Topaz launches Topaz for Web with video upscaling and SDR-to-HDR

• Topaz for Web puts video upscaling, slow motion, frame interpolation, and SDR-to-HDR conversion in a browser product alongside image upscaling and unblurring, as Topaz Labs’ launch post lists.
• The service separates its models by footage type: Topaz Labs’ model guide assigns Astra 2 to generative video, Starlight to archival material, Proteus to editorial work, and Wonder to image restoration.
• A 480p-to-4K workflow is already emerging around Starlight Precise 2.6, with GlennHasABeard’s close-up comparison documenting a Seedance 2.5 source, Precise mode, Sharpness 5, and frame interpolation turned off.
• Long single takes get a prompt structure too: GlennHasABeard’s staircase test uses three stages, one change per stage, and a visible end state.

The Topaz Studio page says its cloud apps Astra and Bloom run in a modern browser without installation. GlennHasABeard made the least flattering frame the benchmark in a three-frame whip-pan test, while JulieW’s autumn clip names a current generative stack: Midjourney 8.2, Seedance 2.5, and Topaz Astra 2.

Topaz’s launch post groups these workflows under one web interface:

• Video: Precision Upscale, Creative Upscale, slow motion, frame interpolation, and SDR-to-HDR conversion.
• Images: upscale, unblur, and general enhancement.

Topaz sent a direct link to the web app in a launch reply. The company also called a viewer’s apparent boat-texture gain “huge” in a reply, an early indication that it is pitching the web tool at generated footage as well as conventional restoration.

Topaz’s model-selection reply draws a useful division of labor:

• Astra 2: add detail and resolution to generative video.
• Bloom: the image counterpart to Astra.
• Starlight family: archival footage.
• Proteus: editorial work.
• Wonder: image restoration and upscaling.

GlennHasABeard deliberately rendered a Seedance clip at 480p before processing it with Astra 2 in his before-and-after test. The comparison centers on a character holding a miniature city, a difficult source for any enhancer because tiny windows, traffic, and signs occupy only a handful of pixels.

GlennHasABeard’s Starlight test fixes the settings rather than treating enhancement as a black box:

• Source: native 480p from Seedance 2.5.
• Model: Starlight Precise 2.6 in Precise mode.
• Controls: Sharpness 5, 4K output, frame interpolation off.

Motion blur gets its own check in GlennHasABeard’s whip-pan sequence: three frames capture the start, the blurred middle, and the landing. His criterion is that the middle remains blurred while the stable frames gain definition.

For a 30-second Seedance 2.5 shot of a rider descending a spiral staircase, GlennHasABeard wrote the camera instruction as “stays about two meters behind through the whole descent.” His stated structure was:

1. Three stages.
2. One change in each stage.
3. A visible end state for each stage.

He says that end-state constraint is what held the rider’s identity from the top of the staircase to the bottom.

Topaz’s pricing page currently displays Topaz for Web Video at $19 per month, reduced from $29, with 200 monthly credits. The page does not convert those credits into a fixed number of rendered seconds.

GlennHasABeard estimated an upscale at about $1 per 10 seconds in his cost comparison, versus $2 to $11 for a 1080p Seedance 2.5 render depending on the platform. He separately cited 2,700 Dreamina credits for a 30-second 1080p render in a follow-up, and reported roughly 20 minutes of upscale time in another reply.