How do broadcast engineers restore TV programs from pre-HDTV times?

[Marvolo]

One of our nation's main TV broadcaster, German "ARD", offers a service on their website where they upload news broadcast from exactly 20 years ago. And they do it daily. So today, July 3rd there would be the upload from July 3rd 2003.

I've been checking these videos out for a while because I think they are very nice contemporary documents, like a window to past times.
What I find even more impressive is the fact that these clips have all been restored in a way that makes them fit (as well as possible) into today's HD / Full-HD viewing experience.

Of course, 20 years ago, there should have been no broadcast in HD, but when I look at these restored clips, I often can't see any difference to what at least could as well have been 720p (1280 x 720). This is especially visible in studio shots. Outdoor / field shots, however, are often somewhat worse in terms of quality but still a lot better than any home video we might have produced at the time.

I wonder how it is that such non-HD footage from 20 years ago can still be restored so well that it almost looks like 720p? What means do these houses have? How do they do this?
Or do you think it was actually already produced in a higher resolution than SD in the early 2000s and they now just take the full resolution? I don't think so.

Here's an example from September 11 2001

Even given the fact that there must have been a NTSC-to-PAL-conversion, since the live feed was coming in from the US, those pictures still look remarkably good to me. And that's coming from someone who's used to viewing HD or 4K content for most of the time.

PS: interesting to me, at 1 minute 30s, the live feed from the US has horizontal bold lines slowly wandering from bottom to top.

[skipmack46]

https://media.tagesschau.de/video/2021/0907/TV-20210907-1158-4600.webl.h264.mp4

[Marvolo]

https://media.tagesschau.de/video/2021/0907/TV-20210907-1158-4600.webl.h264.mp4

??

That's the same video that I linked above?

[skipmack46]

yes, they are not encrypted at all, you just need to pull the links from the play back videos is all.

[Marvolo]

yes, they are not encrypted at all, you just need to pull the links from the play back videos is all.

But how does this have to do with the questions and the topic of this thread?

[poisondeathray]

The indoor studio shots with the main news anchorman look like studio quality SD (good lighting, good camera, controlled environment), but average deinterlacing and upscaling. You can also see dot crawl artifacts, rainbows. It looks typical of a studio shot from that period

Average deinterlacing because of the aliasing artifacts (not just the BG screen, the anchor's shirt, tie, eyes on some shots)

Upscaling is a basic resize (resampling), there is no "magic" or anything special going on there.

It does not look like high quality "720p" by today's standards (there's lots of low quality "720p" today too). The actual detail and resolution are not that high. You can perform a rough "downscale upscale" test. A modern broadcast will demonstrate more loss of fine details - because the amount of resolvable detail is higher (real 720p or higher). You will notice almost no difference with that old broadcast

[Marvolo]

Upscaling is a basic resize (resampling), there is no "magic" or anything special going on there.

So the footage has been upscaled? To what? HD? I thought they left it at SD. I haven't run a MediaInfo on it yet, so I don't know if the format is actually HD or not.

[poisondeathray]

Upscaling is a basic resize (resampling), there is no "magic" or anything special going on there.

So the footage has been upscaled? To what? HD? I thought they left it at SD. I haven't run a MediaInfo on it yet, so I don't know if the format is actually HD or not.

There is more than 1 stream available. The highest resolution , and presumably highest quality one I downloaded was 960x720

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L3.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP                     : M=4, N=50
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 16 min 49 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 1 586 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 5 200 kb/s
Width                                    : 960 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.092
Stream size                              : 191 MiB (92%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 160
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=22 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=50 / keyint_min=5 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=30 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=5200 / vbv_bufsize=5200 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Codec configuration box                  : avcC

[Marvolo]

There is more than 1 stream available. The highest resolution , and presumably highest quality one I downloaded was 960x720

What a weird resolution. I've actually never seen it.

What was the most likely format they produced this in 20 years ago? Betacam SP? Or maybe even some Digital-based format already. MiniDV had been already released a couple years before 2001.

[poisondeathray]

There is more than 1 stream available. The highest resolution , and presumably highest quality one I downloaded was 960x720

What a weird resolution. I've actually never seen it.

If you're viewing on a HDTV, or a computer, you're likely viewing the 920x720 version. If viewing in browser, and you see the "HD" icon lit up, that's the version that is currently streaming

This is Web delivery. Every TV station does this for the last 10 years. Multiple resolutions and quality formats are produced for multiple target devices (phones, portable devices, HDTV, etc...). Low resolution devices get the lower quality version(s)

What was the most likely format they produced this in 20 years ago? Betacam SP? Or maybe even some Digital-based format already. MiniDV had been already released a couple years before 2001.

