Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released) — Page 25

Yeah. If we're talking about the Hirschle one, the "rare British disc" he has is the Mentor cap, and I think the one I sent him. If you ask me, I don't think he has done any restoration work on video samples, just still frames.

I wanted to determine, with de-noising the picture as an example, whether working in RGB (if you're considering it) is worthwhile ... practically speaking. I wouldn't to steer you into more of work if the lesser is just fine.  :)

MVDeNoise() is a temporal de-noising script for Avisynth that overlaps a specified number of frames to make the "noise", which is random by any practical measure, cancel itself out. To take into account any picture movement, to minimize temporal smearing, it includes picture tracking. Pretty cool.

Because of HD picture size, I worked up a template to visualize cropped strips of the picture that would be displayed at full pixel size, including intermediate processing and final result -- 5 sections: "raw", "R", "G", "B", & "processed" -- all within a DVD-sized picture:

The first run is the raw image, it's RGB components (to show where the degree of noise resides), and the processed image. For this, MVDeNoise() was applied to the raw image only for the processed result:

The second run is the raw image, it's RGB components (MVDeNoise() was individually applied only to these channels), and the processed result:

From the first set, it is obvious the noise is greatest in Blue and least in Red. Therefore, in the second set, I had MVDeNoise() process +/- 1 frames in Red, +/-2 frames in Green, and +/-4 frames in Blue. This way, the settings produced approximately an equally de-noised result in each of the channels.

Comparing the two approaches, at this point in the restoration, doesn't show allot of difference ... at least in a still picture. Of course, the "de-noiser" in your software may show a greater difference depending on it's type of de-noising and how it implements it. Just FYI.

poita said:

If you would prefer, I can scan the film in sequential mono, i.e. the scanner captures three images per frame to a mono sensor, pulsing the RED, GREEN and BLUE lights separately to give you a separation transfer.

This gives the highest colour fidelity possible, but means you do have to reassemble the colour so to speak.

Let me know, it takes longer obviously, but I can scan it that way.

Hmmm... What would this do for us? How would we reassemble the separations?

Doctor M said:

Edit: I've always liked the way the fft3dfilter/fft3dgpu filters work for denoising.  Very tweakable.

I've seen this before but never looked into it. I generally keep away from smearing filters (or use one as a last resort). But this has a name that indicates targeting specific anomalies. Interesting.

poita said:

If you scan in mono you get RGB separations that have more resolution per channel. ... It just means that in theory you get more colour detail if you scan each channel separately in mono, ...

Just a personal curiosity about your system:
With film fade taking a toll more on one color (usually Red) than on the others (which are also affected), can you independently set each channel's capture lows and highs (and gamma?) to fill out each of their spectrums (0-255)?

ww12345 said:

That looks nice! I'm convinced now that this can be a really, really nice release. I was thinking that this would just come out OK because of print limitations, but I see now that what we have is so much better than what is already out there. Look at the detail in his collar, for example. That detail is just not there in other transfers.

Great work, Spaced Ranger. Thanks for the help so far! :D

It is a little heartbreaking to see the limitations of a fading eastman 16mm. That print is from 1978 I believe.  Here are some still comparisons from a 35mm IB Technicolor HD transfer of the film. The film strips posted a little while back are from what appears to be a 35mm IB (Imbition Printing) trailer.

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Is that for sure an IB print? If so, are ther more references? We would have no problem adjusting our color (and matching it) to that print if it is a true IB Tech...

edit: Also, it could just be my eyes, but it looks a little hot, like somebody boosted the saturation. What does everybody else think? If you click on the images, they link to an image hosting sit with comparisons, but I have to say that I think the "other" shots look better, simply because they are less boosted. That's not to say my eyes couldn't be wrong, though...

Yes- it's IB technicolor. It was done at HD prores. You can tell an IB print by its b/w soundtrack.  There was a crowd sourcing done and this IB print was transferred.

