Method and apparatus for enhancing video-recorded images to film grade quality

Abstract

Abstract A method and apparatus for enhancing video-recorded images to emulate images generated by emulsion film recording is described. According to the preferred embodiment, a video signal comprising the video-recorded images is first applied to a frame synchronizer, which processes the video signal to emulate the frame rate normally associated with film display. The output from the frame synchronizer is then applied to a color corrector, which provides gamma correction to the video signal using a gray scale normally associated with emulsion film recording. The color corrector also advantageously adjusts the contrast ratio of the video signal to emulate the contrast ratio of the emulsion film recording process. This is accomplished by lowering the black level "set-up" point on the gray scale normally associated with a video recording process, and boosting the gain of the video signal to compensate for the lowered contrast scale. The output of the color corrector is then applied to a processing amplifier, which also receives the output of a random noise generator. The processing amplifier uniformly introduces noise into each frame of the video signal to simulate the texture of emulsion film. Although originally produced by video recording techniques, the output of the processing amplifier has the "look" of program material originally recorded on emulsion film.

Inventors

• 👤 Carl R. Beesley

Bibliographic Details