The date is a bit later than Betacam SP, but some stations might have been using them or still in transition period. It's not a fully digital pipeline for certain - dot crawl, rainbows , and the "quality" is definitely SD with no "magic" (machine learning) scaling

[poisondeathray]

The direct link for the HD version is (~206MB). It has the largest filesize, highest video bitrate

https://media.tagesschau.de/video/2021/0907/TV-20210907-1158-4600.webxl.h264.mp4


The link in post #2 is the 720x540 version (~118MB)

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L3
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 16 min 49 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 851 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 2 600 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 540 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.088
Stream size                              : 102 MiB (86%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 160
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=17 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=50 / keyint_min=5 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=30 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=2600 / vbv_bufsize=2600 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Codec configuration box                  : avcC

Both have 128kb/s AAC stereo

[pandy]

First of all they can be 720p source, rich broadcasters like ARD (they have like 5..9 billions $ budget per each year) could afford for HD equipment at the end of 90's (HD equipment was available at the beginning of 90's, Japanese NHK started HD in half of 80's), but even SD could be on top of quality with true 700+ resolution, 4:2:2, cameras with 3xCCD was quite common... for sure German national broadcasters like ARD or ZDF had budget big enough for own R&D - capable to use HD way before it was consumer ready. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television?useskin=vector#European_HDTV_broadcasts

[dellsam34]

Keep in mind pro studios use high quality camcorders with expensive lenses and decks in a pro format usually Betacam (analog or digital), Despite being SD, the video quality is far superior than even a consumer S-VHS, Here is some of the Betacam tapes I've digitized with a Sony J3-SDI and using nothing but simple QTGMC de-interlace and upscaling to 1440x1080:
https://youtu.be/Jn7knemAGvk
https://youtu.be/Qm5GCowUZ20?t=67

There is more in my channel.

[poisondeathray]

First of all they can be 720p source, rich broadcasters like ARD (they have like 5..9 billions $ budget per each year) could afford for HD equipment at the end of 90's (HD equipment was available at the beginning of 90's, Japanese NHK started HD in half of 80's), but even SD could be on top of quality with true 700+ resolution, 4:2:2, cameras with 3xCCD was quite common... for sure German national broadcasters like ARD or ZDF had budget big enough for own R&D - capable to use HD way before it was consumer ready. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television?useskin=vector#European_HDTV_broadcasts

Perhaps, but nothing in that video would suggest it was a real HD source (in terms of resolvable detail). If it was, that video must have been downscaled at some point in the workflow before putting it on the website. Maybe someone goofed up. That video (100% for certain) is not 720 vertical in terms of "resolvable detail" . Not even close.

[Skiller]

It's upscaled to 720p because that is their standard. 960x720 is because it's 4:3 aspect ratio.
Pretty certain it was a completely standard-def workflow in 2001.

I know ZDF had a few HD studio cameras in Mainz long before they even introduced HD broadcast in 2010. I was at ZDF in 2006 and they proudly showed their HD studio cameras, although I don't think the studio workflow was already in HD then because there certainly were no HD capable monitors anywhere around (they had Sony PVMs everywhere).

[johnmeyer]

The video looks like nothing more than PAL or NTSC standard definition. I don't see anything that looks "HD."

[Bwaak]

Of course, 20 years ago, there should have been no broadcast in HD

In Europe there was PALPlus which allowed for 16:9 as well as 25p. Satellite should have been even better, I think that by 2003 they've switched to digital sometime mid-1990s. In the U.S., HDTV broadcasts on a regular basis started in 1998. Not to mention the Japanese MUSE, but it was never meant for OTA broadcast.

I wonder how it is that such non-HD footage from 20 years ago can still be restored so well that it almost looks like 720p?

The clip you've linked does not look that great.

See this for comparison: Sandra, etc. - RSH Gold '89 Interviews | Betacam SP
Or this (16-mm film): 1977: SPIROGRAPH inventor at work on his NEW CREATION! | BBC Archive
Or this (I presume it is PALPlus): 2001: CAMERAS... on PHONES? | BBC News
Or this (HD): Metamorphosis (1990 Analog HDTV HDVS)

These samples, especially the last one, underscore how horrible all the analog consumer-grade video formats were.

The direct link for the HD version is (~206MB). It has the largest filesize, highest video bitrate

This one looks pretty good. Indeed, there are some analog artefacts, and there are compression artefacts as well. I wonder was it a 25p broadcast (4:3 PALPlus), or they deinterlaced it into 25p? Looks clean, usually the lip movement is a giveaway.

