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View Full Version : Recovering detail re: Lowry Digital NASA Footage


Yellow_
16th June 2012, 13:41
I was listening to a podcast from here:

http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcasts/fxpodcast-the-lowry-process/

About the recovering of detail from limited vertical resolution footage off old tube cameras used by NASA.

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/emerging-tech/2009/07/20/nasa-takes-steps-to-restore-apollo-11-footage-39688316/

Lowry's technology uses temporal image processing that collects information from clips and uses them to determine the correct contrast, resolution and noise level in each frame, the company said.

From my limited understanding they discuss temporal analysis over many frames forward and back, stack th frames and determine additional detail then weave that into the frames. Just like that, huh huh. :-)

Image samples here before and after:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1249444897105.html

Could anyone suggest Avisynth plugins / approaches that could work in this way, albeit probably not GPU accellerated, for 'improving' the appearance of detail and resolution in sensor line skipped DSLR video sources.

I'm interested in ways to do this that don't rely on sharpeners and USM type approaches. Linked to Lowrys work on movies like Zodiac and Benjamin Button.

"We then enhanced the images to achieve a consistent amount of sharpness and noise throughout the film," says Cooper.

"David and Peter came to us on Zodiac with some underexposure issues," says Lowry Digital's Alan Silvers. "When they saw that we could help unify the look across the board and bring out fine detail that traditional noise reduction would just crush away, we became part of their standard workflow."

Silvers emphasizes Lowry's unique technology and expertise. "We can reduce noise without softening the picture, and we can find, enhance and compute in additional detail," he explains. "We do that by evaluating the best of each frame, and averaging that resolution across all frames. We developed this image processing technology for restoration but we're finding that the world is catching up to our tools. We are now using them to optimize images at every stage of production and for all outputs. For example, when you reduce noise, enhance fine detail and stabilize the picture, you allow compression engines to allocate more resources to the images themselves. The result is superior quality images on film, or for digital cinema, Blu-ray or Web-placed video."

Here's a sample although probably not a very good one, limited length and no movement.

http://www.yellowspace.webspace.virginmedia.com/Gold.aMOV

Cheers.

Didée
16th June 2012, 13:48
The link to the *.mov file is broken.

Look into QTGMC with InputType=1. Although it practically is a bob-deinterlacer, per definition it is a "temporal superresolution" filter.

Yellow_
16th June 2012, 13:55
Link fixed, thank you, a silly cut and paste error. :-) Will look into QTGMC, great plugin.

Didée
16th June 2012, 14:25
Looking at the source,

a) of course there's pretty much nothing that temporal filtering could do: zero motion implies zero improvement to achieve.

b) I don't see anything like "sensor line skipped DSLR video" - but perhaps I'm looking for the wrong things? The sample seems to have full resolution (as can be seen on diagonal features), and does not exhibit any aliasing.

In any case, there is a VAST difference between your sample, and the original NASA footage.

Filker
20th June 2012, 00:26
Restoration looks too soft and they killed detail.

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/77710/Comparison_Aldrin_First_Step_large.jpg

were those stars on the upper right corner? Not anymore!

Lyris
20th June 2012, 05:13
I've seen the Lowry temporal NR process in action in some movies - the HD transfers of Star Wars and some of the James Bond films - and it creates this weird blurry halo around moving objects in scenes where there was grain.

I'm sure there's a lot right about it too (we can only complain about the artefacts we see), but I was surprised by that.

From my limited understanding they discuss temporal analysis over many frames forward and back, stack th frames and determine additional detail then weave that into the frames. Just like that, huh huh. :-)

Neat Video does this. Have a look at these examples I pulled from noisy DSLR footage. There's detail in the output frame that was not previously there spatially:

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6162/neat1.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/neat1.jpg/)


http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4488/neat2.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/neat2.jpg/)

2Bdecided
20th June 2012, 10:39
Could anyone suggest Avisynth plugins / approaches that could work in this way, albeit probably not GPU accellerated, for 'improving' the appearance of detail and resolution in sensor line skipped DSLR video sources.There are plenty of threads about that already - though usually with very small (320x240) videos from old P+S cameras, not the larger (1280x720) videos from DSLRs which would probably crash these scripts.

Most recent...
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1372791
...also includes links to previous threads on similar topic.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
David.

2Bdecided
20th June 2012, 10:41
Restoration looks too soft and they killed detail.They do seem to have gone from one extreme to another.

Filker
20th June 2012, 21:34
Before someone asks for the unprocessed source... NASA taped over the originals.

"Houston, we have a problem: original moon walk footage erased"

"In 2009 NASA gathered old copies of the converted video and paid to have them processed by Lowry Digital. These restorations were released in 2010."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jul/16/moon-landing-tapes-erased

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes

The broadcast people saw was a crude telesync (a camera pointing at a screen!)

"The other SSTV signal branch, rather than being electronically processed and converted, was sent to a high-quality video monitor where a conventional television camera (using the NTSC broadcast standard of 525 lines resolution at 30 frames per second) merely re-photographed its screen."

videoFred
21st June 2012, 06:44
"Houston, we have a problem: original moon walk footage erased"


Incredible! The most important historic footage ever and they have erased it :eek:

I have the original 1969 broadcast on film. My father has filmed it on Super-8 straight from the TV.

Fred.

Ghitulescu
21st June 2012, 08:16
I have the original 1969 broadcast on film. My father has filmed it on Super-8 straight from the TV.

Save it! It may be that Lowry Digital formats C: drive to reuse it. :p:p:p

Bloax
21st June 2012, 08:29
Time to upload the entire thing all over the place. :p

videoFred
21st June 2012, 08:32
Save it! It may be that Lowry Digital formats C: drive to reuse it. :p:p:p

:)

Actualy I'm going to transfer it to digital, run my filmscript on it, and compare it with Lowry's $100.000 system. :D

Fred.

Ghitulescu
21st June 2012, 10:20
Incredible! The most important historic footage ever and they have erased it :eek:

So what, nobody looked at it anyway, they were too busy to watch Forrest Gump playing table tennis at two hands :):):)

Reel.Deel
21st June 2012, 15:44
For those interested, you can view and or download the before and after restoration from NASA here (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html).

Bloax
21st June 2012, 15:57
Actualy I'm going to transfer it to digital, run my filmscript on it, and compare it with Lowry's $100.000 system. :D
Do make sure to have the original there also. Because you know, for reasons. ;P

Filker
21st June 2012, 16:05
:)

Actualy I'm going to transfer it to digital, run my filmscript on it, and compare it with Lowry's $100.000 system. :D

Fred.

You'll be at a disadvantage because Lowry got lots of sources, the CBS source and I think a copy of the original Australian magnetic tape made to a VCR.

Wish they could send you the handheld super 8 footage made at the Australian receiving station :)

http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/index.html