Howdy Peter,
Good to hear from you!
Heeeeey bud! Good to see you are still keeping the lights on, which is awesome! Never let it die! Knightmare is timeless, and as per yearly tradition, I am about to embark on my usual consumption. Usually begins 1st September every year, because autumn/winter would never feel right without a binge of some good old Knightmare.
As the topic title suggests, has there been any dedicated attempts to restore old Knightmare footage to 1080p HD quality? Or is that a kind of no no here on the forums? Has it been attempted before (I haven't been able to dig up anything via the search function)?
No attempt has been made to my knowledge.
I'm also not entirely sure how this would be possible since even copies of the original transmissions from ITV would only be at 480p. My understanding is that you'd need to obtain the original raw film footage and digitally re-scan it in order to produce it at 1080p. You could try and digitally upscale it, but the results are likely to be awful.
A further problem that you'd have are that the effects would need to be recreated otherwise you'd have a horrific clash of resolutions.
Absolutely, and funnily enough after making the topic yesterday, I researched a bit more last night on what was out there, as it's been quite a while since I have had an in-depth search for Knightmare content on the internet. I was both completely saddened, yet also motivated, when I had seen ITV themselves had uploaded some snippets to Youtube, in glorious 1080p quality, and boy did it look GOOOOD! As clear as you could want and buttery smooth. A show as fantastic as Knightmare, does not deserve to be watched at 480p, heck, even worse at 240p, which I had seen other videos had been uploaded as. I guess that's what those DVD copies I have are (I think I picked them up in the mid 2000s, all recorded from Challenge).
You are absolutely right, in beginning a process like this, the best base footage you can have starting off, will determine the ultimate end quality of each episode. If I were to begin, I would want to have a look at all available footage, and take it from there. I actually never considered any issues such as particle and lighting effects that Knightmare has, so that would be something to add to the list. But I have been working on restoration and upscaling for the best part of a decade now, and results have indeed been varied. Usually good, and better than the original footage, but not without a lot of work and fine tuning. Techniques can vary depending on the type of footage, from VHS restoration, to old 480p/720p being upscaled to HD, and in some cases, even 4K.
My process has been fairly straightforward, using Sony Vegas Pro, combined with some expert (and expensive!) plugins, such as Boris Complete Compendium (BCC), which has a very good UpRes section to it. I invested in it quite a while ago, due to owning a video game fan brand and community. UpRes does a hell of a lot of work, and right away, I would be curious to see how it handles Knightmare footage.
However, as recent as in the past year, there have been some significant advances in restoration/upscaling technology, primarily involving AI techniques from Google (Gigapixel). I have had a very brief look at it a few months ago, and it was slightly off putting, due to the fact that I am not great with maths, and some calculations are required for the AI software. It's not impossible though, I just haven't had the proper motivation as of yet to fully explore it.
And, of course, you'd be infringing copyright. Although I daresay that Tim Child/ITV could probably be persuaded to license someone trying to do this for a fairly nominal fee if they got remastered versions out of it.
Oh absolutely, I would never dispute that I would be infringing copyright, which is not the intention I approach this with. I come at this with an attitude and desire of preservation only. It's coming up to 30 years since Knightmare ended it's series run on ITV, and whilst 2013 was great for both the last re-run on Challenge, as well as the Geek Week special, there have been no real advancements in terms of Knightmare preservation.
I should re-iterate at this point, that I am not a professional at all, and this is purely a private hobby project, with no intentions of any sort of monetary gain, or even public release at this point. I am a person who loves projects, and this has developed the passion to at the very least, explore it at this point. Even if it's on my own.
I was lucky enough to be here 8 years ago when Tim was kind enough to engage with us here on the forums, and I remember some of his comments and interactions. The limitations they encountered, and how a Knightmare resurrection would more or less be financially unviable. Also, that the best chance of getting old Knightmare episodes in good quality would be if another channel commissioned a repeat of all series. Something which hasn't been done since Challenge hosted a few episodes back in 2013 I believe? As much as that would completely negate the need for a project like this, as far as I can tell, Challenge doesn't even have a HD version of their channel. At least not on my Virgin set top box.
Also on that topic though, whilst of course I agree about all of the copyright issues, and consider myself a law abiding citizen, it is unfortunately the nature of the beast where we live in an on-demand/digital era, where everything is readily available at our fingertips. So whilst I wouldn't debate the legalities regarding copyright and IP infringements, that's what happens today in 2021.
I remember back years ago participating in a topic in regards to eBay bootleg copies of the entire show for sale (which I had bought long prior to the topic), and the general consensus was that was not cool due to being illegal. However at that time, I think there was also an active effort to get some sort of DVD collection released.
That's very much still the attitude.
People will generally turn a blind eye to taking a very very small portion of the show in order to do/make something new. But any wholesale use of episodes would need agreement from the powers that be.
Surly apart from DVD collections, a show being added to the ITV Hub would be a more realistic option? Either way since time has went by so quickly, and nothing at all coming to fruition, that's why I feel the need to do something. At least tinker privately on old episodes, just to see what the results are
