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Old Movies: a Resource Too Valuable to Waste Movies mean reels of film. Commercial moviemaking uses a master film from which others are copied. Film is a physical thing that can be damaged, soiled, or broken like any other object. But unlike a scratch on a single car, a scratch or other artifact on an old movie master can affect the film’s usefulness to viewing audiences and the fortunes of the company that owns it. If the master film is marred, each copy will also be marred. Even if the master film is converted to digital form for making video copies, the artifacts will persist. Everything on the old film, trash and all, is converted to electronic data that go onto the video copy.
Another difficulty
with movies and other videos is the existence of several formats. It would
be useful for film companies to be able to change films from one format
to another so that current films could be easily converted to video, and
older films could be made to fit today’s video and film equipment.
Format has to do with the technicalities of converting movies to digitized
videos that can be shown on TV. One format problem involves resolution.
The U.S. standard for TV is 525 scan lines and 60 hertz (Hz) — the
frame rate. The European standard is 625 scan lines and 50 Hz. High-definition
TV will have a different pair of numbers. A second format problem concerns how to preserve the natural speed of motion depicted in a film when translating, for example, from a format that requires a speed of 24 frames per second to one that calls for 30. Because of the need to compensate for these differences in resolution and film speed, translation from one format to another is not a trivial process. A Mathematical Approach
to Repairing and Converting Films The MTI technology
can remove tears, splotches, scratches, dust motes, liquid-spill marks
and other unwanted visual defects from movies. Methods for using the new
technology, as well as a specialized user-friendly screen display from
MTI, have been integrated into post-production processing at a number
of facilities in Hollywood and elsewhere. MTI researchers succeeded in developing some components needed for format conversion. Work on other components is still experimental. The researchers thoroughly investigated motion compensation (which concerns the way moving objects are detected in a movie) and determined how to make adjustments for motion so that the new technology does not create new artifacts. Specifically, they estimated the frame-to-frame motion of objects and developed technology for the rapid calculation of the most significant motions. This technology is critical both for restoration of damaged images and for translating between film and video recording standards. New Products and Services
for Film and Video Industries The new MTI offerings
face competition from several other products — virtually all of them
from abroad. Competitor products, however, tend to focus on the artistic
end of the of the movie restoration business rather than on the technical
end. MTI’s products focus on the technical end, and the company reports
it is currently the only one to provide such software technology for automated
restoration. MTI initially intended to develop applications for motion-compensated reformatting and standards conversion, as well as restoration. After the ATP project began, the company decided to focus almost exclusively on restoration, based on a reassessment of the market for conversion software and services. It planned to offer film-restoration software running at commercially viable speeds (perhaps three to four times slower than real-time) on graphics workstations or high-performance personal computers costing well under $100,000. MTI succeeded, and it is offering the software for use with contemporary and archived movies. In addition, the company says it is about two years ahead of where it would have been without the ATP funds. Restored Ten Commandments As MTI’s mathematical
algorithm technology is applied to more films, more viewers will benefit.
Further benefits will emerge if the technology is used in other areas.
It has potential applications, for example, in forward-looking infrared
imagery, which is used by the military to detect objects at night, and
may also be useful in medical imaging procedures such as ultrasound and
fluoroscopy. Additional benefits will materialize if the technology for
standards conversion is completed. The film-restoration technology already commercialized promises spillover economic benefits to the viewing public and to owners of films with defects. Many films of historical interest, once they are restored with the new technology, will be available to viewers. The number of viewers will grow over the years as the restored or enhanced films are shown again and again, so spillover benefits will grow, as well. If the reformatting technology is completed and commercialized, additional benefits will accrue.
Return to Table of Contents or go to next section. Date created: April
2002 |
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ATP website comments: webmaster-atp@nist.gov / Technical ATP inquiries: InfoCoord.ATP@nist.gov NIST is an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department |
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