We can make old films look much more modern using AI. This is a great article on the technique used on early 1900s films
"Using a variety of publicly available algorithms, Shiryaev colorized and sharpened the film to 4K resolution (that’s 3,840 horizontal pixels by 2,160 vertical pixels) and bumped the choppy frame rate up to 60 frames per second, a process known as frame interpolation."
The 2018 film They Shall not Grow old using WW1 footage used similar techniques as described here. But even in 4 years the AI technology has improved hugely.
Archive historical footage is one thing. But is there a market for films upscaled in the same way? Would the Marx Brothers with realistic colours, smoother motion and sharper faces be watched by more people? I think the great Pathe news footage upscaled could make some great documentaries. The wired article goes into interesting detail about what counts as improvements and what is just being made up of the AI algorithm.
The value of these sorts of changes I am not sure about. The cost of them has been falling rapidly though. Due primarily in the last few years to improvements in the algorithms and hardware.
The recent crypto crash has put large numbers of GPU's onto the market cheap. In some cases these are located beside renewable power supplies for cheaper electricity. These tend to be remote locations with not great internet speeds. Old films can be moved around on USB sticks as they are not real time bandwidth dependant. At some point I think the price of Bitcoin will go low enough that a container filled with GPUs currently using, close to free, night time wind energy will have a greater return upscaling old films than mining.
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