“Digital technology enables traditional classic movies to meet the audience once more with the best visual and auditory quality, giving old movies a ‘new life’.” Director Xie Fei, who has reached an octogenarian age, was at the screening at the Beijing International Film Festival , let out an exclamation.

Filmed in the 1990s and known as one of the “models of Chinese feminist films”, “Scented Soul Girl” regained its “new look” with the help of iQIYI’s ZoomAI intelligent restoration technology——April 20, “Scented Soul Girl”, which won the Golden Bear Award for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival, appeared in the “Restore Classics” section of the Beijing International Film Festival. The new 4K restored version released this time is exclusively restored by the iQIYI-Xiamen University Film Restoration Joint Laboratory.

Screening site of the 4K restored version of “Scent of the Soul” at the Beijing International Film Festival

“As soon as the opening song sounded, combined with the nostalgic Reed Lake scene, it immediately brought people back to the 90s. The classic old movies are really delicious.” After watching the movie, an audience member said.

The original film “Scented Soul Girl” was produced by Tianjin Film Studio and Changchun Film Studio, directed by Xie Fei, starring Wu Yujuan, Lei Kesheng, Siqin Gaowa, and Chen Baoguo. It was released in February 1993 and won the Berlin Film Festival of the year International Film Festival Golden Bear Award. The 4K restored version of “Scented Soul Girl” screened at the Beijing Film Festival went through three stages: physical restoration, digital restoration, and artistic restoration. Without compromising the artistic style of the original film, it finally met the audience with higher definition. It is understood that the restoration process is first completed by iQIYI and Xiamen University Film Restoration Joint Laboratory to complete film cleaning and physical finishing, and then use professional film scanning equipment to scan and generate digital files; on this basis, iQIYI ZoomAI intelligent restoration The technology continued to complete the fully automatic scratch detection and picture restoration of the film; then, following close communication with the director, the restoration team deeply restored and optimized the layered details in the picture through fine frame-by-frame repair and post-stage color adjustment to achieve better viewing effect.

These three steps of gradual restoration not only make up for the creative regrets left by the technical limitations in the past, but also realize the “repair of the old as the old” and reproduce the beauty of that era.

Restoration process of old iQIYI movies: original film copy cleaning and follow-up digital and manual restoration

“Scented Soul Girl” Restoration Comparison Chart

“Scented Soul Girl” Restoration Comparison Chart

“In the past, it took several years to restore old films purely manually. However, “Scented Soul Girl” started repairing in November last year. In just two weeks, iQiyi used AI to complete the initial restoration of the entire film, and the entire film was completely restored. It only took less than half a year.” The person in charge of iQIYI’s Zoom AI restoration team said that the application of AI technology has increased the restoration efficiency of classic old movies by 500 times, which not only reduces the cost of old movie restoration, but also greatly eases the industry’s The problem of understaffing.

“Now, when users watch a series of classic restored old movies including “Scented Soul Girl” on the iQiyi platform, they can reach the highest resolution of “Frame Qiyinghua MAX” covering 4K resolution and Dolby Vision quality. Quality audio-visual standards,” said the person in charge of iQIYI’s Zoom AI restoration team.

Released in 1999, “Bathing” was exclusively restored by iQIYI to reach the high-quality audio-visual standard of Frame Qi Yinghua MAX

Restricted by conditions such as storage environment and technology, copies of old movies that were shot earlier are faced with gradual damage such as stains, fading, etc., and many damages even cause irreversible losses. According to public information, since the birth of film art in the 19th century, only 10% of all film copies produced in the world have survived, and more than 75% of the films released before 1914 have no copies left.

In order to protect excellent literary and artistic works and inherit the classics of the times, since 2018, iQIYI has begun to explore the combination of manual restoration and digital restoration of movies, and “rescue” outstanding literary and artistic works with the help of technological empowerment. After successively launching the “Classic TV Series Digital Restoration Project”, “Global Classic Copy Restoration Program” and “Classic Movie Restoration Zone”, in October 2020, iQIYI joined hands with Xiamen University to establish the iQIYI-Xiamen University Film Restoration Joint Laboratory. Explore the research and development of old film restoration technology to help protect and inherit classic content.

iQIYI Classic Restoration Zone

Up to now, iQIYI has repaired more than 150 films with ZoomAI intelligent restoration technology, including “Mu Guiying in Command”, “Dongfanghong”, “Li Shuangshuang”, “Little Soldier Zhang Ga” and many other films that were released from the 1950s to the 1990s. Classic movie. At the same time, combined with post-art manual refinement, 90% of the movies have been restored to 4K high-definition quality, and 14 old movies have reached the “Frame Qi Yinghua MAX” standard. The 4K version of “Fragrant Soul Girl”, which was screened at the Beijing Film Festival, was also launched simultaneously on the iQiyi platform on April 20.

“AI restoration of old movies is a sonata of the integration of technology and humanities. With the help of platform technology capabilities, allowing more audiences to see classic literary works is one of the values ​​​​of AI technology application in the content restoration industry”, iQIYI The person in charge of the film restoration team said. According to iQIYI data, since its launch, iQIYI’s classic movie restoration zone has seen more than 44 million people, and the total viewing time of users has increased by 52%. AI restoration is brushing away the dust of history, allowing more people to see the beauty of the times, and allowing good content to continue to retain its value following the washing of time.