ReSizer2.0

Does ReSizer 2.0 answer your resolution prayers? Not likely, but it’s a good tool for converting SD to HD or back and transferring between PAL and NTSC, and it’s available for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, as well as Apple’s powerful Final Cut Pro.

The software is easy to use and offers plenty of useful presets. In addition, the advanced settings enable you to fine-tune your scaling sharpness, smoothing and detail, and the interlaced options help to utilise interlaced footage for even better scaling. ReSizer also comes with a free de-interlacer plug-in, which helps you achieve your desired output.

However, some of the presets are less than impressive – when using the software to scale above 200 per cent, for example, the quality of the results drops dramatically. In general, scaling anything to that extent would be a bad idea, plug-in or no plug-in, but ReSizer seems to struggle with line-art, too, blurring the edges excessively at times.

The best results occur when working with interlaced video footage. In our tests, the software excelled when scaling between PAL and NTSC. The SD to HD conversions did need the fine-tuning tools, but otherwise the available presets worked very well.

The cheap price tag and free de-interlacer certainly make this plug-in more attractive than other image and video resizing tools, and it’s possible to create some impressive effects when used with contrast or levels tools. The bottom line? Upscaling images is never that successful, but this plug-in might help to improve your results.