Digital Film Restoration

Digital Film Restoration can mean a variety of things, from repairing a film studio's most precious assets from decades past to removing dust from the film scans of this summer's million-dollar blockbusters. 

MTI Film's Correct DRS™ continues to be the most trusted tool in Hollywood and beyond when it comes to digital film restoration.  The application embodies the technology developed through the experience of hundreds of users over the past 12 years dealing with the myriad problems encountered during the process of repairing defects in motion pictures. 

MTI Film has extensive experience supporting customers providning a variety of services for digital film restoration.  We looking forward to sharing our experience and the solutions we have developed with you.

Archival Film Restoration

For restoration or remastering of old films, Correct DRS™ V8 is the best application available for interactively handling a wide range of typical (and even uncommon) problems due to age, poor storage conditions, past transfer damage and more. Clean dust, dirt, scratches, chemical stains, flicker, instability, film shrinkage, warping and many other defects.

The interactivity of the application is incredibly valuable, as users can always see the full resolution results of their processes and immediately adjust the settings when necessary.

Both the RESTORATION ARTIST PACK and RESTORATION EXPERT PACK have toolsets appropriate for Archival Film Restoration work.  Correct DRS™ can be used on DPX scans of any resolution up to 4K, and workstations can be configured with integrated VTR I/O for capturing video material in HD or SD for remastering work.

Facilities can choose from single-workstation setups or attach multiple workstations to a SAN for a shared work environment.

HD and SD Restoration (Remastering)

HD and SD remastering work is very similar to archival restoration work, so the tools needed are roughly the same. 

The main difference is the resolution at which the work is done.  The budgets may also be different as the intention is not necessarily to create a new archive master, but rather a new master for immediate distribution of titles on media such as Blu-ray disc.

Both the RESTORATION ARTIST PACK and RESTORATION EXPERT PACKS are recommended for this type of digital film restoration work.  In addition, the integrated VTR I/O feature should be considered, depending on the installation.

While stand-alone configurations with VTR I/O are common for HD remastering work, facilities that are also servicing archival film restorations may opt for a multi-user workgroup.

Dust Busting and Scratch Removal

Any project dealing with elements that were originally shot on film have a need for a tool that can efficiently remove dust, dirt and the occasional scratch from their scanned negative.  Even elements acquired digitally have the occasional loathed dead pixel that must be touched up before it goes out the door.  While many start off dealing with these problems in their favorite off-the-shelf compositing application or NLE, most turn to a tool like Correct DRS™ to get the job done efficiently when the shop gets busy. 

Digital Intermediates and Visual FX

Digital Intermediate workflows often revolve around a software Color Corrector and a SAN that stored the film scans.  Rather than have your theatre tied up doing dustbusting, Its easy to plug in Correct DRS™
and get that work done twice as fast in a separate room. 

The VFX house may not have a SAN or a film scanner but when scans are received on LTO or FireWire, they many not be pristine.  A stand-alone Correct DRS™ workstation with some local storage can get them clean quickly so the compositing tools can be used for the most valuable work they are designed for.

Television

Every show needs a once-over after the final cut is locked.  Film-originated shows will have the dust busted and scratches removed, while the occasional dead pixel on a digitally acquired show can be quickly removed with a combination of DRS, Paint and intuitive macros.

Stand-Alone Workstations

In a smaller environment, where there is no investment in shared storage and dedicated equipment for disk recording, there are two options.

For shops with no video equipment or film scanners, the digitizing from and to tape may be outsourced.  Then DPX files can be delivered on LTO or FireWire drive and loaded onto the workstation.

For facilities with some video infrastructure, Correct DRS™ presents an efficient option that takes advantage of the fully integrated Video I/O feature and ImageStore format for storing disk-optimized uncompressed image data.

Video is captured from tape using Correct DRS™, then repaired, and finally laid back to tape.  The integrated interface makes it simple for a user to track which clips have been newly captured, which ones have been cleaned, and which ones have gone back to tape.  This greatly reduces project management overhead as a single person can manage the entire workflow.

Multi-User Workgroups

In larger multi-user installations, the restoration work is often done in a collaborative environment with the entire film stored as DPX files on a SAN or other shared storage.  The DPX files can be recorded to the SAN with Correct DRS's video I/O feature, a third party DDR, or a film scanner.  In other cases, facilities may outsource the digitzing step and copy DPX files from LTO tapes or external hard drives. 

Then, all workstations running Correct DRS™ can see this media and perform all the digital restoration in shared projects, repairing problems like dust, dirt, scratches, chemical stains, flicker, instability, etc.  Administrators can subdivide work based on clips or tasks.

When the footage is restored, the files are then output back to video tape, data tape or recorded to film.  Color correction may occur at any point in the workflow.