Topaz Starlight Fast 3 vs Sume Video Upscale: what you can set

Topaz's September update says Starlight Fast 3 runs at 4x the speed of Starlight Precise. Sume Video Upscale 1.0 is a different product with its own enhancement_tier of fast, standard or pro (default fast), billed at $0.009 per video second. Sume's docs do not name Topaz models or give frames per second, so treat the two as separate things to test.

Topaz figures are from Topaz's update page; Sume's from the API reference and OpenAPI document. Both read 2026-10-01.

What did Topaz announce?

Starlight Fast 3 is a video upscaler that Topaz says runs at about 7 fps on 1080p, so a 10 second 1080p clip takes under 40 seconds. Topaz also lists a Speed Boost on Starlight Precise 2.6 with up to a 10x speedup for 2x credits, coming to its desktop app. These are Topaz's numbers about Topaz's products.

What does Sume Video Upscale 1.0 take?

How is it billed?

The rate card lists Video Upscale at $0.009 per video second, based on input seconds. Sending duration_seconds lets Sume reserve for the real clip length instead of the 5 second default.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-upscale-1.0/upscale \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://example.com/clip-1080p.mp4",
    "upscale_factor": 2,
    "duration_seconds": 10,
    "enhancement_tier": "fast"
  }'

How do I compare speed fairly?

Time the same 10 second clip on both and compare the files by eye. Do not carry Topaz's fps figure over to Sume: the Sume docs make no speed claim.