AI Restoration Makes Apollo Moon Landing Footage Look Like It Was Shot In HD (space.com) 88
shirappu writes: AI technology is getting better and better at improving old video footage by adding new frames to improve smoothness and adding color to black and white footage (a great explainer for the techniques can be found here). Now, YouTube channel DutchSteamMachine is applying the same techniques to the moon landing in 1969. The AI-restored footage stabilizes the shaky old footage, adds frames, and motion smooths the whole thing to essentially bring the footage into the present. Though it can be difficult to improve these videos because high-quality source footage is a necessity, it's still a good example of how improved these technologies are becoming with the development of AI support. The actual improved video of the moon landing can be found here.
Did they use (Score:5, Funny)
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Do I need to mention that it's a joke? (since nowadays the only remaining skeptics are the very few Earth flatteners...)
Re:What white men accomplished FIFTY years ago. (Score:5, Interesting)
I challenge all slashdotters, including myself, to not post a single negative post for 3 weeks.
And yet, as a comment on the moon landing and an attempt at reframing that narrative in terms of white privilege, your post is itself profoundly negative.
Here are some points of my own, for you and everyone else:
- Just because something happened fifty years ago does not make it racially anything. Yes, as a people our racial, cultural, and interpersonal awakening has been a process, and not an event, and yes, any time in the past is a time when we were less far along that continuum than we are now, but the mere act of reaching back in time to when we were less far along does not inherently make all the events that happened then relevant to the narrative of racial struggle. Or, in other words, the moon landing isn't a fifty-year old "white accomplishment", it's just a fucking accomplishment.
- The constant attempt being made of reframing past events using the light we now have to illuminate racial, cultural, and interpersonal inequalities does not do the current struggle to continue our current growth any good. Not even a little. Projecting modern heroes and modern values and modern understanding into the past to right the greater social injustices that occurred then does not do our current struggle any good at all.
- Words are actions too, as the basis for all change is creating the blueprint for it, and words are that act of creation. Right now I am taking action and I am doing it with my words.
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The moon landings could never have been considered a "white accomplishment" because black people played a key role in it, specifically working as computers.
I don't think reframing past events in light of modern understanding is an issue in itself. The goal is to understand the past better and present a more accurate picture of how people experienced it at the time. If that upsets some people then that's unfortunate but doesn't mean the past should be censored or forgotten, in fact it's a reason to talk fran
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You seem to be implying that the goal is to manufacture racism where none existed. However in the example we have here there actually was clearly identifiable racism at work.
Do you have any examples of where it's completely made up without any basis in reality? And the person who made the claim, not just something you thought of.
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Trader Joe’s was accused of racism because they have brand like “Trade Jose” by Briones Bedell, 17, “...who is about to start her senior year at a San Francisco Bay Area high school.” The goal was to manufacture racism where none existed.
Which will very quickly take us to what definition of racism we are using here.
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Does sound a little bit racist. Some other brands changed their packaging too, like Uncle Ben's which is obviously far worse.
Anyway there was a conversation about it. Not really seeing much of an issue here.
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TL;DR. What a waste of a post that was.
Winners don't care about heritage, only losers do. (Score:1)
Only losers obsess with history. Only losers obsess about heritage.
I am confident the top CEOs in the US and world will not spend a whole lot of time talking about the past. No musician with a #1 hit goes on a talk show and begs to tal
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While I expect it is a joke. However, I don't think I would have used this technology to enhance the moon landing footage at this point. There is too much Anti-Science, being tied to a political stance vs just people being ignorant.
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The whole point is that it is making an 'educated guess' at the missing information. The question is how much of an improvement can it make over 'dumb' rescaling methods. The other question is how long it will be before somebody uses it to upscale vintage pr0n.
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You assume that hasn't been done, (and were trying to be funny.)
I'm not going to go look, but I'd be willing to bet there's a better than 50% chance that someone's done that already, even if they haven't released it into the wild.
Re: No, it isn't. (Score:2)
You mean like Adobe Photoshop doing a "content aware fill", before the days of this whole AI fad?
The article says the DAIN app uses AI, but the website I found for DAIN just talks about interpolation, which seems more reasonable.
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The key point to remember about the AI footage is that these tools are creating images that are tailored to look good to the human eye. This is not an accurate representations of the actual events.
