With the new advancements of artificial intelligence (AI) causing excitement and revisited fears, it is nice to discover something that is innocuous but nice coming out of emerging technologies. The Scholarly Kitchen brought this interesting information to our attention in their article, “AI Upscales 1896 Movie to High Definition.”
No one is arguing that AI will be part of our future in more than one way. Whether you find that as a warning or pronouncement of good things to come, you can hardly argue with the benefits of AI improving classic movies.
The enhancement and improvement of historical materials is an altruistic goal. Old film footage is almost always plagued with excessive amounts of grain, focus challenges and a complete lack of color. It inadvertently puts a wall between the viewer and the characters, lessening the connection.
By using neural network powered algorithms to not only upscale the footage to 4K, but also increase the frame rate to 60 frames per second, produced a dramatic result. Pun totally intended.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
