Bitstream-Level Film Noise Cancellation for Damaged Video Playback

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a bitstream-level noise cancellation method for playback applications of damaged video. Most analog video data such as movies, news and historical research videos are now stored in a digital format after a series of conversion processes that include analog-to-digital conversion and compression. In many cases, noise such as blotches and line scratching remaining in analog media are not removed during the conversion process. On the other hand, noise is propagated in the compression stage because most media compression technologies use predictive coding. Therefore, it is imperative to efficiently remove or reduce the artifacts caused by noise as much as possible. In some cases, the video data with historical values are to be preserved without correcting the noise in order not to lose any important information resulting from the noise removal process. However, playback applications of such video data still need to undergo a noise reduction process to ensure picture quality for public viewing. The proposed algorithm identifies the candidate noise blocks at the bitstream-level to directly provide a noise reduction process while decoding the bitstream. Throughout the experimental results, we confirm the efficiency of the proposed method by showing RR and PR values of around 70 percent.