Some movies, especially older ones, were never meant to be seen in HD. HD just is too sharp--it doesn't look like film anymore! Movies shot digitally, like Star Wars and Bubble, should be in HD, because they looked that sharp on the screen.
This applies especially to some of the classic B/Ws. Could you imagine Ugetsu in super focus? It would completely destroy the misty and diffuse atmosphere.

How can a more accurate representation of the way the film was meant to look not be more like the way the film was meant to look? HD doesn't make the picture from the film sharper, it just represents it more accurately. Even the most misty film was still shot at a higher resolution than HD.

If artifacts or artificial sharpening are introduced due to bad mastering, that's not the fault of HD. That's the fault of bad mastering.

You don't know what you're talking about --- at all.

Film still has more resolution and color depth than HD DVD is capable of, but HD DVD will come a lot closer to reproducing movies the way they were meant to be seen that pitiful old NTSC video.

If an old movie has film grain, or deliberately soft focus, or any other "artifact," a properly mastered HD DVD should reflect that. And if a film was shot with great care to provide a detailed, lifelike image, HD DVD will reflect that as well.

The mind reels at what large-format movies like "Lawrence of Arabia" will look like in one of the high-def formats.

I pity people who think only movies that were made in the last few years are capable of having jaw-dropping quality. It demonstrates a profound ignorance of film history.

If a film was projected to the size of a tv, that image would not look as sharp or detailed as the hd dvds do.

You really have no clue what you're talking about.

Most. Absurd. Thread. EVER.

Is that statement untrue?

That statement is untrue to the point of absurdity.

Ive seen film projected on small screens, and it doesn't look hd at all.

Was it a new 35 mm print? Decent projector? Did the projectionist have any idea what he was doing? How big was the screen? What was the film?

Honestly, ask yourself this: Why would the source material look worse than a home-video copy of it?

Quit licking toads.

There's the possibility that certain encoding methods remove film grain from the image, to achieve a higher level of compression. This would produce an image that was more "HD" and less "film like". Certainly I've heard this discussion about VC-1 before, and Amir has commented on the methods they utilize to get down to such low bitrates. This might be a problem to some people, and a blessing to others.

And yet many HD DVDs have exhibited MORE grain than DVD because it's better at reproducing all of the image.

A 35mm film are comparable to what, 4K resolution? Sure, it doesn't look hd.

You do realize that a movie screen is seval magnitudes larger than a TV, right? You are clueless, and trolling methinks.

And I have seen dvds projected to the size of a movie screen, and it looked fine.

Film looks exactly the same, whether projected large or small.

::

welcome to the forum. you're going to make an amusing addition.

All I can say is wow. I mean really. Just face facts. Film is higher resolution than HD and that is a fact. If you are seeing poorly displayed film so be it, but projected DVD and film do not look the same - not by a long shot.

What type of film was it? 35mm? 16mm? 8mm? Viewmaster slides?

You're either trolling or.... well, it would be impolite of me to point out the alternative. In either case, please stop speaking now. You're embarrassing yourself and wasting everyone else's time.

4K is about 9mp in widescreen, to steal a photography term. Modern 35mm film is probably at least 15mp. Stuff from before 1970 (color) or 1950 (B&W) may be lower than 4K resolution. Maybe.

Film from before 1935 or so may be HD resolution or lower. Although this would be exclusively 4:3 or straight square.

toad,
You are wrong. People haven't been polite to you, sorry. But you are wrong, film destroys digital in real resolution.

In fact, your original comment reveals some proof of this. SW Ep II was the most horrible movie (picture quality) I've ever seen on film. Since the film was higher resolution than the original HD source, the dark scenes really transferred poorly to film media. It actually looks better on DVD than film. In HD it looks great, except that they cropped that film for TV, but that's a different discussion.

yeah i suck