Everyone has pictures or videos that need substantial enhancement in quality and everyone has seen a movie with a scene where a lab technician solves the case by cleaning up the poor quality video from a security camera. MotionDSP, a company that is partly owned by graphics chip designer Nvidia Corp., claims that its vReveal software can enable never-before-seen video enhancements.

vReveal features patented super-resolution technology adapted from the forensic applications used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. With vReveal, consumers can dramatically improve the quality of videos captured by cell phones, digital cameras and other handheld devices. It uses familiar one-click touch-up tools to stabilize, brighten and sharpen flawed videos.

MotionDSP’s vReveal can run on any system with Windows and a 1.6GHz microprocessor (preferably dual-core) or faster, but with Nvidia GeForce 8-series and later hardware it can work about five times faster, according to the software company.

Theoretically, such super-resolution technology can be applied in real-time to enhance DVD and make them look considerably better on high-resolution monitors. However, at this time MotionDSP only offers its technology as part of its vReveal aimed at consumers as well as Ikena, which is aimed at professional investigators.

MotionDSP’s technology extracts information from multiple frames of video, reconstructing details not visible in the original sequence. Ikena can then output both enhanced video sequences and high-resolution stills. Unlike standard frame-averaging techniques, Ikena's algorithms are capable of tracking complex motion, and can therefore enhance both moving and non-moving objects, and complex scenes which combine both camera motion and object motion. Ikena's multi-frame algorithms can significantly reduce both sensor and compression noise.

“MotionDSP's Ikena technology is the best I have used in 27 years on the job – in a gangland shooting case investigated by the Chicago DA’s office, Ikena brought out details as fine-grained as clothing logos from footage shot more than one hundred feet away in the worst possible conditions. Without Ikena, those details would have been forever lost,” said Robert Sanderson of AV Forensic Labs.

A free 30-day trial of vReveal is available for download today on the vReveal web site.

Tags: MotionDSP, Nvidia, Geforce