What is “VidFIRE”?
VidFIRETM is a method of recreating the fluid, video-look that most 1960s Doctor Who episodes had when originally broadcast. It is an acronym for VIDeo Field Interpolation Restoration Effect and was developed by members of the Doctor Who Restoration Team. Ian Williams’ pages have more detail, but briefly the method works by analysing adjacent frames on a film recording of a programme (which are 1/25th of a second apart in time) and attempting to create a new frame between the original two, 1/50th of a second apart from each one. VidFIRE made its public debut in late 2001 when two episodes of Dad’s Army were repeated on BBC 2. The effect was highly convincing for static studio shots but produced some noticeable side effects on areas of fast motion as well as scenes with complex backgrounds. As the method has been refined, some of these problems have been overcome. Problems remain with certain types of film recording, where two fields from the original videotape (which are 1/50th of a se
