How does a black and white video from the past get colourized when technology back then processed in black and white?

Question

Let’s say in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, videos were only played in black and white. How is it now that they can be colourized? Is it a matter of people adding colour to the videos that may or may not be their actual colours or did cameras capture colour too?

In: 5

Answer 1

A lot of it is done by artificial intelligence, though it can be done manually as well (is more often done for single photos). Most colorized images have bleaker colors than the original since we don’t have any color data, and guesses aren’t perfect.