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Badly damaged/pixelated source footage for video sampling..
Hi.
What’s the best way to treat damaged and pixelated footage? I’m an AV artist and most of my source footage comes from old film stock that has been printed to video then converted again to dvd (Sadly this is how the majority of classic cinema is released). I try to work in 1080p using Blu-ray ripps where I can, but most of the footage I want to use is ripped from standard 720 – 480 dvd’s. These films have often suffered serious damage from the various conversion processes the film distributers employ, by the time they reach me and the general public they are often barely watchable. The fact is, there are not many Blu-ray titles and what I consider to be “Classic” cinema will probably never see a Blu-ray restoration.
So what can I do, sometimes these dvd’s look pixelated enough at their original resolutions let alone after re-sizing, Often I find I just can’t work with this quality, my eyes start hurting 🙂 also, my finnished projects must be of a good enouh quality to be projected over large screens at venues.
Any advice would be welcome I really don’t know which kinds of plugins would be best to use/what techniques to employ.
Here is an example – Snowbeast (A good quality dvd copy of “Snowbeast” I say good because it is good for a copy of “Snowbeast” believe it or not, there are many versions of this film that are a lot worse)
my best attempt. . .
These images are 1080p, please click to enlarge.
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1 Reply
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I see what your saying, I think the success I’m likely to have with restoring is going to be very limited, though perhaps I can find a way to be creative with it somehow.
Copyright, for this kind of media sampling is very much in it’s infancy, there are no existing channels to process, royalties between artists and copyright owners with regards to images. for some reason the major film studio’s have given movie sound tracks a much higher priority. it’s pretty odd, but I gues this is a result of “Video sampling” being a fairly new art form, Ironically no AV artist has ever been prosicuted for a violation of copyright law, the nearest thing to it was a dispute between Disney and Coldcut, and resulted in Coldcut being served a cease and desist order over their use of disney charrictors in their live performances.
The reality is there is very little money in underground AV art, people don’t really buy Video compositions from artists, so there has been no need (from the studio’s point of view) to enforce new laws, create new copyright societies etc to handle collecting and distribution of royalties, register everyones ownerships or settle disputes over film image rights. that’s not to say that it’s safe, people can still sue you, but mostly there’s too little money being made to warrent leagal action.
Personally though, if I was using footage of any person, actress or actor I would want to pay them royalties, from what revenue I don’t really know, but you are correct, copyright does have to be paid in advance often before you can even access a lot off footage, a martin luther king speach might cost you $1000 dollars etc . . .
However it is possible to purchase short term licenes to allow puplic playback of dvd’s etc but it’s a little odd, the dvd’s have a special liscence attatched to them and have to be hired and then returned, the broacast liscence is actually included in the hire fee of the discs, these kinds of discs are the type used on Oil rigs or at you local arts centre cinema nights etc. . .
There’s also public domain footage, this is film/media footage that has fallen in to “Public ownership” as a copyright liscence has not been renued for the movie, as abouve the film Snowbeast actually falls under this law and I am leagaly allowed to re distribute it via any means I so choose, even charging for it and selling it on as a dvd etc shpould I wish to do so.
I’m drifting on sorry my cousin is a sample clrearance officer so I can go on a bit, also it’s quite an interesting subject for me as it is my chosen art.
🙂
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