Making video clear

For the PR and News industry there is now software to make poor photographs and video crisp and clear. Motion DSP’s new Ikena system cleans up on overcompressed videos and the grainy, blured video you tend to get with mobilephone camaras.

With so much happening in the video space, fired by the combination of broadband and YouTube, video is becomming an important part ofthe communication mix for PR.

The initial Linux-based product (including hardware) costs $30,000, but this type of interpolation-based cleaning will become more affordable before too long. Examples of what is achieved are at at MotionDSP.com.

Software and imaging chips for better video have been a growing business for the past few years. Video -- both from consumers and security cameras -- is exploding, but a lot of it is blurry and finding something on video remains a primitive art. Some of the notable start-ups include NuCore (imaging chips for consumer SLR and video cameras), 3VR Security (a search engine for security camera video) and Pixim, (an imaging chip which captures better images in glare or low light).