Is it available somewhere? I'd like to read about it and/or see what I could use as references...

edit: ignore my previous comment about the "other" print looking better - wasn't quite awake and didn't realize that other print was mine! :S

I don't want to step on the toes of your current project! 

This transfer is pretty nice and of course 35mm is about 4 times the resolution of the 16mm frame. The print had some wear and some splices, but was run with a wet-gate.  

When a transfer is done from a film print there is always some adjustment in Telecine, but there was no real boost to the color really in transfer- it's that juicy on the 35mm print.  It was offered as both a DVD with chapters as well as an HD mpeg-4 file (1920x1080). IB does tend to have some overlap in color at times (it's famous for a little halo around blacks depending on the color next to it).  Someone from another forum suggested some  pics get posted from the transfer (done about a year ago).

Not stepping on toes at all! I'm always curious about preservations, regardless of where they come from.

Where can it be downloaded? Do you have a copy?

There's just a handful of people who have it currently. Would it be a good idea to open it up for some of the forum folks?

Ditto. I would be more than willing to help clean it up. 

Zip Doodah said:

Here are some still comparisons from a 35mm IB Technicolor HD transfer of the film.

Nice captures! Those do give superior color targeting to fix up (as far as can be expected) other faded film. BTW, are some caps not coming through? It looks like there are spaces in your post where something more should be.

ww12345 said:

edit: Also, it could just be my eyes, but it looks a little hot, like somebody boosted the saturation. What does everybody else think?

Yes, they are over-saturated. A test reduction in the saturation (-25 in the paint program) brought things down enough to look gloriously more natural:

Back to the cap's original state, closer inspection reveals color fringing characteristic of lens chromatic aberration. (The same thing showed up in the THX 1138 restoration thread capture but was fairly easy to fix.) Also, the R-G-B spectrums show slightly crushed blacks:

Anyway, I was enthused to see if I could quickly match those colors into this project. The first approach, using histogram, wasn't going too quick. Then I tried the second approach, using curves, to map RGB low/middle/high neutral points from the new still to the original capture. That went quick and looked good -- it could use tweaking (or perhaps additional specific-color points), but it's almost there and an improvement over the previous unguided corrections:

What does 'CA' mean?

That particular frame sure looks bright and oversaturated- but that's how that scene is on the actual print! 

The transfer was done on a Shadow Telecine using a Da Vinci 2k for color adjust/ correction. A fairly standard setup for professional Telecine. A basic level was set at the beginning of each reel based directly on the color of the actual film- so it wasn't 'pumped' really....it's a fairly accurate representation of what an IB print of the film looks like. Wherever it ended up on the scope was a result of trying to get as close to what was on the print in a (very) basic setting.

 I'm always surprised seeing an LPP or other color stock print with great color, then comparing to a Technicolor print of the same film- the range is quite varied and unnatural, but also quite beautiful in its own right.  What it comes down to in transferring a film to video is what you'd like to get out of it- do you want it to look natural, or do you want it to be an accurate representation of what the Technicolor release looked like. That said, films were re-timed over the years as well, so a 1946 Technicolor print of Song of the South will likely also be different than a 1971 (72) print.

I've read some claims that Tech is hard to transfer from a print. My experience in transferring hundreds of hours of film over the years hasn't lead me to think that at all- but instead I've appreciated the odd, subtle/ not subtle, amazing results the process delivers.  So- all of that said, the goal in transfer in this case was to try and reproduce the look of this print overall. It wasn't a scene for scene transfer- rather, just a 'one light' with a basic setting at the beginning.

These stills were made by copying and pasting a single frame into photoshop from a pro-res quicktime, then bringing the levels up a bit. Often a pro-res film capture will look darker displayed in Photoshop from the file- so there was some adjustment done there.  

The other hard thing to recreate in a photochemical fade is the color that just isn't there anymore. You've lost a range of yellow and blue in this print that just won't come back, sadly. In dealing with color correction on a lot of 'red' or 'pink' eastman material, I've found often the best you can get from yellows or blues is a lighter version of the color without much saturation. I am geeking out a bit seeing what you folks are able do though.