Making Old Footage Look Great
AI has a bad name in the creative industries, but it actually has genuine uses for us. AI technology isn’t just about creating pictures where people have 6 fingers and everything looks slightly wrong, instead it can be used to enhance older standard definition footage to make it better quality. This chiefly enables the ability to integrate older shots into modern HD and 4K productions achieving a seamless transition between shots.
How Does It Work?
Upscaling isn’t a new technology but traditional technologies just tend to repeat image information. But an AI upscaler be looking at the image be trying to improve the quality from what it can see. It is unable to ‘invent’ detail from scratch but it will use what is in the image to best guess what should be there. For example, we often use our upscaled to turn HD and 4K footage from a Go Pro to either 4K or 8K then back down again for the edit therefore improving detail and providing a more pleasing image.
The Upside
Upscaling can be used to excellent effect to ‘fix’ single shots. This may be a piece of SD footage needing to be inserted into a modern production or it could be some action camera footage that needs an upwards nudge in quality
The Pitfalls
AI can get things wrong. Skin and hair may have fine detail in close up but when zoomed out can look plastic, smooth and artificial. AI also likes to use repeating patterns so some trees or bushes in the background make look rather uniform in texture once upscaled.
Should I Upscale My Old Productions?
The answer is, probably not, AI upscales are best used on a shot by shot basis and running entire edits through them will almost certainly result in strange things happening or artificial looking images. But a shot by shot restoration will be expensive and probably not worth it for a 10 year old standard definition production.
For more details of how you can use AI upscaling technology in your video productions, contact us.
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