It doesn't matter if you think the video footage was on a soundstage or the real lunar surface. The additional frames and changes to the scenes are aesthetic and carefully selected for such. Anything useful of scientific value is diluted or outright removed if it doesn't meet the Hollywood blockbuster style.
A
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would have to go to the same place on the Moon
It was my understanding, based on some research I have done such as reading sci fi and watching Terminator movies, that anything worthy of being called "AI" would be capable of going to the moon. It would build self replicating space ships and laser monsters that it would send to the moon to harvest important minerals to further its nefarious aims. Someone in a military uniform, a colonel probably, would see this playing out on a big screen and say Somebody pull the damn plug on this thing! and one of his s
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I don't think we can get to CSI or Star Trek Zoom and Enhance feature, where that one Pixel can be enhanced to show the person's entire face.
This process is much like figuring out what the content of a hash key is. The data is gone, what is left is just hints on what would work. So we see a hash of some content, we as humans, may figure well it is probably normal UTF-8 Text so we can apply normal typed characters, ignore the low and high binary values. Then we can further figure it out assuming that the w
Not "improving". It is "faking". (Score:3)
What really happens here is that missing parts get faked.
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Sure, but it needs to, to match the faked footage in the original.
(I'll show myself out.)
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Nonsense. The extra frames are created by moving existing pixels around, not by fabricating the scene from thin air.
Re:Not "improving". It is "faking". (Score:4, Informative)
The extra pixels are 100% fake though. Seriously.
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Less fake than extra pixels from linear or nearest neighbor interpolation. At least the extra pixels from a neural net are based on an understanding of how the real world looks. The real world isn't just a bunch of mindless gradients.
All interpolation is "fake data". The question is whether you want it to be as plausible of an interpolation as possible, or whether you want it to specifically look bad (gradients, nearest neighbor) to call attention to the fact that you have no data there.
(This would be an e
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At least the extra pixels from a neural net are based on an understanding of how the real world looks. The real world isn't just a bunch of mindless gradients.
Are you not familiar with how this sort of AI works?
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Less fake than extra pixels from linear or nearest neighbor interpolation. At least the extra pixels from a neural net are based on an understanding of how the real world looks. The real world isn't just a bunch of mindless gradients.
Exactly, they just filled in the missing bits with frog DNA. What could possibly go wrong?
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Exactly, they just filled in the missing bits with frog DNA. What could possibly go wrong?
We could get a Jurassic Park on the Moon where we see Jeff Goldblum being chased by raptors with jet-packs.
Hmm.. For some reason I would pay good money to see that...
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Well, you know, "life, uh, finds a way"
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At least the extra pixels from a neural net are based on an understanding of how the real world looks.
Well, you certainly do not know how neural nets work...
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"The extra frames are created by moving existing pixels around"
"Moving existing pixels around" can be used to create the moon dragons we didn't see the first time around.
It's fakery.
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"The extra frames are created by moving existing pixels around"
"Moving existing pixels around" can be used to create the moon dragons we didn't see the first time around.
It's fakery.
In case the moon dragons is a reference to faking the moon landing, let me know what technology we used years ago to imprint lunar rover tracks on the moon surface that are now visible from Earth with modern telescopes.
Otherwise, all upscaling is "fakery" according to your math? Give me a break. We have a bad enough problem with actual fake news. Let's stop trying to invent more of it, and simply learn to enjoy the 4K show that is based on extrapolating reality.
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"Otherwise, all upscaling is "fakery" according to your math?"
If you are "upscaling" to a resolution that wasn't in the original image, yes, it is.
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"Otherwise, all upscaling is "fakery" according to your math?"
If you are "upscaling" to a resolution that wasn't in the original image, yes, it is.
Well, OK. Much like "hate" (as in speech), you're going to be constantly explaining your stance in the digital world when actual fake footage is all the rage. Between your version, fake news, hype, bullshit, influencers, deepfakes, and social media, the very definition of "fake" will look fake soon.
It's also going to be an interesting argument when the human eye eventually meets its technological match, and humans cannot tell the difference. (we're only a few years away from needing AI to detect a deepfak
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The fact that there are worse fakes does not make it not a fake.
