Microsoft researchers plan to unveil new technology this week that would allow for the restoration or segmentation of video digitally. The company says such tools could be used to restore videos that have been damaged, or to change the background of the video.

Details of the processes were disclosed in a paper co-authored by Microsoft Research and the University of Tokyo. The technique is called "motion field transfer," and involves the sampling of similar motion patches from other portions of the video.

Also to be presented in New York at the 24th Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), one of the world's most significant events for research into computer vision and machine learning, is an algorithm that can be used to separate the foreground from the background in video.

"Using that technique, the background can be replaced with a different one, which could be handy for video conferencing while working from home, for instance," Microsoft explained.

According to Microsoft, nearly 10 percent of the papers to be presented at the conference were authored by the company. 77 percent of the work was done in collaboration with academic institutions.