Re: improving video quality by computer

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Joseph Oswald wrote:

>mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote in message
>news:<20031213045725.21847.00000558@mb-m19.aol.com>...
>
>> Many people have home movies--either real 8mm movies or old VHS
>> tapes--that contain treasured memories.  Most of this footage is of
>> inferior quality compared to what we now expect (DVD quality).  The
>> prevailing attitude is that this situation cannot be fixed--"you can
>> copy it, but you can't put back lost quality".
>> 
>> This is incorrect.
>> 
>> Most elements of home movies are present in many frames, differing
>> only slightly in orientation or position.  That means that computer
>> processing could "track" those elements, and "stack" their representations
>> from multiple frames, producing a considerable enhancement in both
>> resolution and signal-to-noise (grain, in the case of film).  The stacked
>> elements could then be re-composited back into frames in their original
>> positions, producing a fully resolution- and SNR-enhanced sequence.
>> Of course, all the standard (and much less compute-intensive) corrections
>> to color, gamma, etc., can be performed at the same time.
>> 
>> The computation required to do this with high quality and minimal or
>> no user interaction is quite significant.  It would make motion-estimation
>> compression look easy.
>> 
>> The effect would be that, overnight, captured video of a treasured film
>> or videotape could be converted to a DVD with image quality 2x-4x
>> better than the original.
>
>Interestingly enough, a company called "Restoration Software" is doing
>something very like this on feature film transfers to DVD. Using a
>bunch of Apple PowerMac G5's.
>
>See
>
>  http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry/
>
>for more info.

Yes, that's the general idea.  I'm sure that Lowry is using stacking
techniques to reduce grain and improve resolution, in addition to all
the dirt and artifact correction he's doing.

I'm delighted to see that someone is applying these techniques to
films to make them "better than new", but am amused at the quaint
response of some film buffs who worship the imperfections of the
medium.

Throughout the history of motion pictures, countless people have
worked to minimize the frame jitter, grain, scratches, pinholes,
and other artifacts that plague film.  Yet many film buffs have come
to regard these artifacts as reflecting the "intent" of the film's creator!

Although there may be one film in a thousand which was made to
use artifacts like grain for artistic effect, the vast majority of directors
would have welcomed a more accurate reproduction of the scenes
they filmed.

Today, in the world of digital productions, there are special effects
that are sometimes applied to add in non-existent grain, and frame
jitter, and even color fading and scratches, so as to simulate film.

It is _always_ possible to degrade an image, but it is often much
harder to remove those degradations.

(This is reminiscent of (but certainly not the same as) the opponents
of "colorizing" banck and white films.  Certainly the colorization does
not reflect the original intent, but it does make the film attractive to
more viewers than would otherwise watch it, and for anyone who
wants it in black and white, they can simply turn down their color
control and have it in black and white!)

The film community is going to have to come to grips with what is
important.  Is it the medium of film, or is it the content?  The medium
will certainly become a niche medium, but the content will be preserved,
better than "intact", in digital form for millenia to come.

Now the question is how many patents protect this improvement
technology and how many of those are valid, so that reasonably
priced applications can be made available to the masses.  ;-)

His bank of 100 G5's will be in a single computer within a decade!

-michael

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