JCA has remastered 14 episodes of ITV drama Sharpe’s Rifles for HD in half the time it usually takes to turn around a restoration project.

Nick Pannaman, joint managing director at JCA, said the media management firm completed 14 episodes, or 24.5 hours, in 16 weeks.

“To deliver a title a week was heavy going,” he said. “Traditionally, it would take two-and-a-half to three weeks. The trickiest part was matching to the original SD edit because there were no original EDLs to work to, and that complicated things. Also, the captions and special effects were on the SD master, not on the negatives.”

The episodes, which first aired in 1993, have been released on Blu-ray DVD and made available to international broadcasters.

Pannaman said remastering programmes for HD was important for JCA. “It fits strategically with our core media services of helping customers to get more use and revenue out of their content,” he said.

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