Lines Streaks Bands

[Ezad]

Hello

I am working of film recorded in the 1970s. This is material donated to our  non profit group.

Many of the films have streaks, lines, banding. Is this embedded into the film?

The donor said " to remove the rest of the banding in the picture it would be necessary to replace the scan lines that are banding, with a scan line that is averaged from the good picture scan lines above and below the banding lines. This can be done if you have the equipment to do this. This would clean the picture."

I am at a loss. Attached is an example. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

'https://youtu.be/WLseNmTvwpE

[Peru Bob]

I don't think you will be able to fix that, but you can try Neat Video:

https://www.neatvideo.com/

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi,

Do you have access to the orignal video tape conversions?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Ezad]

I will have to ask. At the moment, no.

[R Neil Haugen]

I know some colorists who's primary work has been restorations of scanned older film projects. That is a demanding job, and yea, getting to fix some things may mean having the scans redone if at all possible. If not ... well, that's even a nastier, more difficult job.

Neil

[Ezad]

Hello

I hope this additonal not ecan be pickup in the forum otherwise I would have to post as a new contribution.

I had a word with the owner of the film I am working on. I do not know this method. Is there software for it?

I would want to remove the banding just need to be more fulling informed.

Here is the note from the owner of the videos:

Here is the method for eliminating banding.

Example: Picture has bands covering 10 scan lines.

If horizontal lines 90 to 100 are disrupted by  bands.

Then the good scan lines 89 and 101 are averaged to replace the 95 scan line.

Then 95 and 101 are averaged to produce a new scan line to replace 98.

Then 95 and 98 are averaged to replace 97.

Then 97 and 95 are averaged to replace 96.

The result is that 4 scan lines 95 to 98 are entirely replaced by new scan lines with no band across.

This same procedure is used to replace the other bands covering the picture.

Please note: This is not a simple repeat of good scans over bad.

But it is a gradual change from one good scan line to the next so the picture is not static.

I hope this is clear. This process can be automated but I do not know if anyone is doing it.

[Steve Griffiths · Accepted solution]

Fixing a few dropouts or scan lines can be done almost seamlessly ... but you are dealing with around a hundred lines of tracking dropouts that continously cover the main subject face!

I get the idea behind what the 'owner' of the videos is saying but there's a lot of image damage here.

I'd start by testing BorisFX Dropout Fixer plugin inside Boris Continuum. It *might* be able to help but I'm not confident.

You could download a trial version of Continuum to test.

The problem you are seeing is 'bad tracking' when the video was being digitised. Probably caused by the original tape stretching or shrinking over time. IF the video could be re-digitised it may be possbile to adjust the tracking control to move the tracking dropouts to another part of the screen. So you could then combine the two videos together to blend out most of the tracking errors. Unfortunately getting access to working old video tape players AND the original videotape still being playable are problematic.

Sorry but I don't think this one is going to work out. If you do find a solution though - please share.

[Graeme Bull]

Might not be what you want to hear, but this is likely a "clone job" done with either After Effects or Photoshop, frame by frame by frame. Many people do this kind of work and it's tedious. There is a documentary out by Peter Jackson called "They shall not grow old", and while some was automated, it was a lot of man hours of tedious frame by frame reconstruction.