This equipment was presented at the beginning of 2010 with very good results for the industry and achieved international recognition. For 2011 they presented an improved version with a timeline that offers full control over the restoration process.
By Richard Santa S.
It is a popular adage that "all past time was better", it is for many very true. And more when talking about movies or television series from a few decades ago, known as classics.
The problem is that when transmitting these images the quality is not the best, because in the time they were made the existing technology did not have the ability to eliminate all the elements that affect the final result such as dust, grain, noise, instability and flicker.
The Archangel Ph.C-HD is an advanced SD and HD restoration system that eliminates image defects that originated in real time, suitable for both cinema and video material in general.
By repairing content defects, the Archangel Ph.C-HD unlocks the value of content assets, ensuring that SD and HD material can be distributed in excellent quality.
Paola Hobson, senior director of conversion and restoration products at Snell, explained that it offers flexible restoration software that provides tools for the film and the originated video, addressing a whole range of content flaws.
He maintained that "The restoration parameters are controlled in a precision frame and can be adjusted scene by scene, offering the user precise and fine-tuned control in the restoration process, thereby achieving the exact quality of output they want."
This team uses advanced methods to extract the defects of the content that earned Snell an Emmy, an award won by the Ph.C motion measurement technology.
The Ph.C is unique to Snell and is recognized as the industry reference for measuring quality movement.
The advantages
Other products without the sophisticated movement valuation of the Ph.C, tend to produce restoration results with inferior quality, for example, creating frame errors or only repairing a little of the damage of the contents.
"Users are offered an easy-to-use PC, based on a graphical user interface (GUI) with timeline control. The GUI was designed in collaboration with the restoration operators (end user), so that the controls and design exactly matched their needs," said Paola Hobson.
This is important for restoration operators, because they have precise control, scene by scene, over the parameters of the filters they use to remove defects so that they can achieve the artistic result they want.
Restoration is important for content owners, producers and broadcast stations. Viewers are more demanding than ever now that high-definition programming is becoming the norm and high-quality, big-screen high-definition displays are available.
Snell's board explained that "The demand for classic films and television series is high. These can be remastered for DVD and Blu-ray distribution or for satellite or cable transmission. Much of that material, especially old titles, requires complete restoration in order to meet consumers' high expectations of quality."
But restoration isn't just for santigua movie revivals and TV favorites. Although with today's sophisticated production equipment, errors such as noise, flickering and unstable sequences can still creep through new content, and often those errors are not reported until much later, when it is impossible to reshoot the scene.
Likewise, the state of the art of restoration technology is beginning to be of great help to independent production companies, who want to incorporate archival images in documentaries, historical and nature series, travel shows and biographies.
"With the right restoration technology, material that could be useless, can be included without any low quality that could negatively affect the overall impact of the program," said Paola Hobson.
Gaining space
Restoring using Archangel Ph.C-HD hardware in real time means that restoring a piece of content is only 2 or 3 times the duration of the program.
Hobson argued that "Many current program restoration products are solely software, which lead to very long process cycles. The innovation in Archangel Ph.C-HD means that users can restore content 10 or 20 times faster than with the software of a current product."
For example, removing the stripes is an automatic process in Snell's system, while at a frequency used by a product that has only one software, the user has to manually identify each stripe, frame by frame.
In a 20-minute video clip, this process can take days, while with the new technology it takes around 40 or 50 minutes. In fact, the savings in time and work are very significant for a media or a broadcasting company, content owners, and post-production houses, which can carry out projects that might otherwise have a very high cost.
Many within the television industry around the world are using the Archangel Ph.C-HD. Recently, London, a company specializing in television post-production; Dubss with its restoration division, and Eyeframe were selected to provide film restoration from the 37-year-old television series The World of War.
"The latter company is working with the Archangel Ph.C-HD, because it is strategic and high-profile for the high-definition restoration project," Hobson added.
Simon Marbrook, director of restoration at Eyeframe said that with Snell's product they solved the problem of the high costs of editing on Blu-ray.
"The system completes the restoration in three to four times the duration of the program, and the amount of work frame by frame was reduced by 60 or 70 percent, with the full set of tools included in a single box."
In August 2010, during the Birtv held in Beijing, one of the most important fairs for the television industry in Asia, Snell's catering product won recognition as the best product in the Video Production and Broadcast category.
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