WW2 HD Colorization — The Battle of Cologne, 1945

[baz62]

I usually look at the original black and white footage but this was so well done I thought I would share it. I've seen some before, especially the tank battle between the Panther and Shermans, before being taken out by a M26 Pershing tank.
Quite sobering seeing the civilians and wonder what they thought of the ruin that became of their city when it was quite beautiful just a few years before.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes the AI technology used to colourise footage now is very good. It's about 90% there for realism nowadays.

[rodm]

I admit that I still prefer the real deal, such as:

www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=&filters%5BcollectionString%5D%5BMINISTRY%20OF%20INFORMATION%20SECOND%20WORLD%20WAR%20COLOUR%20TRANSPARENCY%20COLLECTION%5D=on

or

archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.63897

and

archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.12834

With very complex artificially colorized scenes, there's so much they can get wrong. Besides, eventually the label "colorized" gets dropped and viewers may get duped into thinking they are seeing real colour footage.