Denis Shiryaev
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2024
8:36 · 22M views · Feb 23, 2020
Footage shot in New York City in 1911 by a Swedish film company, upscaled to 4K and 60 fps with neural networks and optionally colorized. The creator notes the colors are artificial and added only for ambiance.
HN points to it as an impressive example of ML-based video restoration, and as the test case in the debate over whether upscaling historical footage is respectful or misleading.
5 comments from Hacker News
As an African-American it was actually useful to watch some of these colorized videos and get a better since for how African-Americans integrated into the society at that time. Having it in color with sound made the video seem much more real and relatable. For me this just ads another facet to develop a better-rounded grasp of the era. Inserting the extra frames seems to slow the footage down and allow more time for digestion. I find it often difficult to track what's going on in old videos because of the off-speed of the recordings. But for the historians who spend a lot of time with these artifacts, I'm sure this feels like a bastardization of history. But as a lay person, it makes me want to devour more of these videos to get a fascinating and easier-to-digest look at life back in those times. Btw, this is the video I watched: this video
Somewhat related, there have been some impressive ML-powered video remasterings recently (colorized and upscaled to 4K at 60 fps): - Footage Of The First Flying Machines 1890-1910: [LINK] - A Trip Through New York City in 1911: this video - Views of Tokyo, Japan, 1913-1915: [LINK]
I just tried watching one of the upscaled and interpolated videos, and then comparing it to the source. Please consider doing this before commenting, because in my opinion it really illuminates how silly this all is. 4K: this video Original: [LINK] The colorization, of course, is lies. The upscaling and interpolation, however, is harder to argue about. Sure, if you were to freeze a frame and zoom in, you are looking at data that may not directly correspond to what was recorded. But it didn’t come out of thin air either - its upscaled and interpolated. I have read the arguments and some of the comments on this page and I still cannot figure out how this isn’t just rationalizing elitism. Of course we need to keep the source material, but nobody is suggesting to not do that.
This is something I often wonder when I see historical video footage - why do the people there were where they were? this video In retrospect they may have missed out on many things, if they were in another place at that time, life might have turned out much differently for them, for the better or worse. But life is oftentimes happenstance or habit, instead of willed intentional (inter)action. Habitual or even changes of perspective can be rare, and choosing to explore without any direction can be very difficult.
Very cool. Your results look much better than the washed out AI colorization that I've seen in the past. I think you could charge money for this service. A suggestion for something fun to do / marketing tool: recolorize this video frame-by-frame this video Feature request: colorize B&W comic books. I really want to create a full color book of Calvin & Hobbes comics. (Not for publication)