A 50-second silent short film “L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat” (Arrival of a Train) was a marvelous achievement when it released in 1896. This French short documentary film was directed and produced by two brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière.
This video sequence was about a train arriving at the station. Interestingly according to urban legend, when the original film premiered, viewers ran out of the theater fearing that the approaching train was going to fly right out of the screen. It’s hard to imagine how they might’ve reacted to seeing this upscaled take on the clip.
YouTuber Denis Shiryaev was successful in recreating the video with original sound by using artificial intelligence to upscale it to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Shiryaev leveraged a pair of publically available enhancement programs, DAIN and Topaz Labs' Gigapixel AI, to transform the original footage into a 4K 60FPS clip. This upscaling technology has shown great results.
Original Film
People's Reaction in 1896
4K 60FPS Version
The technological advancement in motion pictures is creating new avenues for the people associated with it. There will be a time when soon the past of cinema will be the future of cinema by recreating the full essence of the past great work.
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