So I'm watching The Sound of Music in HD on ABC and can't figure out if the picture quality looks good or bad. Some scenes look great but there is a lot of grain present. I don't have an expert eye so I was curious to hear others on their opinion. Thanks!

Overall I think it looks crappy, lots of artifacts present and the colors and not vivid at all. The film during this showing is clearly showing its' age. I hope this undergoes restoration before it is released on an HD disc.

You also have to keep in mind that its been cropped from its OAR -from 2:35:1 (or wider) to 1:78:1, -so the picture will be softer than if it were shown properly...

It's not a good print and it's panned and scanned.

Oh will I not miss the old P&S days of VHS - I know my father still watches his copy of Heat on VHS - its depressing, almost confussing.

I think its time for me to upgrade him without letting him know.

You know... Leave a trail of broken tape and box until he reaches the DVD. I'm sure he'd be mad at first once he realized what it was, then releaved afterwards.

I wrote this on my blog last night after stumbling across the broadcast:

The Sound Of Music is on ABC this evening.

The transfer airing on ABC HD is pathetic (although not as crushing as the 'full screen' version airing on the analog channel). In typical fashion, they've cropped the original 2.20:1 image down to 1.78:1. This, at least, keeps all the children in the frame in most scenes although there are still moments like in "Do Re Mi" where some of them are missing when the scope image gets altered.

It's hard to say how long ago this transfer was done (I think they've run it for the past several years), but it's faded and washed out. Black levels are generally good but overall it is too dark and there isn't enough sharpness to the image. It often looks pretty grainy, but part of that comes from zooming in during the telecine process to crop the image. This also seems to cause a blurriness on the edges of the frame. I cannot imagine that the source print for this broadcast is the same one from the last dvd edition. I would like to see a proper HD transfer in the original aspect ratio on another channel without commercials or edits for time.

Oddly enough, I remember about a decade ago when NBC aired this at the holidays and switched the movie over to widescreen for all of the musical numbers (presumably to 'fix' that problem of how kids would be singing but cut out of the frame in the pan-and-scan version).

It's up to "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" now and the quality looks far better than it did earlier. That said, with the cropped image it's pretty worthless.

I just popped in the 40th Anniversary dvd and cued it up during the commercial break. The dvd looks sharper, cleaner, and has warmer colors even in 480p. I don't have my upconverting player hooked up right now, but the fact that this looks better than ABC's 720p broadcast speaks volumes.

Looks just a bad this year!

"I am 1080p going on 480p...baby, it's time to THINK!"

ABC broadcasts at 720p HD. To me it looks like it was upconverted from 480p to 720p. They should have struck a new 1080p master and then downconverted it to 720p.

It definitely has more depth and clarity but there is so much more that can be revealed with a true 720p image. I am watching it now and Maria and Leisl's eyes are sparkling but the clothes do not have much detail and the hair is not as sharp.

I know they had to crop it to 1.78 since that's how most people want it but they could have taken the note from NBC (as previously mentioned) and gone 1.78 for most of it and then 2.20 for the musical numbers, wedding, and last 30mins.

I'm sure that's what happened, minus the "new" part. I'd bet this is the same master ABC's been airing for quite a few years now (at least since '04 and probably well before that). Even an older master would probably look okay if not for the cropping/zooming.

Today's football game looked better on ABC than this.

When are we going to get a Blu-ray release of this, anyway. It'll probably be released in Europe before it gets here, I'd imagine.

Widescreen Review magazine noted a few years back that Fox had done a 4K scan of a 70mm print for Sony's 4K LCoS digital projection system, whether it was the whole film or select scenes I don't know, but it was to demo if 70mm could mirror a 4K scan/projection - the result was positive. One can currently look at 'Baraka' on bluray, and make the same conclusion (and that was scanned at 8K). With 'South Pacific' being the first Roger's and Hammerstein film getting the deluxe hidef treatment, one can hope that the rest of the films will come out later in the year. Hopefully, Fox won't DNR it to death as they had done with 'Patton'

I'm glad I missed this if the transfer was really that bad.

I hope Fox doesn't screw up the Blu Ray{Whenever that's coming}.

Did anybody buy the 50th anniversary edition that came out this week?

It seems like it has a anniversary every year but the 50th is a big deal.

I have this version and don't plan to trade up:



That said, I now have an embarrassing confession: I've yet to watch the movie. No, not just the Blu-ray I own...I've NEVER seen the film. It's in a pile of "hope to get to before I die" titles. The biggest thing people don't realize about being a freelance movie reviewer is you're so busy watching assigned titles, you never get a chance to watch what YOU want to.

Very well, we the undersigned peanut gallery of DVDTalk, *assign* you the task of watching this movie!

Arguably the best musical of all time, it's worth carving out 3 hours for. I know there's a couple of new extras on the 50th anniversary set, but I'm very happy with the last release. I'll stick with that until the new one is on sale for the cheap.

The old BD is really stunning, I don't own it, but I picked it up from the library, and it looked great. It is more than a little long and occasionally feels like it, but it's a fun flick. The musical numbers are appropriately toe-tapping, Andrews and the kids are a delight, and the 70mm cinematography is really stunningly beautiful.

I totally understand the conundrum of being a reviewer, but watching this film is kind of a part of being an American in the 21st century.

And the 20th century for us old folk.

I watched a community theater production of TSOM last weekend, and it has me anxious to watch the BD again. It's a classic and a favorite of my family.

Shannon Nutt: Just FYI, in case you watch it and dislike it, you are not alone. Don't be ashamed if this is the case.

I was also in the same situation of not having ever seen it and tried to watch it about a month ago. I got 2 hours into it and could not finish it.

I found the characters to be terrible, boring, one-dimensional cookie-cutter characters that I couldn't possible care less about. I also found the songs to be boring and repetitive. Especially the way the score just keeps reprising the same two songs over and over and over again ad nauseum. I much prefer my musicals to have the songs contribute to the plot rather than drag it out.

For the record, I do like a lot of musicals, but do not understand the overwhelming joy and blind acceptance that this musical and many others get. I try to appreciate them on individual merit rather than because of the age of the musical or who wrote it.

Also, FYI, I'm not trying to be argumentative or start a flame war. It's just that after I found out how much I disliked it, it seemed like it was hard to find people in the forums I frequent that had the same feelings. So, whenever I can I like to give people an escape clause in case they feel the same way.

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was a famously harsh critic of the movie:

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?...659C946491D6CF

Judith Crist of the New York Herald quipped: "The movie is for the 5-to-7 set and their mommies who think the kids aren't up to the stinging sophistication and biting wit of 'Mary Poppins.'"

Pauline Kael positively despised it: "We have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs."

It's the kind of populist flick that audiences take to and watch religiously on TV while critics sneer at its sentimentality, obviousness, and cheesiness. Or earnestness, depending on how kind you feel . For better or worse, it certainly seems to have stood the test of time and emerged as an audience favorite. Does the new 50th anniversary Blu-ray retain all of the old extras?