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ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project, also known as Sagip Pelikula, was a
digital film Digital cinematography is the process of capturing (recording) a motion picture using digital image sensors rather than through film stock. As digital technology has improved in recent years, this practice has become dominant. Since the 2000s, m ...
restoration project of
ABS-CBN Corporation ABS-CBN Corporation is a Mass media in the Philippines, Filipino Media conglomerate, media company based in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. It is the largest entertainment television and film production, Broadcast syndication, progra ...
in partnership with Central Digital Lab. Launched in 2011, the project was headed by Leo Katigbak of
ABS-CBN Film Archives The ABS-CBN Film Archives, also called ABS-CBN Archives, is a state-of-the-art Archive, film archive in the Philippines located at the basement of ELJ Communications Center on Eugenio Lopez Drive, Quezon City, Diliman, Quezon City. It is a memb ...
and Manet Dayrit of Central Digital Lab. The goal of the project was to digitally restore and
remaster A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether Mastering (audio), audiophonic, Cinematography, cinematic, or Videography, videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The term ...
select Filipino films from the archives of ABS-CBN. The project digitized, restored, and remastered over 240 Philippine films into a
1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...
or 2K
Digital Cinema Package A Digital Cinema Package (DCP) is a collection of digital files used to store and convey digital cinema (DC) audio, image, and data streams. The term was popularized by Digital Cinema Initiatives, Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC in its original ...
format with a maximum resolution of 2048x1080 pixels at 24 frames per second. These films have been released through a wide array of platforms including limited theatrical runs, film festivals, free-to-air and cable television, DVDs, pay per view, and over-the-top content platforms such as
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. Most of the restoration processes were done by Central Digital Lab in the Philippines with the exception of select films which were commissioned by ABS-CBN to be restored abroad by L’Immagine Ritrovata in
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and Kantana Post-Production in
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, and others which were scanned and enhanced in-house. All copyrights to the films restored and remastered are owned in perpetuity by ABS-CBN. On August 31, 2020, the film restoration project unit downsized its operations as part of the retrenchment by the company after its new legislative franchise for the company's broadcasting operations was denied by the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
. On March 31, 2025, the project ceased its operations, citing effects attributed to the 2020 shutdown. It was later confirmed by head Leo Katigbak on his
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page on May 1.


Restoration process

The first stage of the process is the scanning of the film negatives or prints into a
digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
picture and sound raw format. Depending on the film's condition, it may undergo a physical cleaning before the scanning could begin. The scanned materials will then undergo an automated and a painstaking frame by frame digital restoration process. The process involves the digital removal of dirt, scratches, fingerprints, discolorations, molds, tape marks, and other damages in the scanned materials. The process also involves the correction of color, brightness, and contrast into its original form often consulting the original cinematographers of each films whenever possible. Subtitles and watermarks, if present, are also removed in the process. The process also involves the restoration and remastering of sound. This involves the syncing of sound to the picture and the removal of unnecessary noises such as eradicate pops and whistles. Extreme measures were also done to remove copyrighted songs from some films. Dozens of technicians, engineers, and artists work hundreds of hours for each film with restoration cost ranging anywhere between twenty-five thousand pesos and ten million pesos per film.


List of notable films restored


References


External links

* *2013
Classic Filipino films restored by ABS CBN Film Archives: Restoring our Films, Saving our Heritage
IASA *Carmela Barbaza (2014)
ABS-CBN Film Archives lists contributions for WDAVH 2014
SEAPAVAA *Tessa Mauricio-Arriola (August 20, 2015)
Immortalizing Philippine cinematic classics
''
The Manila Times ''The Manila Times'' is the oldest extant English-language newspaper in the Philippines. It is published daily by The Manila Times Publishing Corp. (formerly La Vanguardia Publishing Corporation) with editorial and administrative offices at 2/F ...
'' *Don Jaucian (Apr 7, 2017)
Rescuing the lost heritage of Philippine cinema
CNN Philippines CNN Philippines (abbreviated sometimes as CNN PH) was a Philippine free-to-air television network owned and operated by Nine Media Corporation, together with Radio Philippines Network (RPN), under a license from Warner Bros. Discovery Asia-Pa ...
{{ABS-CBN ABS-CBN Corporation Film preservation Digital preservation 2011 establishments in the Philippines Organizations established in 2011 2025 disestablishments in the Philippines Organizations disestablished in 2025