Is it possible to colorize BW clip ?

[matfra]

I saw on History channel World War 2 HD.
They took BW clips from WW2 and they colorized it.
Its look very faithful. Im wondering if its possible to do this with AVISynth or Vitualdub ?

[setarip_old]

Checkout the filters at the website of "neuron2", to understand the limitations regarding what you'd like to do...

[Guest]

IIRC, vcmohan also did some interesting work in this area.

http://avisynth.org/vcmohan/

[johnmeyer]

It would be extremely interesting to me if these techniques could be applied to color film in which one or more of the three color layers have faded. With color film from the 1930s that I've transferred, the red layer is usually the only thing to completely survive, but sometimes there is just a hint of the other two layers. I can easily reduce the red layer and boost the other two, and the result provides just a hint of what the image might have looked like almost eighty years ago. Here is an example of what I've been able to do:

1937 Yellowstone Park (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6UQITactI&list=PL230DED9513ECA2CB&index=28)

The original was overwhelmingly red, and even after all my work, it is still primarily a "red & white" film. However, once in awhile, you'll see some hints of green and blue.

It would be really useful if there was a way to do more restoration on these films, although my guess is that without hundreds of hours of work, real restoration may not be possible. The same may also be true of B&W colorization. I've watched a lot of the "WWII in Color" series, and that colorization, film cleaning and stabilization, and general restoration work is some of the best I've seen.