But an official remaster does not exist. So compared to the official DVD? The 2020 AI upscale is a revelation. It turns a TV show that looked like a 1990s VHS into something that looks like a pristine 1080p broadcast from 2015. It is watchable, enjoyable, and for many fans, it is the definitive way to experience the first season of the best Star Trek series ever made.
The 2020 upscales (often using Topaz Video Enhance AI or ESRGAN variants) were a breakthrough because neural networks had finally learned to interpret texture . Instead of just stretching pixels, the AI was trained on high-resolution footage to predict what details should exist. star trek deep space 9 s01 ai upscale 4k 2020