AI restores Qing Dynasty magician's top performance: Even David Copperfield must be impressed!

At a time when technology was not yet developed, the performance of the Qing Dynasty magician was truly eye-catching .

It can be said that this is the time when AI (artificial intelligence) is making great strides in both technology and application. If we only talk about the film industry, AI is an effective tool for image restoration. AI has really helped people save a lot of time and effort but the results are still extremely high quality.

Not only stopping at still images, AI can now also process old videos smoothly, without any difficulty. Recently, Chinese experts used AI to restore a video filmed nearly 120 years ago about a Qing Dynasty magician.

Chinese experts have used AI to restore a video of a magician nearly 120 years ago. (Photo: Sohu).

To restore color to these century-old black-and-white films, experts combined a number of AI and machine learning tools. With this new AI technology, many other requirements to improve the quality of the video can be performed at the same time. For example, noise reduction, resolution increase, contrast enhancement, colorization, and frame addition.

Restoring this video with AI takes a lot of time to do . Because experts have to find and provide suitable sample photos to make a database. From this data, AI can choose colors and images to add to the restoration process to make the most complete product.

In the video, we can see a magician appear on stage as fast as a gust of wind. In his hands he holds an umbrella and a fan. The magician walks back and forth on stage a few times and begins to "transform" into two chairs.

The magician turned an umbrella into two chairs. (Photo: Sohu)

The magician then closed the umbrella and threw it aside. He then picked up the fan on the ground and turned it into another umbrella.

However, the final magic trick is worthy of being rated as the pinnacle that even David Copperfield was fascinated by. That was when the magician waved his umbrella and immediately the 2 lanterns turned into a dog. He held it in his arms and stroked it twice, then the dog immediately turned into a woman. What a surprise, right?

But this was not the best part, the climax of the performance was still to come. The magician transformed another person and together with this person brought out 2 cardboard boxes and placed them on 2 chairs. The woman was invited to sit in the chair on the left side of the screen with the box in front. And when the magician stepped out from the cardboard box on the left, the woman had long since moved to the opposite side.

Magician turns dog into girl in a blink of an eye. (Photo: Sohu)

To add to the drama, they decided to peel off all the paper on the two boxes. This time, the woman was invited to sit in the chair on the right side of the screen. After just a few movements by the magician, the girl suddenly faded away and teleported to the chair on the left side of the screen.

In the final act, the magician decided to "go big ". He decided to wrap the woman in a large cloth. After covering the girl with the cloth, a strange thing happened, the girl disappeared and out of the cloth jumped out a flock of chickens and a man.

It can be said that more than 100 years ago, when technology and techniques were not yet developed, the performance of this Qing Dynasty magician was extremely satisfying to the audience's eyes.

Check out some of the color-restored footage in the video below.

This Qing Dynasty magician's performance is extremely satisfying to the audience's eyes. (Source: Sohu).