Film Restoration

[johnboy]

I suspect there are a lot of people a lot smarter than myself who can help me with this. Example an old black and white public domain movie. Is there any software on the market that would enable me to clean up a film from way back. Someone mentioned Viva but I think it's too expensive any help appreciated.
Best Regards
John

[jethroucc]

Two camps on this one: 1, "real" restoration requires very high end software (or software/hardware), a keen eye and years of vested experience and a passion for film itself. The people is this camp use sotware like DRS-NOVA $12,500, or a measly $399 per month) or DIAMANT (prices are disclosed. too scary ill guess), and the high end hardware needed to even un the software, and are usually stuck up assholes.

The other camp uses HitFilm Pro ($399, much better!), and the generally more intelligent of this group go for Davinci Resolve (because its Linux only, and requires more abstract thought into HOW to restore the film). HitFilm also has a free version, but it's more of an editing/production film that MIGHT lend a hand to restoration.

That being said, i'm just realizing youre talking digitized media, not "film" itself - Don't even bother looking at the first 2, and just go ahead and give the HitFIlm express a run, it'll help you get rid off popping, clicking hissing etc, maybe some rudimentary stitching of anything that had minimal damaged when digitized. Use Audacity for the sound, will lend a hand in getting rid of the same issues mentioned ('cept stitching oc).

Lastly, I don't think you can call it "Film Restoration" unless you are physically working on "film" itself, but that's what the assholes in the theoretical Camp One i mentioned above think. They may have a point, but are still, nonetheless, assholes.

TLDR: HitFilm Express. AUdacity for audio. Ignore dicks in camp one, but stop calling it "Film Restoration".