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The fact that there are worse fakes does not make it not a fake.
No, it was more the fact that you hold an interesting interpretation here of "fake" opposite the vast majority. Opinions may change over time as we find more of our beloved movies of our youth broadcast in 16K HyperVision. Certain films certainly have artistic merit or historical value to be kept preserved in the original format, I agree. That said, I think we're going to have to find a reasonable balance between preserving original footage for historical value, and preserving bad footage for nominal val
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Upscaling movies is different; they're explicitly fictional productions from the start. Upscaling historical footage and trying to pass the result off as still historical footage is, as I said, fakery.
I am not interested in the opinions of "the vast majority," only in the truth.
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And?
No, really, and?
Is nearest-neighbor or linear interpolation or similar (the alternatives for displaying low-res/low-framerate data on modern displays) real-world data? No, of course it isn't. IMHO, filling in scaleup / between-frame data with the results of training to the real world is a far more realistic decision than nearest-neighbor or linear, which has no correlation to the real world (the actual data between pixels/frames is rarely going to just be their average in the real world).
Nearest-neigh
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And that is what will mislead you into thinking the NN upscaled image is closer to reality than the blurred image.
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"Mislead"? Are you suggesting the zebra is actually blurry in real life?
Re: Not "improving". It is "faking". (Score:2)
Fake footage from a fake AI (Score:2)
"Improved" means "I don't have to accept reality", apparently.
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"Improved" means "I don't have to accept reality", apparently.
"Improved" means "telescopes that can literally show you the lunar rover tracks on the moon surface", apparently.
It also means no one has to even entertain your "delusional batshit reality" anymore, unless you want to believe we sent a lunar rover to the moon to make moon tracks in order to make fake footage look "really real" to lie about it for some gain in the 21st Century.
Hell if we did all that, I'd be more impressed than an actual moon landing.
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"Improved" means "I don't have to accept reality", apparently.
"Improved" means "telescopes that can literally show you the lunar rover tracks on the moon surface", apparently.
It also means no one has to even entertain your "delusional batshit reality" anymore, unless you want to believe we sent a lunar rover to the moon to make moon tracks in order to make fake footage look "really real" to lie about it for some gain in the 21st Century.
Hell if we did all that, I'd be more impressed than an actual moon landing.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at but to be clear: I mean that people who can't accept that sometimes we have to look at old footage and live with the fact that it's not super-HD digital are the problem here. They're the ones that are making fake footage so that they don't have to live with the reality that the past wasn't like today.
In the process they're making it easier for flat-earthers and other fuckwits to claim that anything they don't like is fake because people become used to the idea that
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"Improved" means "I don't have to accept reality", apparently.
"Improved" means "telescopes that can literally show you the lunar rover tracks on the moon surface", apparently.
It also means no one has to even entertain your "delusional batshit reality" anymore, unless you want to believe we sent a lunar rover to the moon to make moon tracks in order to make fake footage look "really real" to lie about it for some gain in the 21st Century.
Hell if we did all that, I'd be more impressed than an actual moon landing.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at but to be clear: I mean that people who can't accept that sometimes we have to look at old footage and live with the fact that it's not super-HD digital are the problem here. They're the ones that are making fake footage so that they don't have to live with the reality that the past wasn't like today.
In the process they're making it easier for flat-earthers and other fuckwits to claim that anything they don't like is fake because people become used to the idea that every few years our image of the past gets updated with new software.
I stand corrected, and sadly, your point is fair and accurate as to what the average nutter fuckwit does with image enhancement. That said, I really don't think all image enhancement ruins the past. Those that are demanding everything be upscaled with little or no justification, yes certainly.** But we've been watching the same grainy moon landing footage for decades. Perhaps some things are worth enhancing. I'm certain the Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's viewpoint was a hell of a lot clearer.
** This
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They're the ones that are making fake footage so that they don't have to live with the reality that the past wasn't like today.
What makes you think that is what motivated them? Do you have any evidence?
In the process they're making it easier for flat-earthers and other fuckwits to claim that anything they don't like is fake
They're going to claim it's fake anyway. They don't need a reason.
Does it really matter? I'm not convinced that there are actually any serious flat-earthers, and I'm including the home-made rocket guy. Hell, I almost joined the flat-earth society once because I though it was funny.