[Bwaak]

I know ZDF had a few HD studio cameras in Mainz long before they even introduced HD broadcast in 2010. I was at ZDF in 2006 and they proudly showed their HD studio cameras, although I don't think the studio workflow was already in HD then because there certainly were no HD capable monitors anywhere around (they had Sony PVMs everywhere).

Some may find this interesting: 50 Jahre HDTV von Rainer Bücken und Klaus Burosch. I found it on YouTube when I was searching whether someone else has already uploaded it I have this film on a Region B Blu-ray.

As they say in the film, in the U.S. and Japan the quality of NTSC TV was so bad, that the pressure to upgrade to HD was higher than in 625/50 countries. Europe first could not figure out what it wanted: Hi-Vision or MAC or DMAC or HDMAC, then they started Eureka 95 and spent a lot of time perfecting digital-analog HD, then OTA broadcasters created PALPlus, which sustained Europe till mid-2000s. PALPlus was pretty good for CRT TVs with less than 30 inches screen diagonal.

A little-known fact that Australia had a 625p50 digital format in the early 2000s, which they considered HD. Later, they switched to what everyone else uses, that is, 720p and 1080i. Europe started switching to 1080p50 in 2016, while South Korea broadcasts in 4K ATSC 3.0 since 2018, I believe. But who cares if one can get 8K over YouTube.

[johnmeyer]

I was in broadcast studios on many occasions back in the late 1980s, and the quality of the video on those monitors was WAY better than anything any consumer ever saw on their sets. So, if you can get video recorded on broadcast-quality tape, by skilled broadcast engineers, it can indeed look better than anything you remember.

[Marvolo]

See this for comparison: Sandra, etc. - RSH Gold '89 Interviews | Betacam SP
Or this (16-mm film): 1977: SPIROGRAPH inventor at work on his NEW CREATION! | BBC Archive
Or this (I presume it is PALPlus): 2001: CAMERAS... on PHONES? | BBC News
Or this (HD): Metamorphosis (1990 Analog HDTV HDVS)

That's amazing! I never knew SD could look like that. Some of these I would have straight considered HD.

If only I could make my video8 / 8mm captures look like that...

[pandy]

Perhaps, but nothing in that video would suggest it was a real HD source (in terms of resolvable detail). If it was, that video must have been downscaled at some point in the workflow before putting it on the website. Maybe someone goofed up. That video (100% for certain) is not 720 vertical in terms of "resolvable detail" . Not even close.

Perhaps, my point was that for sure ARD was technically one of the leading European broadcasters and for sure they started to use HD equipment way before consumer HDTV deployment was possible. This is common approach nowadays but it was also then, source is acquired at highest possible quality and stored in some archival format for future use - so it may be something above common PAL but also not true HD - especially if they was able to store this in some digital format - using some preMJPG or similar technology like for example NewTek wavelet codec VTASC in first half of the 90's.

[Skiller]

and stored in some archival format for future use - so it may be something above common PAL but also not true HD - especially if they was able to store this in some digital format - using some preMJPG or similar technology like for example NewTek wavelet codec VTASC in first half of the 90's.

I highly doubt they put in the effort of storing Tagesschau on anything other than Digital Betacam or even Betacam in 2001.
Archiving on hard drives was not economical before the end of the 00-years.

But (Digital) Betacam is very high quality, much better than DV. It absolutely does meet those requirements.

[Bwaak]

I highly doubt they put in the effort of storing Tagesschau on anything other than Digital Betacam or even Betacam in 2001.

Definitely. They reserved higher-quality formats for special projects. For example, Space Race was shot by the BBC in 2005 in DVCPRO50, which is similar in quality to DigiBeta. Some even used DVCPRO Progressive, which should have worked great for sports in 50p/60p mode.

Here is a short video about the BBC digital archive project.

[JadHC]

I wonder how it is that such non-HD footage from 20 years ago can still be restored so well that it almost looks like 720p? What means do these houses have? How do they do this?
Or do you think it was actually already produced in a higher resolution than SD in the early 2000s and they now just take the full resolution? I don't think so.

Couple points:

1. As others said, There were HD recordings in 2000 and before. Home media was simply not on that level, but the television companies were using these technologies.
Here is a recording of Tonya Harding in 1994 in full HD technology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63flkf3S1bE
Another example is that i had movie "bus stop" with Marilyn Monroe on VHS tape which was 4:3 ratio. I was able to get original DVD release and actual movie was shot in ultra wide scree. For the TV in 2000s, they simply cropped off about 60% of the image to zoom into 4:3 ratio. (Many movies from 1940s and onwards were widescreen too and then cropped for TV, it is just now that they re-release them for Bluray, you can actually seem them widescreen).

