Red Giant Software unveils Film Fix restoration tools for Mac OS X

Red Giant Software, publisher of a line of professional desktop tools including Magic Bullet and Knoll Light Factory, has announced the availability of the Macintosh version of Film Fix.
The plug-in supports Adobe After Effects 7 and is now cross-platform.
Film Fix consists of a set of plug-ins designed for documentary filmmakers and post production studios that need film and video restoration tools on the desktop. Using Film Fix, After Effects users can restore tears, remove dust and dirt particles, and stabilise 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.
The software plug-ins can:

• Repair seams with the only automated tear-repair tool on the market.
• Stabilise footage with fast, software-based 2D translation
• Automatically eliminate severe non-linear inter-frame brightness fluctuations
• Remove dust and sparkle defects using motion detection information
• Render across a set of networked computers to execute full collective CPU potential.

Film Fix utilises 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.
These powerful, 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 films 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.”
(SP)