3 ms·

I've often wondered, if there are multiple different prints of an older film available, they could be averaged or something using modern ML or computational sta

I've often wondered, if there are multiple different prints of an older film available, they could be averaged or something using modern ML or computational statistics. I get the sense that "unsupervised" methods are underutilized a bit in film and audio restoration but I know next to nothing about this area.

morsch 3y ago
Yeah, there are tools that do this. I know nothing about this stuff, but a recent Tech Tangents video had him combining multiple degraded prints of Contact. It's the final segment and the tool is called Id-disc-stacker. You need a lot of time, space and processing power. https://youtu.be/RduEpIiG0O0?si=uurvcfzVoOkf3zSW https://youtu.be/RduEpIiG0O0?si=uurvcfzVoOkf3zSW
- saberdancer 3y ago
  I really liked the bit about first rule of government spending.
enriquto 3y ago
I've seen this done for vinyl discs. You play several copies of the same old disc. The noise defects appear in different places, and can be easily removed by merging the aligned the tracks. Even with just two discs, the output result is spectacular.
- Solvency 3y ago
  What software?
  - enriquto 3y ago
    It was a project by some signal processing students in my lab. As far as I know, they didn't get to publish anything besides writing a technical report; and the code was a matlab thing that just ran on the computer of one of them... But their presentation was excellent! They brought their vinyls, the turntable, and did a live demo of the whole thing running.
    - Solvency 3y ago
      Weird, why not sell it, or at least open source it? I imagine thousands of people would use it.
      - enriquto 3y ago
        I don't know, releasing a sellable product from an algorithm is a huge undertaking, probably harder and definitely less interesting than developing the algorithm itself. This was just a three-month work project by some smart students, who afterwards got lucrative jobs working in industry. In more practical terms, people who actually listen to vinyls get to appreciate the "cracks", and they wouldn't really see the point in such a product. Major studios have surely developed similar tools internally. The method is probably a scientific curiosity, mostly of educative interest, like observing the helium in the sun atmosphere with a hand-made spectometer built with an old CD and a cereal box.

morsch 3y ago

Yeah, there are tools that do this. I know nothing about this stuff, but a recent Tech Tangents video had him combining multiple degraded prints of Contact. It's the final segment and the tool is called Id-disc-stacker. You need a lot of time, space and processing power. https://youtu.be/RduEpIiG0O0?si=uurvcfzVoOkf3zSW https://youtu.be/RduEpIiG0O0?si=uurvcfzVoOkf3zSW

saberdancer 3y ago
I really liked the bit about first rule of government spending.

enriquto 3y ago

I've seen this done for vinyl discs. You play several copies of the same old disc. The noise defects appear in different places, and can be easily removed by merging the aligned the tracks. Even with just two discs, the output result is spectacular.

Solvency 3y ago
What software?
- enriquto 3y ago
  It was a project by some signal processing students in my lab. As far as I know, they didn't get to publish anything besides writing a technical report; and the code was a matlab thing that just ran on the computer of one of them... But their presentation was excellent! They brought their vinyls, the turntable, and did a live demo of the whole thing running.
  - Solvency 3y ago
    Weird, why not sell it, or at least open source it? I imagine thousands of people would use it.
    - enriquto 3y ago
      I don't know, releasing a sellable product from an algorithm is a huge undertaking, probably harder and definitely less interesting than developing the algorithm itself. This was just a three-month work project by some smart students, who afterwards got lucrative jobs working in industry. In more practical terms, people who actually listen to vinyls get to appreciate the "cracks", and they wouldn't really see the point in such a product. Major studios have surely developed similar tools internally. The method is probably a scientific curiosity, mostly of educative interest, like observing the helium in the sun atmosphere with a hand-made spectometer built with an old CD and a cereal box.