Film Restoration?

[Andi Winter]

hi jordan,

i would say no. davinci is a great piece of software, but mainly for color correction/grading. originally
the whole restoration tools were a separate software software package, so called revival. they implemented
some small things from that software, like dust and scratch removal, but only to a certain extent. i never
used it, but i know it only works right now with dpx footage… davinci has great up-/downscaling algorithms
but if you also need deinterlacing, field-reversal stuff you can’t do this in a proper way. (unless you buy their
teranex unit, which can do some of those things).

i would say take a look at nucoda filmmaster, they are planning to make the software available for about
2000 dollars i’ve read lately. further investments in some of their plug-ins might be useful for restoration
work!

just my 2 cents, perhaps in the next version of davinci they will implement more restoration features,
would be useful, now that they have launched film-scanners, but for now…

andy

[Joakim Ziegler]

For color correction, sure. We use Resolve extensively in our restoration workflow, mainly for color correction, but also for some format conversion, etc. For everything else you consider “restoration”, you want something like pfClean.

—
Joakim Ziegler – Postproduction Supervisor

[Sascha Haber]

If the Library of Congress would do such a dumb move of asking a total noob to do such a high profile job, i suggest nothing but the best :
https://www.mtifilm.com/drs-nova/

A slice of color…

Resolve 10.1.0.021
Colorist / VFX / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber

[Marc Wielage]

[Sascha Haber] “If the Library of Congress would do such a dumb move of asking a total noob to do such a high profile job, i suggest nothing but the best”
I think the best would be to hand the material over to Lowry Digital in Burbank and let them do their proprietary thing. Some of this restoration stuff is not off-shelf software. The color-correction is often the easy part; the other problem is just getting the film itself in good enough shape that it’ll scan in the first place. Flicker and shading errors are also real tough, but MTI is one way of doing it. Pixel Farm’s PF Clean is also said to be good.

[Michaelmaier]

I thought this was what DaVinci Revival was for?

[Michaelmaier]

[Andy Winter] “originally
the whole restoration tools were a separate software software package, so called revival.”

They still sell it.

[Joakim Ziegler]

As someone who has a Davinci Revival Pro license, I can tell you that no, this is not what Revival is for, because Revival is not for anything. It’s a uselessly outdated application, and I would not recommend it for anyone.

—
Joakim Ziegler – Postproduction Supervisor

[Juan Salvo]

I believe BMD has pulled revival from the product page.

https://JuanSalvo.com
https://theColourSpace.com

[Jake Blackstone]

First of all, the statement “they want a 4K restoration of the film for a HD Blu-Ray release” doesn’t make sense. Why do you need 4k resolution for Blue-ray release? Second, as already pointed out, Library of Congress must have a bit more discretion, than to “entrusted you the highest quality copy available of a movie made over 100 years ago” to someone who doesn’t even know what tools to use for restoration. Scanning something like that is not a simple matter of throwing the film up on the scanner. It’s actually quite a bit more complicated.
Said that, there are plenty of software for tackling the actual restoration.
PFClean, Diamant, Phoenix, MTI.
From conversation with Nucoda people, Digital Vision still does a brisk business in India selling Phoenix, where they sell it by the hundreds. At some places in India they turn out films restored in a day, because they literally have hundreds of people working on it at once. Digital Vision sell a full workflow solution for the film restorations, which also includes a scanner. It is highly automated capable of doing many task hands free, but you still need human touch for certain operations.

[Michaelmaier]

[Juan Salvo] “I believe BMD has pulled revival from the product page.”

Interestingly, it seems to be the case. But I checked before I posted my last reply and it was there.

The page itself is still online. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davincirevival/