Collection of models for use in restoration and upscaling of the TV series "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" from the 1990s. While primarily consisting of cel-based animation, the show also incorporates live-action (including stock footage and scenes involving "The Player"), 3D CGI (primarily used for the C5 Corridor), and 2D computer animation. The models are divided into two groups:

* Deinterlace Fix
* Upscaling

The deinterlacing fox models are primarily designed for the 2012 Mill Creek release, where a number of episodes have some rather harsh forced deinterlacing, which the models attempt to repair. These models may also be useful for improving picture quality in some scenes (primarily in seasons 3 and 4) that used deinterlacing as part of compositing multiple layers of images, and for improving the results of deinterlacing by QTGMC or other processes.

Speaking of deinterlacing, for episodes in 480i, I recommend using QTGMC to deinterlace them to 60 (59.97) fps, the frame rate of the live-action and (some) C5 Corridor footage. For the pre-deinterlaced episodes, you're going to be stuck at 30 fps since the other-frame information has already been removed. Despite this series being primarily cel-based animation, I **don't** recommend using 24 fps as it tends to make higher-framerate portions look odd.

The upscaling models work pretty much how you would expect.

Each model has a small and large variant. The large variants are based on the OmniSR architecture, and tend to produce better results (marginally so in the case of the deinterlacing fix), but are several times slower than the small models, which use the compact architecture.

Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?

Takes composite/RF/VHS NES footage and attempts to restore it to RGB quality. Assumes footage has been properly deinterlaced via field duplication from 240p to 480p/720p/etc. Note that:

* All footage was captured in 240p/480p/720p NTSC.
* RGB footage was captured via an AV Famicom with the RGB Blaster via the Retrotink 2x or GBS Control.
* The model was trained exclusively on individual frames, so it can't fix things like dropouts.
* The even and odd fields of NES composite tend to be a bit...different from each other, so there will be some jitter at 60fps.
* I don't have access to an NES Toploader, so I wouldn't expect it to fix the jailbars very well.

Revision History:

* 1.5.0 (06/29/2025): Applied additional augmentations to reduce overfitting. Also added a small amount of 720p training data.
* 1.0.0 (11/03/2024): Initial release.

NES Composite to RGB

The "Complete Series" release of "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" by Mill Creek has a number of episodes that suffer from some rather harsh deinterlacing. This model attempts to restore the footage to something closer to a more advanced deinterlacing job. It may also be useful on episodes (primarily found in seasons 3 & 4) that were produced with advanced compositing where certain layers used similar forced deinterlacing techniques, and for cleaning up artifacts left by Yadif, QTGMC, etc.

Revision History:
* v1.1.0: Added data to improve handing of certain situations, particularly in season 3.
* v1.0.0: Initial release.

Where On Earth-Deinterlace Fix-Large

Where On Earth-Deinterlace Fix-Small

This model is designed to upscale the standard definition digital era of the Pokémon anime, which runs from late season 5 (Master Quest) to early season 12 (Galactic Battles). During this time, the show was animated digitally in a 4:3 ratio. This process was also used for Mewtwo Returns, most of Pokémon Chronicles, and the Mystery Dungeon specials.

Advice/Known Limitations:
* This OmniSR model can occasionally produce black frames when run in fp16 mode. This seems to be more common in the TPCi era (seasons 9 and later). The issue is sporadic enough that it probably makes sense to do a first pass in fp16, then re-upscale any affected shots in fp32.
* I recommend using QTGMC on a preset of "Slow" or slower for deinterlacing. While the show is primarily animated at 12/24 fps, some elements like backgrounds are animated at a full 60i.
* The model is not great at handling fonts, particularly the italicized text in the episode credits. This is despite including font images in the training data,.

Digital Pokémon-Large

This model is designed to upscale the standard definition digital era of the Pokémon anime, which runs from late season 5 (Master Quest) to early season 12 (Galactic Battles). During this time, the show was animated digitally in a 4:3 ratio. This process was also used for Mewtwo Returns, most of Pokémon Chronicles, and the Mystery Dungeon specials.

Advice/Known Limitations:
* I recommend using QTGMC on a preset of "Slow" or slower for deinterlacing. While the show is primarily animated at 12/24 fps, some elements like backgrounds are animated at a full 60i.
* The model is not great at handling fonts, particularly the italicized text in the episode credits. This is despite including font images in the training data,.

Digital Pokémon-Small

Upscaling model for 1990s cartoon series "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" May also be useful for other shows of that era.

Note: Before using this model, you will need to either:
* Deinterlace the episodes (I recommend QTGMC on Slower) to 60 fps (I recommend 60 fps because that's the rate of the live-action footage and some other components).
* Repair the existing deinterlacing via one of the related models for this show.
Which method will depend on the episode and release. See the related deinterlacing models for details.

This show is...complicated. Unlike, say, the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, where live action and animated segments are generally separated into large chunks, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego repeatedly switches between live-action, traditional animation, 3D CGI, 2D computer graphics, stock photography, and other sources, sometimes combining them in the same frame. As such, rather than create multiple models for each type, I've created a single model for all footage types.

Known Weaknesses:
* The model performs less well on the live-action (Player) and 3D CGI (C5 Corridor) segments due to a scarcity of usable data in those scenes.
* I don't own the 2025 DVD release, so I can't comment on how well this model works on that footage.

Where On Earth-Upscale-Large

Where On Earth-Upscale-Small

A 2x model designed for hand-drawn animation of the 80's, 90's and early 2000s.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show is a hybrid animated and live-action show that debuted in 1989. Each episode featured a cartoon segment sandwiched between live-action segments. The combination of the two formats makes the show very difficult to upscale, and creates the need for multiple model files.

These models were trained using footage from the show itself (except for some title images that were recreated in Photoshop) by finding cases where the same image was shown at different resolutions. For the animated footage, I also did some retouching to reduce haloing, color bleed, and other issues.

A few notes:

- The opening sequence (in particular, the first shot with the giant talking Mario face) is very difficult to upscale due to the picture being degraded from multiple layers of compositing. Ideally, a professional remaster of the series would have access to the individual elements, upscale those, then recomposite them.
- Although live-action models are provided, you will likely get better results from commercial upscaling software (I recommend  the Proteus model in Topaz Video AI).
- Footage must be deinterlaced before processing (I recommend QTGMC for both live-action and animated segments).

[Full Read Me](https://www.mediafire.com/file/brp4c0pvv5s42rw/ReadMe.txt/file)

[Sample Animated Result](https://www.mediafire.com/view/wtieecra7iov35f/Animation_Sample.png/file)

[Sample Live Action Result](https://www.mediafire.com/view/xa7jenxl18xd1y7/Live_Action_Sample.png/file)

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