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Considering it is entirely automated, this is extremely good. I'm not a bit against ML restoration. We've been paying artist to color BW in the early days, thi

Considering it is entirely automated, this is extremely good. I'm not a bit against ML restoration. We've been paying artist to color BW in the early days, this is just replacing the artist by machines. Judging from the video, it looks like no inter-frame relation is considered, so color varies wildly from on frame to another. The video still lacks some form of stabilization. Frames still have defects inherited from the film. Also, it clearly was recorded in different speeds, so people have an uncanny walk in the last scenes. I hope, in the not too distant future, these flaws will be taken care of and we'll see restorations that are very hard to differentiate from original footage.

tdrdt 5y ago
The channel Rick88888888 has a ton of restored movies: https://youtube.com/user/Rick88888888 https://youtube.com/user/Rick88888888
- xdennis 5y ago
  I'd sooner call it vandalism. Restoration is what's shown in "They Shall Not Grow Old" where they paid attention to detail and approached it with respect. Sharp edges and shifting red-blue colours is not what I would call restoration.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    It’s not vandalism unless the originals have been damaged. If someone makes a digital copy and goofs around with it I really don’t see any harm being done.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Hahaha, that's their creative touch so they can claim copyright on this for the next 70 years
  - seoulmetro 5y ago
    It's getting sadder and sadder to see people enjoying these fake restorations. Eventually we'll have so much of a mess that the original source will be forgotten or lost.
cheschire 5y ago
Maybe then we'll finally get an HD release of Deep Space 9.
- cf100clunk 5y ago
  Evidently all efforts of the following HN member to improve consumer-grade DS9 video has reached an end: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24417255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24417255 The studio itself won't commission the necessary professional work for an HD (or at least upscaled) re-release.
  - cheschire 5y ago
    The article you linked in that thread had an update from the same person. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-upscale-star-trek-deep-space-nine https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-u...
  - boulos 5y ago
    He came back to it :). > Update (7/17/2021): The article below has been superseded by the results discussed in “Far Beyond the Stars” and the accompanying tutorial, “How to Upscale Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” These articles are the latest that I’ve published and the best showcase for my latest work. [1] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/323905-far-beyond-the-stars-improving-motion-image-quality-in-the-ds9-upscale-project https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/323905-far-beyond-the-st... [2] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-upscale-star-trek-deep-space-nine https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-u...
wiz21c 5y ago
>> The video still lacks some form of stabilization. Yeah, I wonder why. Once you are able to create colors, I'd think stabilizing the picture must be really easy. And since we're doing fancy interpretation (yeah, I say "interpretation" 'cos ML can't know the exact colors, just see the craft turning red and blue all of the time), then it'd be nice to go to the end of it : color, stabilization, speed fixing, the whole thing. Besides, how do we know how such "interpretation" is close or far from reality ? What sort of validity testing is done ?
scotty79 5y ago
Lack of temporal consistency for colors is absolutely horrible. I think it indicates that the problem posed to ML was defined wrongly.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Exactly, the upscaling is good but any human intern would have fixed the color for free, even by choosing a random one, and it would have produced a result closer to expectations...
foobiekr 5y ago
It really isn’t very good. It’s worse than you’d get from low cost hand retouching outsourced to a low cost of labor geo as was done in the 80s.
- dylan604 5y ago
  >as was done in the 80s. as is done to this day. FTFY
xdennis 5y ago
I couldn't possibly disagree more. This is nothing more than the digital equivalent of the monkey Jesus restoration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Mart%C3%ADnez_and_Gim%C3%A9nez) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Mart%C3%ADnez_and_G... It's extremely disrespectful. The colours are shifting all over the place. At times it's no better than overlaying a random gradient over the original. > We've been paying artist to color BW in the early days, this is just replacing the artist by machines. And some people are very upset over those. (Have you ever actually seen classic movies like "It’s a Wonderful Life" in colour?) But this ML nonsense doesn't even hold a candle to those. In the manual process, for every object, they pick a colour and stick with it.
- axiosgunnar 5y ago
  How is this disrespectful if it's just a demo of the tech progress? Are painting artists not allowed to train by repainting Picassos until they get good?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Presumably, because they're training on a video of the Hindenburg disaster.
    - ramblerman 5y ago
      It's not like the original video is full of 'tact'. > Suddenly - The fatal moment!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Sure, you can train all you want, but showing off something that is inferior to other things that can already be done is just embarassing. At least it should be. There's a difference of showing off progress to your parents or investors or whatever, but making a public post of something clearly inferior in a way that screams "look what I did" is sad really.
foobarian 5y ago
In this particular case I think there is the extra complication that the ship skin was made of a special material that likely does not burn with the usual wood fire colors. Combined with the hydrogen on the inside I actually have no idea what color the fire would have been - the most accurate way to restore this would probably have been with an actual eyewitness in the loop, or by restoring a section of the ship including the flammable paint.

