Red Giant debuts film restoration tools
updated 08:15 am EST, Mon February 13, 2006
Red Giant Film Fix
Red Giant Software today announced the availability of the Macintosh version of Film Fix, a suite of plug-ins designed for documentary filmmakers and post production studios that need film and video restoration tools on the desktop. In addition, the plug-in now supports Adobe After Effects 7. Using Film Fix, After Effects users can restore tears, remove dust and dirt particles, and stabilize footage originated on film and video resolution material transferred from film. The processing is nearly automatic, provides high-quality output and "rivals dedicated high-end systems," according to the company. Film Fix for After Effects 6.0 or later is $2,000 before a special $500 discount; it includes full support for unlimited multi-client rendering through an After Effects render farm. Current Windows customers can get a free cross-grade to the Mac OS X version.
The tools allow editors to repair seams with the only automated tear-repair tool on the market as well as stabilize footage with fast, software-based 2D translation. Users can also automatically eliminate severe non-linear inter-frame brightness fluctuations as well as dust and sparkle defects using motion detection information.
Film Fix utilizes a fast, accurate motion estimation system, which processes pixel-accurate image data at different scales similar to the way the human eye views the world, according to Red Giant. The intelligent algorithms allow it to identify problems such as dust, dirt, and tearing despite complex motion in the footage. Once identified, these artifacts are quickly and naturally removed.
"There is a lot of interest in HD video restoration of classic flims headed for HD broadcast or HD DVD, and that is the direction we are moving," says Kevin Christopher, director of technology for Cinepost in Atlanta . "When you do a film transfer to HD, the HD video really shows the flaws, and broadcast and cable networks all want really clean masters for their HDTV broadcasts. For us, once the film is transferred, film restoration is done using Red Giant Software's Film Fix. Film Fix is an automated solution that can handle roughly 90% of the film restoration work, with the remainder fixed by hand."
