Correction of intensity flicker in old film sequences

Temporal intensity flicker is a common artifact in old film sequences. Remo ving disturbing temporal fluctuations in image intensities is desirable bec ause it increases both the subjective quality and, where image sequences ar e stored in a compressed format, the coding efficiency. We describe a robus t technique that corrects intensity flicker automatically by equalizing loc al frame means and variances in the temporal sense. The low complexity of o ur method makes it suitable for hardware implementation. We tested the prop osed method on sequences with artificially added intensity flicker and on o riginal film material. The results show a great improvement.