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I disagree.
The enhanced video provides something the original can't: immersion. The low framerate and lack of image stabilization keep you at a distance because your brain keeps yelling "why does this video stutter so much".
When the artefacts are removed, this distraction is removed and you have time to appreciate what the video is showing you: the alienness of moving in 1/6G, the stark lighting, the weirdness of not being able to estimate distances.
Compare to modern action movies filmed with shakycam: the
Ugh (Score:4, Funny)
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Reminds me of this quote from Gremlins 2 - “Tonight, on the Clamp Cable Classic Movie Channel, don't miss Casablanca, now in full color with a happier ending!”
So, the porn parody?
Title is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
The original footage for most of these videos is 16 mm film, which has a resolution easily high enough to earn the "HD" moniker. What was missing is the frame rate: the camera had a selectable frame rate (down to 1 fps), and lower framerates were used extensively to reduce the amount of film required.
So most of the restoration consists of frame interpolation and camera motion smoothing.
Re:Title is misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
Not very good motion smoothing either. For example around the 1:40 mark you can see all kinds of artefacts between the antenna and the moon surface in the background. My TV does a better job than this.
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Not very good motion smoothing either. For example around the 1:40 mark you can see all kinds of artefacts...
Woah. I think your "artefacts" have an artifact in them.
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"artefact" is the accepted British spelling.
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"artefact" is the accepted British spelling.
And I stand corrected. Appreciate the knowledge.
Re:Title is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Here's/ the original footage processed only with traditional linear interpolation and image stabilization. And [youtu.be]here it is [youtu.be] with nearest-neighbor (no interpolation) and no image stabilization.
The footage is just plain awful quality. It's IMHO pretty shocking how few artifacts there are in the neural net version, given this. Could it be even better, sure. But it did an amazing job.
IMHO.
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Do historians want this stopped too? (Score:1)
or are they OK with it?
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Enhance! (Score:1)
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Or as Futurama put it... [youtube.com] ;)
The filters are impressive. (Score:4, Funny)
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But at least they got the Starbucks cups and plastic water bottles
The historic events look like they were shot on hd (Score:1)
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I think AI is the most important system homosapiens have ever created. It's up to our generation to make sure it is used in the correct way. Of course history will teach us a very important lesson. Some 1 is gonna tamper with it and make it regrettable. We need strict laws on this matter early on before we find out all the wicked things AI can do. Other than that I think it's awesome. I remember when I was a kid and the first Nintendo came out. I was blown away. Before the Nintendo I was on Atari and a commador computer. I was just a kid when I thought virtual reality would never happen in my life time and look at us now. Just amazing. I think the human race is amazing and I'm thankful we have some really smart people. <a href="https://cinehubapk.com/">cine hub apk</a>
Yeah. Just think a thousand years ago some human upgraded their caveman club to a gun. And we've been doing a lot of "smart" warmongering ever since. In fact, we're so good at it that we'll probably destroy ourselves right here on this rock before ever figuring out a way to escape it.
Can't wait to see what we do with AI...
more frames (Score:1)
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"Hacks use universal function to add fake data to (Score:4, Funny)
That would be the correct headline.
Might aswell add Jabba The Hut and have him shoot first.
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There is no "universal function". There are many possible algorithms which you could train in literally countless ways.
What happened. You went so long without posting ignorant shit that I thought you died of COVID. I'm glad you survived.
Another ignorant post brought to you by BAReFO0t.
Added color (Score:2)
Finally, we can see that the moon is made out of cheese
This story is like a lunar eclipse... (Score:3)
It appears about twice in a year:
https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
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Moon landing hoax fodder? (Score:2)
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"Moon landing hoaxers" are a vanishingly small group of completely powerless people. What they believe about the moon landing doesn't matter.
Why do you seem so afraid of them?
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I'm not "afraid" of them, per se as much as I just lament the damage that they seem to be surprisingly capable of inflicting on the public's willingness to listen to real science.
You say it's vanishingly small, but last I heard, it was anywhere from 6 to 20 percent of Americans today (link) [vox.com]
It bears noting that this is well over a thousand times as many people as believed such nonsense in the 1980's.
The fact that these "hoax" perpetuators don't really have any factual legs to stand on doesn't seem to
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