Morecambe & Wise restored using BBC BASIC!

[guest]

Two 'lost' Morecambe & Wise programmes, discovered in Sierra Leone as 16mm black & white films, have now been restored to their original colour using BBC BASIC for Windows! Here you can see the various stages in the Colour Recovery process on a frame featuring Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. Both programmes will be broadcast on BBC2 on December 26th and should be available thereafter on iPlayer. The BBC BASIC program is just over 3,400 lines long and processes the material at about 1.5 frames per second on a reasonably fast PC.


Source image scanned from 16mm film


Contour diagram indicating geometric distortion


Quadrant map showing signs of U & V chroma


Original colour recovered from black & white film

[jbk]

that's simply amazing!

[p_m21987]

Really cool to think that BBC BASIC played a big part in this. Great stuff.

[KenDown]

I agree - that is amazing. It's worth clicking on the link in the original post to see *how* the colour is found and also the tribute to Richard who, despite his alleged cognitive decline, is obviously still capable of some pretty impressive work.

[guest]

Richard who, despite his alleged cognitive decline, is obviously still capable of some pretty impressive work.

Nonsense: the Colour Recovery work was done ten years ago. How can that have any bearing on my current mental condition?

[guest]

Today!

IMG_20181226_0001.jpg

[KenDown]

Ah, apologies. I didn't realise that it was 10 years ago. From the post I thought it was something you had done recently.

[RichardRussell]

These two 'lost' episodes will be repeated this evening (Christmas Eve) on BBC2 starting at 18:20 GMT. If you do not see this message in time, blame the decision to moderate my posts!

[Hated Moron]

For those interested in Colour Recovery (one of the most important BBC BASIC applications ever, I would say) the list of processed programmes has recently been updated.

Although I barely understand how it works any more, and wouldn't be able to devise the technique or write the code now, I can still run the associated BB4W applications (undistort.bbc, colourrecovery.bbc, quadranteditor.bbc etc.) and achieve some good results - if the material is favourable.

Even I find it close to miraculous that something which seemed far-fetched when James Insell had the idea all that time ago, has proved not only feasible but, sometimes, remarkably successful. Almost magic!

In terms of 'legacy', I'm sure I am going to be remembered more for Colour Recovery than for BBC BASIC!