FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2024

VRT has 120.000 files (60.000 hours in total), which possibly contain colour flickering. The defect was introduced during bulk digitisation starting in 2015, of Betacam SP and SX to MXF-DV25 from 1980 and 2005. During the project insufficient digitisation quality control was in place.

In order to avoid having to re-digitise 120.000 tapes, VRT was looking for a partner to investigate if a digital detection and correction could be possible. Joanneum Research and HS-Art partnered up to take on this challenge. A solution for the digital detection and restoration of colour flickering has been implemented. For the detection the properties of the colour flickering have been carefully researched and a solution has been developed which covers a wide range of relevant properties, as there are varying degrees of flicker magnitude and varying size of the colour flickering areas. Based on the flicker magnitude and area it is decided which media items and media sections get restored digitally. During restoration the colour information of each affected frame is seamlessly reconstructed from the colour of the neighbouring frames. The presentation will introduce the preservation use case, the solutions workflow, operational experiences and various samples for the detection and restoration of colour flicker.

For this tape digitisation artefact the digital detection and restoration is an ideal solution, as the defect can be detected reliably and restored in high quality, and this in a much more cost efficient way as re-digitisation would have been. In order to avoid the need for re-digitisation or digital restoration its recommended to include appropriate quality control procedures in each current video and film digitisation project right from the beginning.