Inside the Archive: Sound Restoration

Learn about the art of sound restoration with this short video, exploring the work completed by specialists at the BFI National Archive.
Video produced with the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding.
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[@meowpuppy]

Please can you restore the sound on your short film Unwanted Guests?

[@davidhuggins16]

Fascinating to get this insight into the film sound restoration process, which is often overlooked online. I wondered if the BFI archive might be interested in experimenting with OSIRes (an innovative optical sound restoration process recently developed by Platz Halter). This program greatly enhances the fidelity of optical film audio tracks in the image domain, and the results are remarkably clean (some of the best I've ever heard from the format). I understand it's being developed as a piece of open-source software.

[@davidhuggins16]

A demonstration of the process. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGKnqoGXbNiWrcksi=45CVGI_Sy-BNBIYB

[@mikekohlerchannel]

Thanks for that tip, David. I’ll look into it 👍🏻

[@davidhuggins16]

@@mikekohlerchannel No worries, glad it was of interest. There’s two videos about the OSIRes process on Platz Halter’s YT channel but I was unable to add a direct link to this thread. It reminded me a little of Technicolor’s Digital AIR process from the early 2000s but I’m not sure how widely adopted that system was (recall it being used on a restoration for DVD of some Three Stooges films).

[@alexandergleason8237]

whilst I applaud the technical expertise of the sound restoration department, may I ask why The Lady Vanishes - a film that has been 'restored' on many previous occasions, and 'Pressure' - a film who's existing print is more than adequate, are receiving the VIP treatment, when hundreds-no thousands- of amazing unseen films remain unviewable and languishing on the archives shelves and probably rotting away. when all they need is a cheap telecine copy to make them available again, for future generations. Spending tens of thousands of pounds on these 'trendy' titles is an appalling waste of limited resources.