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Upscale videos to 4K

Runway’s upscale model takes your videos and makes them sharper by increasing the resolution up to 4K. It multiplies the resolution by 4x, with a maximum of 4096 pixels on either side.

What this does

This model improves video resolution while keeping things smooth across frames. Unlike just stretching pixels, it fills in details to make your video look naturally sharp at higher resolutions.

The upscaling works best on short videos. It’s designed to handle the kind of quick clips you’d share on social media or use in content creation.

When to use this

Here are some situations where upscaling makes sense:

Content creation: Take videos shot at lower resolutions and prep them for platforms that look better with higher-quality footage.

Archival work: Bring older footage up to modern resolution standards for streaming or preservation.

Production workflows: Get your video assets to 4K for compositing, editing, or other post-production steps that need higher resolution.

Marketing materials: Turn social media clips into higher-resolution versions for different distribution channels.

How it works

The model looks at your video and intelligently adds detail to increase the resolution. Because it’s built for video (not just images), it maintains consistency between frames so you don’t get flickering or jumping artifacts.

The maximum output is 4K resolution, capped at 4096 pixels per side. If your input video is really small, you’ll get a 4x increase. If it’s already pretty large, you’ll hit the 4K ceiling.

Things to keep in mind

Like any upscaling system, this works best when your source video has decent quality to begin with. If your input has heavy compression artifacts or extreme motion blur, upscaling can only do so much.

Videos with very fast motion or complex scenes might show some temporal artifacts like slight ghosting between frames, though the model is designed to minimize these issues.