Converting sony camcorder infrared super nightshot to color

[stretch]

Hello Group,

I, to my wife's dismay, accidentally filmed our wedding with our Sony camcorder in super nightshot mode, it was daytime. As you can imagine the video came out but lacking any real color. From what I can ascertain nightshot mode on these camcorders uses infrared.

I am hoping that it is possible to run this footage thru a filter in Adobe premier or any other video program so as to see our wedding in color and not infrared.

Any ideas? Has any one else done the same thing?

Thanks a million
Dan

[rijir2001]

I would bet that if it did contain color data it would present it in color. But that is just my opinion. I'm sure you will get a more techinal answer soon.

[Cornucopia]

You're stuck!

Best thing you can do is either see if you can mess with the saturation (if it's got any color spectrum at all), or Desaturate-to-Gray(if it's only monochromatic color).

Similar thing happened to MY wedding (tube camera video 1-gun died), so I feel for you.

Scott

[rijir2001]

How about change it to sepa tone and make it look like an old style film? Maybe add a bit of grain and such to the picture.

[stretch]

Sorry Mats wasn't sure where to post on this subject
Thanks for your patience

[stretch]

Thanks for all your input.

Here is some more info I found.
I guess I will try the Sepia method.

I qoute:

"I don't think this is possible.
In nightshot mode the Sony camera switches aside an IR filter, so if
it did capture color it would be very red. And then I think it
throws all the color information away: I don't think it's possible to
retrieve it.
I'm not an expert on the Sony video cameras though: you should seek
alternate opinions to be sure!"

"I'm afraid that there is not much you can do to recover
colour from this. Most of the signal read from the CCD in this mode
comes through the 'red-leaks' in the red, green and blue filters
covering the detector.

http://www.stecf.org/~rfosbury/home/photography/infrared/DSC-filters.gif

The difference between the red-leaks is relatively small - which
explains why the image lacks colour. So, the loss of colour
information is, I am afraid, permanent. You might try increasing the
'saturation' in Photoshop but it will not produce anything like true
colour I suspect."


Thanks Dan

[daamon]

I guess I will try the Sepia method.

* Capture the footage to PC via firewire and something like WinDV to get one or many DV AVI files.

* Do any editing, arranging etc. and save back to DV AVI.

* Run that DV AVI file through VirtualDub having first read this link:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1539591#1539591

Good luck...

[ofbarea]

I was looking into this because of of my brother weeding. A large chuck of it was recorded using night shoot mode.

The color is awful and this would not be so bad if it was not for the annoying fact that people with tinted hair now have green hair

I will use the the Sepia method for the night shoot portion as this looks the best.

Thanks for all suggestions.

[vhelp]

I wonder if the (author) of this thread is still available and
would he consider posting up an image or two, so that we all
might have a go at it -- weather there is a chance or not at
restoring; correcting; or partially thereof, the video.

I'm becomming a sort of specialist in imaging, and I have various
tools that are under development, and they do include *room* for
quick addition for new features when needed. I do this a lot during
my daily investigations and researching around.

from the Video Workstation of,
-vhelp 4158

[edDV]

There is always the Ted Turner colorization process.

[ofbarea]

I wonder if the (author) of this thread is still available and
would he consider posting up an image or two, so that we all
might have a go at it -- weather there is a chance or not at
restoring; correcting; or partially thereof, the video.

Even though I'm not the original author I will get over the weekend some samples. The worst part is the green hair.

[vico1]

There is always the Ted Turner colorization process.

Ted Turner colorization process...

From The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) site:

Colorization is an expensive and time consuming process.
Popular Mechanics reported in 1987 that it cost more than $3,000 per minute
of running time to colorize a movie.

Heck...I like 'em the way they were shot...BW!...

Back on topic...I'd try to go with sepia too, if I could...for those nightshots.

[lacywest]

By any chance does your wife look like ... Paris Hilton.

... Sorry ... as soon as you mentioned you used the Sony Night vision feature ... I immediately saw a image of Paris Hilton in Black and White.

[Cornucopia]

Ted Turner colorization process...

...

Heck...I like 'em the way they were shot...BW!... ...

I guess you haven't seen the recent colorized 3Stooges--they're great!!

Allowing/helping new generations to get interested in classic material justifies processes like this, AS LONG AS THEY'RE TO EXTREMELY HIGH STANDARDS of quality (most of the '80s stuff wasn't, 'cuz the technology just wasn't there yet).

Scott

[rijir2001]

I totally agree about the new Stooge videos. If you were living under a rock you wouldn't relaize these were not shot in color.

[cleric76]

My wife did the same thing to a wedding. I have been bashing myself in the head with a hammer to try and figure out how to fix the problem. The only thing i could figure out to do was go with b&w or sepia. Is there another way to fix this?
I can post a link to a clip if that would help.

[JohnnyMalaria]

You can't do it.

If you look at a vectorscope of the video you will see that all the color information is in the green region. No red or blue exists (or are present at such low levels that the amount of noise generated by boosting them would look terrible).

[cleric76]

The camera used is a Sony Handy Cam model number DCR-TRV460. Does this make a difference? Won't the camera record all the info? Can't I find a way to reverse the process?

[minidv2dvd]

no it can't be reversed, because like johnny says it's recorded like that on the tape. there is no other data on tape to recover or reverse. if there was paris hilton wouldn't still be showing up in monochrome

[cleric76]

If the tape is in night shot, would the color be the same throughout? For some reason, the tape is fine when the people are outside. It only is bad when they are inside. Does that make any sense?

[guns1inger]

The model of camera doesn't matter. What you have on the tape is what the camera stored. When in bright light either the light over-rides the night vision, or is bright enough to keep some of the colour values. When in low light, the nigh vision takes over and you get the green finish.

Aside from hand colouring frame by frame, you have been given all the available options (except to invent a time machine so you can go back and make sure it didn't happen in the first place).