Old Movies in HD

I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.

How can that be?

Do they actually look like HD?

"swalker" wrote in message
...
I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.

How can that be?

Do they actually look like HD?

Movies are shot on film (at least most of them) and then transferred to
video, either SD or HD. Doesn't matter when the movie was made, it matters
when the film was transferred to video.

On Dec 28, 10:52*pm, "Mark A" wrote:
"swalker" wrote in message

...

I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.

How can that be?

Do they actually look like HD?

Movies are shot on film (at least most of them) and then transferred to
video, either SD or HD. Doesn't matter when the movie was made, it matters
when the film was transferred to video.

Anything shot on 35mm or 70mm film should be easily mastered for 1080p
home viewing because both formats are inherently much higher in
resolution than 1080p. If the negative is in good shape, making an HD
master should be easy. Problems are going to arise with TV shows shot
on video tape or 16mm film. They will probably not look as good as
people are going to become accustomed to.

If you want to see something visually spectacular, take a look at the
film "Baraka" which was shot in Todd-AO 70mm in 1992 and had an 8K
transfer to a digital master that took 3 weeks to accomplish and over
30 terabytes of data. Single best looking ANYTHING I've ever seen in
a home setting. It is, in my opinion, THE reference disc, visually
speaking.

The short of it is, most things shot on film, if care is taken or
restoration is made, will look great in a home HD setting.

-beaumon

I have a BR disk of Patton filmed in 1970 on 70mm stock . The video
quality is the best I have seen, far superior to most "HDTV".

wrote in message
...
On Dec 28, 10:52 pm, "Mark A" wrote:
"swalker" wrote in message

...

I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.

How can that be?

Do they actually look like HD?

Movies are shot on film (at least most of them) and then transferred to
video, either SD or HD. Doesn't matter when the movie was made, it matters
when the film was transferred to video.

Anything shot on 35mm or 70mm film should be easily mastered for 1080p
home viewing because both formats are inherently much higher in
resolution than 1080p. If the negative is in good shape, making an HD
master should be easy. Problems are going to arise with TV shows shot
on video tape or 16mm film. They will probably not look as good as
people are going to become accustomed to.

If you want to see something visually spectacular, take a look at the
film "Baraka" which was shot in Todd-AO 70mm in 1992 and had an 8K
transfer to a digital master that took 3 weeks to accomplish and over
30 terabytes of data. Single best looking ANYTHING I've ever seen in
a home setting. It is, in my opinion, THE reference disc, visually
speaking.

The short of it is, most things shot on film, if care is taken or
restoration is made, will look great in a home HD setting.

-beaumon

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:33:50 -0600, swalker wrote:

I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.

How can that be?

Do they actually look like HD?


Thanks for all the replies!

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:51:49 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

Anything shot on 35mm or 70mm film should be easily mastered for 1080p
home viewing because both formats are inherently much higher in
resolution than 1080p. If the negative is in good shape, making an HD
master should be easy. Problems are going to arise with TV shows shot
on video tape or 16mm film. They will probably not look as good as
people are going to become accustomed to.

OK as far as resolution goes, but I understand (well maybe understand
is too strong a word :-)), from another thread, that movies are shot
at a 24 frame per second rate while TV shows are done at a 60 frame
per second rate. So wouldn't any movie look inferior to a program
that was digitally shot, directly for TV or DVD, e.g. the Planet Earth
series?

swalker wrote:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:33:50 -0600, swalker wrote:

I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.

How can that be?

Do they actually look like HD?


Thanks for all the replies!

The way to think about it is that people have been going to the movie
theater to watch movies in "HD" ever since 35mm films became the
mainstay, really the 1920s. Film is an analog medium, so the picture
quality in the theater varies (a lot) depending on how scratched the
film copy is, whether the movie theater is taking care to have a quality
presentation (few do these days), and so on. What Blu-Ray and HD TV
channels offer is the capability to see movies in a higher resolution
than VHS or DVD; much closer to the movie theater experience.