2. Looking at the footage, it does look like it was shot in PAL 4:3 and now simply upscaled. To be honest, the quality is okay, but not that stellar. I look at news from French TV stations as well as AP archive and they both have tv news from 1980s and 1990s and they are in much better quality than the video provided. To answer how they do it, i do not know. I wonder too. I presume it is special softwares and very costly digitizing process.

[Bwaak]

1. As others said, There were HD recordings in 2000 and before. Home media was simply not on that level, but the television companies were using these technologies.
Here is a recording of Tonya Harding in 1994 in full HD technology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63flkf3S1bE

It looks great, sadly it is uploaded as 30p.

I look at news from French TV stations as well as AP archive and they both have tv news from 1980s and 1990s and they are in much better quality than the video provided. To answer how they do it, i do not know.

The T.A.M.I. show was produced in the U.S. in 1964 using Electronovision, which is basically the French 819-line system. I wonder has it been modified for 30 fps, and whether it has been modified for prog-scan and for widescreen. The YT upload is 30p widescreen, and it seems to be a kinescope, not a proper HD version, so it does not give the sense of the original quality.

In the 1970s they were shooting in 655p24, quarter century before Attack Of the Clones. This was not a broadcast format though.

[Bwaak]

This is from 1979, a three-part Sunday Morning program with Charles Kuralt. Too bad it is 30p, but otherwise looks very nice, from the broadcasters vaults, this is no VHS. You can see different quality throughout the program, studio shots are the best.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/ZukXMriTidY
Part 2: https://youtu.be/XVP5yopelXE
Part 3: https://youtu.be/1lr2GpotavU

[JadHC]

It looks great, sadly it is uploaded as 30p.

I checked online. Youtube only launched uploading 60 fps videos in October 2014 (Less that 9 years ago) while this user posted the video 9 years ago, so i think that at the time when he/she uploaded it, Youtube only allowed 30 fps and converted video from 60 fps to 30 fps.

The T.A.M.I. show was produced in the U.S. in 1964 using Electronovision, which is basically the French 819-line system. I wonder has it been modified for 30 fps, and whether it has been modified for prog-scan and for widescreen. The YT upload is 30p widescreen, and it seems to be a kinescope, not a proper HD version, so it does not give the sense of the original quality.

OMG! Diana Ross! I've never seen this before! Thank you!!! <3

This is from 1979, a three-part Sunday Morning program with Charles Kuralt. Too bad it is 30p, but otherwise looks very nice, from the broadcasters vaults, this is no VHS. You can see different quality throughout the program, studio shots are the best.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/ZukXMriTidY
Part 2: https://youtu.be/XVP5yopelXE
Part 3: https://youtu.be/1lr2GpotavU

The quality is amazing. In part 1, you can see some ghosting (especially in letters and texts) but part 2 is much more clearer and precise. Very nice quality.

--------
To add from the vids I watch, French TV has their tv news broadcast full episodes available from now till back 1972:
https://www.ina.fr/recherche?q=24+heures+emission&espace=1&sort=pertinence&order=desc

1960s example - https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/cpf08008342/24-heures-a-orly
1970s example - https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/caf05012607/24-heures-sur-la-une-emission-du-27-aout-1973
1980s example - https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/cab87022073/24-heures-du-mans
1990s example - https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/cab98047669/20-heures-le-journal-emission-du...-novembre-1998

they did not spend much on restoring 1980s and before, certainly people in this forum could fix a lot more but 1990s are very decent and stable quality.

---
on another note. I was watching how old movies are digitized into Bluray (i own hundreds of Criterion movies from 1940s-1960s and their restored quality in BD is breathtaking and even better than today's tv shows

Its a Wonderful Life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prsRCz7dGq4
Wizard of Oz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKFZ8qxmjF4
1920s old westerns - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NzfJJny3Yg
Jurrasic Park - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsxU8zQjHBM
Hitchcock movies by Criterion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdjqXOCeEtg
Dracula (1931) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nZXJddaTXA
Dr Who - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS1YLfhLIwc

For Scanning, they seem to be using Oxberry Cinescan or DFT scanners for $260k or more a piece. 1 movie restoration costs about $500k.
https://dft-film.com/news-media/gallery/
For Coloring, they mainly use DaVinci software (one can see it being used in the promo videos above)
and for Restoring, they usually use FilmWorkz DVO tools, Diamant-film restoration or the third software (I forgot the name).

I was wondering if someone here tried FilmWorks and Diamant softwares.. They are very expensive and in order to run them, u need super computer (like around $10k with 126 GB RAM, etc).