Lowry Digital, a company specializing in digital video transfers, is currently using a new technique to restore old films from the original negatives. The process, dubbed 4K scanning because it has 4000 lines of resolution, will give possibly the best possible picture quality from old films. The company is currently working to restore nine classic Bond films, as well as a 25th Anniversary DVD of Pink Floyd's 'The Wall.
An Imagica Imager XE-Advanced digital film scanner is used to scan the negatives, and the computer hardware used in the process is not a single super computer, but 600 Macintosh G5s with a combined memory of 2,400 GB. Each frame in the film takes around 4 seconds to process.
With 4000 lines of resolution, it should be future proof for any future display technology that may yet be able to resolve all 4000 lines (currently high definition TV sets accept and try to display 1080 lines, but most cannot resolve it fully - engineers in Japan have already produced a prototype display capable of displaying 4000 lines of resolution), and certainly good enough as a master for DVD production. Film negatives don't last forever, and so it's now or never for some older films to be digitized.
You can read more about it
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