Old TV shows shot on film are also candidates for HD transfer if good
quality masters are still around. Hence the original Star Trek TV show
has been released in HD. Seinfeld has been airing in HD - cropped to
16:9 however - on TBS-HD for months now. HDNet airs Hogan Heroes from
the 1960s in HD (cropped to ~14:9) which has surprisingly good picture
quality. Old TV shows shot on videotape which was common for sitcoms in
the 70s and 80s along with game & talk shows, sport & news events which
were also shot on video can't be remastered in HD. But most hour long
dramas and older TV shows were shot on film, so many of these may
eventually show up in HD, although not reference quality HD, because of
the quality of the film stock and TV production budgets of the time.

Alan F

wrote:
On Dec 28, 10:52 pm, "Mark A" wrote:
"swalker" wrote in message

...

I was down at Wally World the other day browsing through the DVD's and
saw several movies I am sure were shot well before HD but they had a
HD label on them.
How can that be?
Do they actually look like HD?
Movies are shot on film (at least most of them) and then transferred to
video, either SD or HD. Doesn't matter when the movie was made, it matters
when the film was transferred to video.

Anything shot on 35mm or 70mm film should be easily mastered for 1080p
home viewing because both formats are inherently much higher in
resolution than 1080p. If the negative is in good shape, making an HD
master should be easy. Problems are going to arise with TV shows shot
on video tape or 16mm film. They will probably not look as good as
people are going to become accustomed to.

If you want to see something visually spectacular, take a look at the
film "Baraka" which was shot in Todd-AO 70mm in 1992 and had an 8K
transfer to a digital master that took 3 weeks to accomplish and over
30 terabytes of data. Single best looking ANYTHING I've ever seen in
a home setting. It is, in my opinion, THE reference disc, visually
speaking.

The short of it is, most things shot on film, if care is taken or
restoration is made, will look great in a home HD setting.

-beaumon


I have Baraka in BD, and the Planet Earth series also in BD. Some of us
might argue which offers a more stunning image. To be certain, both are
worth having in a collection as reference material.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Ricky Jimenez wrote:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:51:49 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

Anything shot on 35mm or 70mm film should be easily mastered for 1080p
home viewing because both formats are inherently much higher in
resolution than 1080p. If the negative is in good shape, making an HD
master should be easy. Problems are going to arise with TV shows shot
on video tape or 16mm film. They will probably not look as good as
people are going to become accustomed to.

OK as far as resolution goes, but I understand (well maybe understand
is too strong a word :-)), from another thread, that movies are shot
at a 24 frame per second rate while TV shows are done at a 60 frame
per second rate. So wouldn't any movie look inferior to a program
that was digitally shot, directly for TV or DVD, e.g. the Planet Earth
series?

No, TV shows shot on film (in the US) are shot at a 24 fps rate. What
has become common for the budget cable TV series is to shoot on 1080p HD
video at a 24 fps rate to emulate the look of film. Yes, there are TV
shows, sports, news, talk/game shows shot on video at 60i (or 60p) in SD
or HD, but that is not necessarily going to look better than a 24p
source. Not a simple topic.

Alan F

"Ricky Jimenez" wrote in message
...
OK as far as resolution goes, but I understand (well maybe understand
is too strong a word :-)), from another thread, that movies are shot
at a 24 frame per second rate while TV shows are done at a 60 frame
per second rate. So wouldn't any movie look inferior to a program
that was digitally shot, directly for TV or DVD, e.g. the Planet Earth
series?

Higher fps does not translate into higher resolution. Higher fps does help
provide a smoother image if there is a lot of motion in the scene, but
wouldn't have much effect otherwise. The resolution of the film itself can
affect the quality of the image. Motion picture film stock, just like still
camera film stock (if anyone still remembers that), comes in various film
speeds, and the ones with the slower film speeds (requiring more lighting
for the scene) have the highest resolutions.

The quality of the camera lens and the aperture selected can also affect
resolution of the final image.