tdrdt 5y ago

The channel Rick88888888 has a ton of restored movies: https://youtube.com/user/Rick88888888 https://youtube.com/user/Rick88888888

xdennis 5y ago
I'd sooner call it vandalism. Restoration is what's shown in "They Shall Not Grow Old" where they paid attention to detail and approached it with respect. Sharp edges and shifting red-blue colours is not what I would call restoration.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  It’s not vandalism unless the originals have been damaged. If someone makes a digital copy and goofs around with it I really don’t see any harm being done.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Hahaha, that's their creative touch so they can claim copyright on this for the next 70 years
- seoulmetro 5y ago
  It's getting sadder and sadder to see people enjoying these fake restorations. Eventually we'll have so much of a mess that the original source will be forgotten or lost.

cheschire 5y ago

Maybe then we'll finally get an HD release of Deep Space 9.

cf100clunk 5y ago
Evidently all efforts of the following HN member to improve consumer-grade DS9 video has reached an end: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24417255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24417255 The studio itself won't commission the necessary professional work for an HD (or at least upscaled) re-release.
- cheschire 5y ago
  The article you linked in that thread had an update from the same person. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-upscale-star-trek-deep-space-nine https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-u...
- boulos 5y ago
  He came back to it :). > Update (7/17/2021): The article below has been superseded by the results discussed in “Far Beyond the Stars” and the accompanying tutorial, “How to Upscale Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” These articles are the latest that I’ve published and the best showcase for my latest work. [1] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/323905-far-beyond-the-stars-improving-motion-image-quality-in-the-ds9-upscale-project https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/323905-far-beyond-the-st... [2] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-upscale-star-trek-deep-space-nine https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324466-tutorial-how-to-u...

wiz21c 5y ago

>> The video still lacks some form of stabilization. Yeah, I wonder why. Once you are able to create colors, I'd think stabilizing the picture must be really easy. And since we're doing fancy interpretation (yeah, I say "interpretation" 'cos ML can't know the exact colors, just see the craft turning red and blue all of the time), then it'd be nice to go to the end of it : color, stabilization, speed fixing, the whole thing. Besides, how do we know how such "interpretation" is close or far from reality ? What sort of validity testing is done ?

scotty79 5y ago

Lack of temporal consistency for colors is absolutely horrible. I think it indicates that the problem posed to ML was defined wrongly.

xwolfi 5y ago
Exactly, the upscaling is good but any human intern would have fixed the color for free, even by choosing a random one, and it would have produced a result closer to expectations...

foobiekr 5y ago

It really isn’t very good. It’s worse than you’d get from low cost hand retouching outsourced to a low cost of labor geo as was done in the 80s.

dylan604 5y ago
>as was done in the 80s. as is done to this day. FTFY

xdennis 5y ago

I couldn't possibly disagree more. This is nothing more than the digital equivalent of the monkey Jesus restoration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Mart%C3%ADnez_and_Gim%C3%A9nez) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Mart%C3%ADnez_and_G... It's extremely disrespectful. The colours are shifting all over the place. At times it's no better than overlaying a random gradient over the original. > We've been paying artist to color BW in the early days, this is just replacing the artist by machines. And some people are very upset over those. (Have you ever actually seen classic movies like "It’s a Wonderful Life" in colour?) But this ML nonsense doesn't even hold a candle to those. In the manual process, for every object, they pick a colour and stick with it.

axiosgunnar 5y ago
How is this disrespectful if it's just a demo of the tech progress? Are painting artists not allowed to train by repainting Picassos until they get good?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Presumably, because they're training on a video of the Hindenburg disaster.
  - ramblerman 5y ago
    It's not like the original video is full of 'tact'. > Suddenly - The fatal moment!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dylan604 5y ago
  Sure, you can train all you want, but showing off something that is inferior to other things that can already be done is just embarassing. At least it should be. There's a difference of showing off progress to your parents or investors or whatever, but making a public post of something clearly inferior in a way that screams "look what I did" is sad really.

foobarian 5y ago

In this particular case I think there is the extra complication that the ship skin was made of a special material that likely does not burn with the usual wood fire colors. Combined with the hydrogen on the inside I actually have no idea what color the fire would have been - the most accurate way to restore this would probably have been with an actual eyewitness in the loop, or by restoring a section of the ship including the flammable paint.