AI Promises Second Life To Old Shows

Visual Data Media Services released early this month a new product for film scanning and restoration called Matchmaker.

The new workflow from the Burbank company combines artificial intelligence algorithms with its creative and technical expertise to reduce the time needed to remaster content to 4K and prepare it for distribution. It takes large-scale projects from or months down to weeks or days, the company said in a release. 

Matchmaker’s AI scene match technology and intelligent hybrid workflow eliminates traditional barriers of quality, time and budget that often prevent content – especially older titles – from being re-released and distributed for broadcast or on digital platforms, Visual Data said in its release. 

Ron Smith, director of restoration services for the company, said that Matchmaker has made many more restoration projects possible, where before the timeframes and budget put them out of reach for efficient distribution. 

“We’re maintaining the original vision, editing and effects, reproducing every element faithfully. It looks significantly better and can be viewed in any format, on any platform,” Smith said in a statement. “There are decades of TV shows and movies that have fallen by the wayside, programs that we all grew up with. This is valuable content worth being rediscovered.”

Using Matchmaker, TV series can now be completed in days or even hours. Movies follow the same process, with the timeframe needed to restore and remaster a feature film for distribution reduced by half, from an average of three months to approximately four to six weeks, Visual Data said in its release.