New breed of restoration specialists now breathing life into classics

Film restoration is growing, driven by TV channels and other outlets' hunger for good quality films

When the 1960 magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam was restored and released in full colour in 2004, it opened up a new field of work for the film fraternity — restoring old films that lay in the libraries of film studios gathering dust. A new breed of restoration specialists emerged who are now breathing new life into many films. 
 
These specialists are in demand. “Television channels and video-streaming majors increasingly demand good broadcast-quality digital prints of classics. It’s a growing business,” says Rajeev Dwivedi, chief executive officer, Live Pixel Technologies, a Mumbai-based company that specialises in this area. 
 
Dwivedi is best known