Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 27, 2006. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The Austrian company HS-Art is showing version 2 of its Diamant film-restoration software at NAB. The new version comes with a Windows installer and several new features. The most conspicuous is the revised user interface.
For preprocessing, there is the new „Pixel Motion“ filter. It enables a better and faster analysis of the material. The information obtained in this step also accelerates other filters such as “Dust” and “Grain”, which at the same time deliver substantially better results.
The new “DWarp” filter undistorts individual, physically deformed images. The likewise new “Interpolate” filter enriches Diamant 2 with an integrated regrain function in order to adapt the newly calculated image and the grain to the rest of the film. In the normal Regrain filter, it is now possible to sample the Grain from existing film material and thereby trim different source materials to a common look.
Based on the data obtained by „Pixel Motion“, the Motion Blur filter can calculate motion blur out of images, and the import-export module now also supports Quicktime files as well as controlling Blackmagic video cards.
Probably the biggest new feature is a paint module that also works as a stand-alone application. Here the user can retouch the film material by hand with a magnifying-glass tool that looks similar to the tool in Apple Aperture.
Diamant 2 processes images with a size of up to 8K. Handling is very simple and concentrates on the essentials. With the left mouse button the Diamant user paints, and with the right he can undo the painting directly. The Microloop function enables viewing a 1-second section of the painted sequence for checking.
The new Diamant version is to come onto the market in June; the price will probably remain the same, therefore probably at 20.000 euros per license and a further 20.000 euros for any number of render licenses.
Further links:
- HS-Art
