Motion picture restoration

This dissertation presents algorithms for restoring some of the major corruptions observed in archived film or video material. The two principal problems of impulsive distortion (Dirt and Sparkle or Blotches) and noise degradation are considered. There is also an algorithm for suppressing the inter-line jitter common in images decoded from noisy video signals. In the case of noise reduction and Blotch removal the thesis considers image sequences to be three dimensional signals involving evolution of features in time and space. This is necessary if any process presented is to show an improvement over standard two-dimensional techniques. It is important to recognize that consideration of image sequences must involve an appreciation of the problems incurred by the motion of objects in the scene. The most obvious implication is that due to motion, useful three dimensional processing does not necessarily proceed in a direction 'orthogonal' to the image frames. Therefore, attention is given to discussing motion estimation as it is used for image sequence processing. Some discussion is given to image sequence models and the 3D Autoregressive model is investigated. A multiresolution BM scheme is used for motion estimation throughout the major part of the thesis. Impulsive noise removal in image processing has been traditionally achieved by the use of median filter structures. A new three dimensional multilevel median structure is presented in this work with the additional use of a detector which limits the distortion caused by the filters . This technique is found to be extremely effective in practice and is an alternative to the traditional global median operation. The new median filter is shown to be superior to those previously presented with respect to the ability to reject the kind of distortion found in practice. A model based technique using the 3D AR model is also developed for detecting and removing Blotches. This technique achieves better fidelity at the expense of heavier computational load. Motion compensated 3D IIR and FIR Wiener filters are investigated with respect to their ability to reject noise in an image sequence. They are compared to several algorithms previously presented which are purely temporal in nature. The filters presented are found to be effective and compare favourably to the other algorithms. The 3D filtering process is superior to the purely temporal process as expected. The algorithm that is presented for suppressing inter-line jitter uses a 2D AR model to estimate and correct the relative displacements between the lines. The output image is much more satisfactory to the observer although in a severe case some drift of image features is to be expected. A suggestion for removing this drift is presented in the conclusions. There are several remaining problems in moving video. In particular, line scratches and picture shake/roll. Line scratches cannot be detected successfully by the detectors presented and so cannot be removed efficiently. Suppressing shake and roll involves compensating the entire frame for motion and there is a need to separate global from local motion. These difficulties provide ample opportunity for further research

Restoration of variable density film soundtracks

Full text available at http://www.eurasip.org/Proceedings/Eusipco/Eusipco2009/contents/papers/1569192297.pdfInternational audienceThe restoration of motion picture films has been an active research field for many years. The restoration of the soundtrack however has mainly been performed at the audio domain in spite of the fast that it is recorded as a continuous image on the film stock. In this paper, we propose a new restoration method for variable density soundtracks. The method first detects and corrects accurately the azimuth deviation. A robust thresholding technique based on the minimization of the total variation is then performed to remove the remaining faults. Restoration results are very promising and testify to the efficiency of our method

Implementación de un algoritmo para el cálculo estimado del movimiento lineal en imágenes y su aplicación en la restauración de imágenes movidas.

In the digital signal processing is very common to find problems such as noise (in the case of audio or video signals) or distortion (in the case of images). There is a special case called linear distortion, which is basically the distortion caused by the relative motion of the object either photographed or the camera itself. Our main goal during development of this project is the restoration of all or part of an image that has been previously linearly distorted, because it is virtually impossible to obtain a complete restoration will consider a satisfactory outcome in which to recognize the object or face image, which obviously was the reason that the picture was taken

Detection of dirt impairments from archived film sequences : survey and evaluations

Film dirt is the most commonly encountered artifact in archive restoration applications. Since dirt usually appears as a temporally impulsive event, motion-compensated interframe processing is widely applied for its detection. However, motion-compensated prediction requires a high degree of complexity and can be unreliable when motion estimation fails. Consequently, many techniques using spatial or spatiotemporal filtering without motion were also been proposed as alternatives. A comprehensive survey and evaluation of existing methods is presented, in which both qualitative and quantitative performances are compared in terms of accuracy, robustness, and complexity. After analyzing these algorithms and identifying their limitations, we conclude with guidance in choosing from these algorithms and promising directions for future research

Segmentation-assisted detection of dirt impairments in archived film sequences

A novel segmentation-assisted method for film dirt detection is proposed. We exploit the fact that film dirt manifests in the spatial domain as a cluster of connected pixels whose intensity differs substantially from that of its neighborhood and we employ a segmentation-based approach to identify this type of structure. A key feature of our approach is the computation of a measure of confidence attached to detected dirt regions which can be utilized for performance fine tuning. Another important feature of our algorithm is the avoidance of the computational complexity associated with motion estimation. Our experimental framework benefits from the availability of manually derived as well as objective ground truth data obtained using infrared scanning. Our results demonstrate that the proposed method compares favorably with standard spatial, temporal and multistage median filtering approaches and provides efficient and robust detection for a wide variety of test material

Moving Image Preservation in Libraries

published or submitted for publicatio

Chiral symmetry restoration and the string picture of hadrons

QCD string picture of highly excited hadrons very naturally explains parity doubling once the chiral symmetry is restored high in the spectrum. In particular, the spin-orbit and tensor interactions of quarks at the ends of the string, related to dynamics of the string, vanish. High in the spectrum there appears higher degree of degeneracy, namely parity doublets with different angular momentum cluster around energy of the string in the given quantum state.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, 2 figs. The paper has been further expanded in order to make the point and physics more clear. To appear in Phys. Lett.

Formation and Collapse of False Vacuum Bubbles in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

It is possible that under certain situations, in a relativistic heavy-ion collision, partons may expand out forming a shell like structure. We analyze the process of hadronization in such a picture for the case when the quark-hadron transition is of first order, and argue that the inside region of such a shell must correspond to a supercooled (to $T = 0$) deconfined vacuum. Hadrons from that region escape out, leaving a bubble of pure deconfined vacuum with large vacuum energy. This bubble undergoes relativistic collapse, with highly Lorentz contracted bubble walls, and may concentrate the entire energy into extremely small regions. Eventually different portions of bubble wall collide, with the energy being released in the form of particle production. Thermalization of this system can lead to very high temperatures. With a reasonably conservative set of parameters, at LHC, the temperature of the hot spot can reach as high as 3 GeV, and well above it with more optimistic parameters. Such a hot spot can leave signals like large $P_T$ partons, dileptons, and enhanced production of heavy quarks. We also briefly discuss a speculative possibility where the electroweak symmetry may get restored in the highly dense region resulting from the decay of the bubble wall via the phenomenon of non-thermal symmetry restoration (which is usually employed in models of pre-heating after inflation). If that could happen then the possibility may arise of observing sphaleron induced baryon number violation in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures, title changed, discussion added about equilibration of decay products of bubble wall, discussions of baryon violation significantly modified, new references added. (Version to appear in Nucl.Phys.A

Preserving Film Preservation in the Digital Era

This paper explores the current controversies surrounding film preservation in the digital era. Questions address the benefits of new technologies and the potential sacrifices to a film\u27s authenticity and designation as a valued historical, social, and cultural artifact. Issues examined include film\u27s frail format, archives\u27s financial and storage limitations, the concept of the original film, and how current digitization methods affect each of these areas. This paper addresses the recent restorations of two particular films—Fritz Lang\u27s Metropolis (1927) and Alfred Hitchcock\u27s Vertigo (1958)—and concludes that digital technologies are not stable enough to replace traditional preservation methods, but they can greatly increase exposure to lesser-known films and support the general preservation of film