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As an African-American it was actually useful to watch some of these colorized videos and get a better since for how African-Americans integrated into the socie

by ijidak 6y ago

As an African-American it was actually useful to watch some of these colorized videos and get a better since for how African-Americans integrated into the society at that time. Having it in color with sound made the video seem much more real and relatable. For me this just ads another facet to develop a better-rounded grasp of the era. Inserting the extra frames seems to slow the footage down and allow more time for digestion. I find it often difficult to track what's going on in old videos because of the off-speed of the recordings. But for the historians who spend a lot of time with these artifacts, I'm sure this feels like a bastardization of history. But as a lay person, it makes me want to devour more of these videos to get a fascinating and easier-to-digest look at life back in those times. Btw, this is the video I watched: https://youtu.be/hZ1OgQL9_Cw https://youtu.be/hZ1OgQL9_Cw

roywiggins 6y ago
The dance scene from Hellzapoppin' is my favorite use of the colorization algorithms so far- it's so much easier to follow the dancers when the color pops them out of the background. Color contrast helps a lot. In that case the whole setup- the costumes, the lighting, etc, are all artificial in the first place, adding some fake color on top doesn't seem like a historical sin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzc7vY9VTnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzc7vY9VTnk Personally, I don't find frame interpolation to be as effective as colorization; the artifacts it causes are often more distracting than just leaving the framerate alone. It can create a sort of artificial floating feeling to the motion- a problem that people often complain about with native 60fps, and is much worse with interpolated 60fps. Algorithms keep improving though, eventually I might find them more satisfying.
- dnautics 6y ago
  I love the hellzapoppin' colorization but it does show that we have a long way to go -- you can see the colorization struggle with keeping the skin tone of the dancers consistent. obviously, this has a lot to do with training data bias.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > I love the hellzapoppin' colorization but it does show that we have a long way to go -- you can see the colorization struggle with keeping the skin tone of the dancers consistent. obviously, this has a lot to do with training data bias. The colorization is struggling to keep colors consistent on the costumes, walls, curtains... basically everywhere the lighting keeps changing a bit. Many things in the scene are constantly shifting minutely between pinkish-beige and bluish-grey, often making them look somewhat iridescent. I've noticed this sort of effect in many colorization attempts. This one does better than most. Training data bias is obviously part of the problem, but not the whole story. It might not even be the biggest cause. Image segmentation is one way to help the colorization stabilize.
- ijidak 6y ago
  Wow! Just watched it. Agree. It is easier to track the dancers! I wonder if it has to do with the fact that our vision is color. Is there color data that the brain is using to process fast moving images that we lose in black and white? Maybe color moving over a different color is easier for the brain to process than two similar colors moving with relation to each other.

by ijidak 6y ago

roywiggins 6y ago

The dance scene from Hellzapoppin' is my favorite use of the colorization algorithms so far- it's so much easier to follow the dancers when the color pops them out of the background. Color contrast helps a lot. In that case the whole setup- the costumes, the lighting, etc, are all artificial in the first place, adding some fake color on top doesn't seem like a historical sin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzc7vY9VTnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzc7vY9VTnk Personally, I don't find frame interpolation to be as effective as colorization; the artifacts it causes are often more distracting than just leaving the framerate alone. It can create a sort of artificial floating feeling to the motion- a problem that people often complain about with native 60fps, and is much worse with interpolated 60fps. Algorithms keep improving though, eventually I might find them more satisfying.

dnautics 6y ago
I love the hellzapoppin' colorization but it does show that we have a long way to go -- you can see the colorization struggle with keeping the skin tone of the dancers consistent. obviously, this has a lot to do with training data bias.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > I love the hellzapoppin' colorization but it does show that we have a long way to go -- you can see the colorization struggle with keeping the skin tone of the dancers consistent. obviously, this has a lot to do with training data bias. The colorization is struggling to keep colors consistent on the costumes, walls, curtains... basically everywhere the lighting keeps changing a bit. Many things in the scene are constantly shifting minutely between pinkish-beige and bluish-grey, often making them look somewhat iridescent. I've noticed this sort of effect in many colorization attempts. This one does better than most. Training data bias is obviously part of the problem, but not the whole story. It might not even be the biggest cause. Image segmentation is one way to help the colorization stabilize.
ijidak 6y ago
Wow! Just watched it. Agree. It is easier to track the dancers! I wonder if it has to do with the fact that our vision is color. Is there color data that the brain is using to process fast moving images that we lose in black and white? Maybe color moving over a different color is easier for the brain to process than two similar colors moving with relation to each other.