<p>You can't recover information that isn't present in the data you have.  Sometimes there's useful information hidden by noise, and filtering can help.  However, esp. in the case of downscaling/upscaling, information is just gone.</p>

<p>These wiki links are way too general and mathy to be specifically helpful, but this is the theory behind why you can't recover quality once it's gone:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory</a></p>

<p>Think of it this way: if you could somehow increase the quality of a video, we'd just use that procedure on 100x100 pixel videos to upscale them to beautiful 4k displays, and fit HD movies on floppy disks.</p>

<p>Same deal if you compress the hell out of a JPEG image:  it'll be all blurry and blocky, and the details of the source are gone.  If they were recoverable from a tiny JPEG, then we could compress anything as much as we wanted and still have great-looking images.</p>

<p>These things are as impossible as perpetual motion machines.  Sorry to dash your hopes. :/</p>

<p>All that said, it's possible you could do some smoothing or filtering on an upscaled version to produce something that looks to a human eye more like what you saw.  With the aid of words, you might have some luck getting your point across.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-12T02:06:59.590Z
Thanks. Though I knew its not possible, but just hoped that if there was any. May be someday technology will be that much developed. By the way, can you recommend any software for smoothing or filtering the video?
Nadia Ali
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-12T02:12:55.350Z
> "May be someday technology will be that much developed...".  The best you could hope for would be an AI that figures out what it might have been a video of, and constructs a good-looking video of what you might have recorded.  Anything better than that is literally as impossible as a perpetual motion machine, as proved by information theory.
Peter Cordes
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-12T02:14:43.420Z
I've had OK results with some mplayer / ffmpeg filters.  If you're on Windows, there are a lot of free (but not open source) avisynth filters.  Apparently it's possible to get avisynth running on Linux, but I haven't done it.  Google some, and / or search the doom9.org forums directly.
Peter Cordes
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-12T01:30:56.333Z
2015-04-12T01:30:56.333Z
Peter Cordes
<p>Unfortunately, no. Increasing the resolution of a video after recording is impossible. You can upscale the video, but that will simply copy the pixels and maybe interpolate a bit, but the result won't look any better than the original. If, as I presume, whatever you saw there is just a bunch of colored pixels in your video, there's nothing you can do to change that.</p>

<p>Whatever you saw there, maybe it was just not meant to be caught on tape ... </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-10T14:21:56.650Z
Thanks for the answer. Sigh, I'm just so curious to know what was that. :(
Nadia Ali
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-10T10:13:45.170Z
2015-04-10T10:13:45.170Z
MoritzLost
<p>Few days ago, at early morning I saw something falling in a slop in the sky. It wasn't a plane but something with a color of fire and so bright! I wonder what it could be, so I recorded it on my mobile. But as my mobile camera resolution is really very low, it wasn't that clear to understand. While I show it to someone, then they don't understand the exact thing that I saw. </p>

<p>So, I'd like to know that is there any way to increase the resolution of the mobile clip?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-11T10:41:16.863Z
Welcome Nadia, please start with the tour: http://video.stackexchange.com/tour to get your first badge :) If Gin-San's answer solves your issue please mark it as. It's also friendly to upvote. Anyway, enjoy the site!
p2or
<video-quality>
How can I increase the resolution of a mobile clip?
Nadia Ali
# How can I increase the resolution of a mobile clip?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-04-10)

Few days ago, at early morning I saw something falling in a slop in the sky. It wasn't a plane but something with a color of fire and so bright! I wonder what it could be, so I recorded it on my mobile. But as my mobile camera resolution is really very low, it wasn't that clear to understand. While I show it to someone, then they don't understand the exact thing that I saw.

So, I'd like to know that is there any way to increase the resolution of the mobile clip?

**Tags:** video-quality

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Welcome Nadia, please start with the tour: http://video.stackexchange.com/tour to get your first badge :) If Gin-San's answer solves your issue please mark it as. It's also friendly to upvote. Anyway, enjoy the site!  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2015-04-12. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

You can't recover information that isn't present in the data you have. Sometimes there's useful information hidden by noise, and filtering can help. However, esp. in the case of downscaling/upscaling, information is just gone.

These wiki links are way too general and mathy to be specifically helpful, but this is the theory behind why you can't recover quality once it's gone:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory>

Think of it this way: if you could somehow increase the quality of a video, we'd just use that procedure on 100x100 pixel videos to upscale them to beautiful 4k displays, and fit HD movies on floppy disks.

Same deal if you compress the hell out of a JPEG image: it'll be all blurry and blocky, and the details of the source are gone. If they were recoverable from a tiny JPEG, then we could compress anything as much as we wanted and still have great-looking images.

These things are as impossible as perpetual motion machines. Sorry to dash your hopes. :/

All that said, it's possible you could do some smoothing or filtering on an upscaled version to produce something that looks to a human eye more like what you saw. With the aid of words, you might have some luck getting your point across.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks. Though I knew its not possible, but just hoped that if there was any. May be someday technology will be that much developed. By the way, can you recommend any software for smoothing or filtering the video?  
> **username_2**: > "May be someday technology will be that much developed...".  The best you could hope for would be an AI that figures out what it might have been a video of, and constructs a good-looking video of what you might have recorded.  Anything better than that is literally as impossible as a perpetual motion machine, as proved by information theory.  
> **username_2**: I've had OK results with some mplayer / ffmpeg filters.  If you're on Windows, there are a lot of free (but not open source) avisynth filters.  Apparently it's possible to get avisynth running on Linux, but I haven't done it.  Google some, and / or search the doom9.org forums directly.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2015-04-10. Score: 1

Unfortunately, no. Increasing the resolution of a video after recording is impossible. You can upscale the video, but that will simply copy the pixels and maybe interpolate a bit, but the result won't look any better than the original. If, as I presume, whatever you saw there is just a bunch of colored pixels in your video, there's nothing you can do to change that.

Whatever you saw there, maybe it was just not meant to be caught on tape ...

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for the answer. Sigh, I'm just so curious to know what was that. :(  

---

