On 6/1/2013 7:07 AM, wrote:
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board put the NASA tracking
camera film of the foam impact to an expert company for enhancement.
The result was the best enhancement of a film I ever saw. It
exists in two version. One full image and the other with contour
and difference image. What company was it and where on the net is
the best version of it?



I can answer the first part of your question, the second part would be
somewhat subjective I think...

A quick perusal of this document:

http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/PDFS/VOL3/E02.PDF

Says on para 3 section 4.1.2:

/quote
The video cameras provided standard National Television Standards/System
Committee
(NTSC) format video of the launch. The video was recorded on M-II format
videotape
with the timing information recorded in the audio channel. The video
imagery was
transmitted to Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and Johnson Space
Center (JSC) via
satellite replays within hours of the launch for rapid analysis. In
order to obtain best
quality video for analysis during the investigation, the original M-II
tapes were
duplicated and distributed to the team. DPS Reality was used for digital
frame grabs and
resampling from the video to provide 640 by 480 pixel images for each
frame. The
Mitchell 35 mm film cameras provided higher resolution imagery of the
launch sequence
with finer time resolution. The films were processed by Continental Labs
under contract
to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and distributed to the teams at KSC, MSFC
and JSC.
Details about the video and film reproduction are included in the
Methods section
(Section 4.2).
/end-quote

Continental Labs is still in business and can be found he

http://continentalfilmlab.com/pages/About/about.html

The DSP Reality Graphics card was manufactured by Leitch now a part of
Harris. It's history can be found he

http://www.zenvideo.co.uk/dps_main.htm#HD


Dave