We recently had the opportunity to work on a tape from British songwriter Richard Williams. The original Digibeta video tape was stored in the EMI vaults and hadn’t been seen since 2004. Our team took the low quality SD footage, and remastered it into a sharp, 4K file.
How is SD video upscaled & remastered?
The first step in the process was to give the tape a thorough cleaning. We then transferred the footage using a Teranex converter to turn it into high quality 4K. Next, we used AI restoration techniques to remaster the footage, improve the colour, contrast and overall sharpness. The entire process took several days, but it’s worth it to see the final product in such high quality.
The Music Video Revival
It’s not just music lovers who are benefitting from the digitization of old media; musicians are seeing a resurgence in interest in their older works as well. With the help of companies like Alive Studios, musicians are able to unearth old recordings and videos that may have been collecting dust in vaults or storage units, and give them new life by transferring them to digital formats.
Not only does this allow the musicians to introduce their older works to a new generation of fans, but it also allows them to take advantage of modern technology to improve upon the originals. In the case of Richard Williams’ music video, we were able to use state of the art methods to clean up and remaster the footage, resulting in a beautiful 4K file that does justice to the original work.
