that the ideal way of acquisition is RGB 4:4:4 2K 10 bit log or 12 ~ 14 bit linear. But, that is not realistic for low budget filmmaking, at least for next several years. Availability will not be only determined by the advance of the technololy itself, but also controlled by the business model of the monopolies in the industry. So, we need some decent up-scaling tools that can be used in NLE workflow. I really really really hate interlace video as an acquisition and post format, regardless of delivery format. I prefer 720p to 1080i at any time. 720p is here to stay! Even if the upscaler in Kona 2 is good enough for casual (?) broadcasting, we definitely need some real high quality scaler for creating original 1080p master. If the master is 1080p (or 2K), of course, all the graphics has to be prepared as 1080p (or 2K). You don't want 720p size graphics to be up-scaled by Kona2 on-the-fly.
If the program is something like reality show stuff, who cares what? But if I am producing a really serious dramatic narrative or a documentary spending one year, I do not want to just use on-the-fly Kona2 up-scaling. To make real D5-HD broadcast master, DVCPRO HD 960 x720 has to be upscaled to 1920x1080 before going out. No doubt. What I mean is, its use is not only about the YUV to RGB (especially 2K) conversion, but also scaling up from 720p to 1080p in YUV domain.
It is such a relief for me that somebody who appreciate the quality of the image and knows what he is doing, is working on this issue. I have already introduced Nattress filters in Korean-based forums many times. Hehe... Hope all your loved ones are well and happy!
