skiblet

My question is simple -


How are older classic films that were NOT filmed with digital equipment, or hi res in mind going to look on HD DVD, or blu ray ??? There are lots of great older films that have a pretty lame ass looking transfer on DVD.... so hows it going to look on HD DVD ? What extra mechanisms will they use to really ensure an even greater transfer or increase in PQ ?

???

mbs

Since film has a higher resolution than anything filmed today with digital equipment, "classic" movies can look damn good in HD assuming they are mastered properly.

skiblet

well film doesnt really have resolution, its film. what im wondering though is - are they going to do a better job with the transfer process from the film reel to HDDVD than they did with film reel to DVD? I mean, alot of DVDs paticularly old b movies and horror movies dont really look that great, they are barely a step up from VHS. I suppose they are just limited to how the master film reel looks huh? unless they want to pay an effects house to painstakingly correct all the scratches and defects in the film, etc.

darkside

Obviously it will depend on the quality of the available elements, but film quality is higher than any digital output an HDTV can produce so as long as the film elements are good and the transfer is done properly the films should look as good as things filmed with digital cameras.

The old movies you have seen that look VHS quality are usually mastered from 16mm elements. That is why they are so blurry.

Adam Tyner

Not in the sense of pixels, but the equivalent is much, much higher than HD.

Some of the older movies I've seen in high-definition (continuing with your horror example, including some of Universal's Hammer titles) look drop-dead gorgeous...a huge, huge improvement over DVD.

Mr. Salty

I agree with everyone else. It's not as if every movie made before "Attack of the Clones" was etched frame by frame into stone by cavemen. Thirty-five millimeter film is much high resolution than DVD.

If you have specific examples of inferior transfers of older films, feel free to share them with us by title. Time has not been kind to every movie --- many were stored improperly, leading to degradation --- and studios have not always made a great effort to do older films justice when they've transferred them to DVD.

Rubix

a while back i read something about a group figuring out what film's digital equivalent is. i don't remember the resolution or whatever, but i remember each frame was equivalent to something crazy lile 1 or 2gb. 1 FRAME. so needless to say, HD doesn't compare at all.

Fincher Fan

Film is not measured in terms of resolution but in grain. Generally speaking, scanning a frame at a resolution of around 4000 DPI should yield an image similiar to the original 35mm frame. Essentially, what this means is that any DVD, when compared to the original 35mm print, will look like ratshit no matter the age of the film.

I'm still eagerly awaiting the post-HDDVD format!

Edit: Just to note, film should be capable of somewhere up to 6K but since it is an analog medium, it can vary wildly depending on lenses and lighting.

joshd2012

It all depend on who is doing the mastering. I have an import of a remastered Shaw Brothers film that look simply amazing, while other masters look horrible in comparison. If they take the time to do digital correction to the film, they can get some amazing images.

Qui Gon Jim

But you have to remember that with age can come deterioration. But as long as care is taken with the restoration of the film and the transfer is done well, the age of the film has no bearing. This is one of those things that keeps coming up, like the year 2000 was magic and all films since then are the only ones capable of gaining from a HD presentation.

Believe me, when that HD version of Citizen Kane is released, I'm there.

Fincher Fan

This is why there's no simple answer for this question. It all boils down to the condition of the master and how much work a studio is prepared to put into restoration where required. Whatever we get from there are just limitations of the current format.

Dazed

Me too. Cant wait to see this in HD. but im sure we will see a third HD release of Hitch before we see this classic

DVD Josh

Much along the lines of what Adam said, you are wrong. There's no exact measurement, but film has several thousand lines of "resolution", so even with HD-DVD or BR, we STILL wouldn't be maximizing the possibilties.

Qui Gon Jim

LOL! In all seriousness, since CK is a Warner property, I wouldn't be surprised to see this in the first or second year. But then again that time frame probably does make the three scoops of Hitch seem plausible.

AGuyNamedMike

It doesn't look like film is going away anytime soon...

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html

http://www.crystalcanyons.net/pages/...mVsCP5000.shtm

http://www.cintel.co.uk/docs/evolutionofresolution.pdf

http://www.studio-systems.com/broadf...olution/47.htm

Giles

I can't wait to see what IMAX and 65mm (and notably Todd-AO 30fps) will look like - they should look amazing.

Josh Z

If Imax movies retain their 4:3 OAR, they'll have to be mastered with the video pillarboxed into the center of the 16:9 HD frame, which means they won't be using all of the format's available resolution.

Spiky

Imax is square in the original, you are used to Imax DVDs in 4:3. 70x70mm is the film.

Giles

but in theory that would also mean every film that is 4.3 won't use all the resolution either... right? so what's the point then?

Adam Tyner

Because the portion of the screen that is used has much higher resolution than a 4x3 DVD.

Josh Z

On DVD, 4:3 video uses 720x480 pixels, and anamorphic 16:9 video uses 720x480 pixels. Aside from image shape, picture quality is the same.

On HD, 16:9 video uses either 1280x720 pixels or 1920x1080 pixels (depending on 720p or 1080i output), but 4:3 video will only use 960x720 pixels or 1440x1080 pixels.

My point is that Imax movies will have less "wow" factor in comparison to other 16:9 content on the HD formats, because it will be using less resolution. Aside from implementing some form of 4:3 enhancement (which neither HD format will be doing), there really isn't anything that can be done about that. It's just a sad irony of the move to native 16:9 HDTV that Imax movies won't look as good as regular movies.

Giles

so even though IMAX on screen is superior in color and clarity to 35mm film - HD transfers wont or can't replicate this... well that's just troubling to me.

Adam Tyner

They just won't fill up the entire screen.