In an effort to meet growing market demand for heritage series, Germany’s Studio 100 International is remastering its full library of classic TV series including Sindbad, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland (pictured), Anne of Green Gables, Nils Holgersson, Marco, Vic the Viking, Maya the Bee and Heidi.  

The project is part of a bigger Studio 100 promotional campaign called Heroes of Childhood, which celebrates the properties’ multi-generational appeal.

To morph the shows into full-HD and 16:9 widescreen formats, the company is using an AI-assisted upscaling process that renders oversized frames to generate the additional visual information required.

The content is then manually refined with each scene reviewed and adjusted to maintain the integrity of the original content. Audio tracks are also reconstructed to help with multi-language integration, and titles and credits are localized for global distribution.

Studio 100 will be presenting the project and its first remastered episodes at MIPCOM next month.

More production companies, including 9 Story and TeamTO, are finding new uses for AI to improve content and pipeline efficiencies. The market value of generative AI in animation is expected to increase from US$900 million in 2022 to US$17 billion by 2032, according to research firm Market.US.