I wonder if a similar technique could be used to turn old 4/3 videos to widescreen just by learning the surroundings of a scene through other shots, then mapping them back and forth to build a complete widescreen scene on all frames.
I've watched a few movies in what's called ScreenX[0]. It's a cinema experience where they project the movie on the main (front) screen, and project the surroundings on the two side walls. The result is an immersive viewing experience.
Obviously the film is not recorded in the ridiculously wide aspect ratio, so usually the side images are computer generated. For landscape imagery, this is fairly seamless. You can't really tell that the images aren't real. However, during a scene with people, the side walls projected static images that drifted around slightly (as if they were cardboard cutouts). I guess the idea is that most things happening in your peripheral vision are lost anyway, so no need to make them detailed.
Depending on the specific shot, you can borrow data from frames before/after the current frame rather than just flat out recreating from nothing. For instance, a shot where the camera pans left to right you can borrow frames from later in the shot to fill in the content on the right half of the image. Or a shot that zooms in/out will have actual footage from the scene that can be used as well. This kind of technique is used frequently for other things as well like when removing objects from a scene or even fixing/restoring film with scratches, holes, dust, etc.
