WWII in HD
 

I don't have the History HD channel; I can only watch the SD broadcast cable version. For those who have seen this in HD, how good is the WWII footage? It didn't look too great in SD cable. Watching this, I wonder if it is cropped or colorized. Especially when it is in 1:1:85.

Also, when they showed a brief bit on the process of HD conversion, did I just see them using an HD camera to record a film projection?

Re: WWII in HD
 

I got a bunch of really bad pixelation. Lots of thick lines across a big chunk of the screen. I'm recording the repeats to see if it was just that one airing or inherent in the show itself.

Re: WWII in HD
 

it looked great

Re: WWII in HD
 

We keep on hearing about this "Never-before-seen footage" being shown in public. Wonder if there's any new Normandy/D-Day footage tonight.

For the record, plenty of combat photography was shot on shore during this fight, but the footage was lost at sea when being returned back to the ships.

Re: WWII in HD
 

I know 1.85:1 means the picture is 1.85 times wider than it is tall. So does does 1:1:85 mean the height and width are the same, but that it's 85 times thicker? I didn't realize this was being shown in 3D!

Re: WWII in HD
 

It isn't 1.85:1 (not 1:1:85), it's 16:9 (closer to 1.78:1).

It isn't colorized, but it's surely cropped from 1.37:1 sources.

Re: WWII in HD
 

My father is a ww2 buff. He said he has seen a lot of footage he has never seen before. He is really enjoying it.

Re: WWII in HD
 

I'm a WW2 buff myself and seen a bunch of docs on the subject, and this has been spectacular. Yes I've been watching in HD. Obviously it doesn't look like the HD of today, just cleaned up and remastered/restored. The footage itself is excellent.

I'm also glad to see they didn't censor themselves, there is plenty of footage of after-battle carnage.

Re: WWII in HD
 

Hadn't heard about this, so thanks for the heads up. Getting them all on DVR for later viewing.

Re: WWII in HD
 

This is coming out on Blu-ray on Jan. 15. I'll be picking it up for sure.

Re: WWII in HD
 

No spoilers guys! I want to be surprised by the ending.

Re: WWII in HD
 

I've watched 3 episodes and I think this and Planet Earth are the greatest things television has produced. When you see these kids' faces in HD leaving Guadalcanal after 5 weeks of hell, wow.

Re: WWII in HD
 

Amy Smart is awful in this, but otherwise, top notch

Re: WWII in HD
 

Could not agree more....i'm half way through and wanting to just delete the rest and wait for the blu ray, but i can't stop watching...I had tears well up last night watching some of the army hospital scenes in Tunisia after the guadalcanal stuff. just incredibal footage, and I immediately want to figure out a way to make every american student watch every minute of it.


agreed...she's the only fault i can find...what were they thinking with her? she even mispronounces some locations :lol:

Re: WWII in HD
 

I've seen many of these scenes before but seeing them in HD takes it to a whole new level of horror. When you can actually see the thousands of maggots writhing in the mouths and open wounds on the dead bodies and the swarms of flies covering the bloated corpses you're very forcefully reminded that WWII wasn't exactly the gung-ho, rah-rah event so often portrayed in movies and books.

Re: WWII in HD
 

I've got all 10 queued up in the DVR. I was going to wait until this weekend to devote some time to them, but now I'm torn after all the glowing reviews: I want to start tonight, but I'm also afraid I'll not get to bed until 6am if I do.

Re: WWII in HD
 

My only complaint so far, and it's somewhat minor: When the diaries/memoirs are read, I think a lot of people will think that the footage being shown is from the actual event being described, when it's rather just from the same location or battle. In the grand scheme of things, not a big deal because most people will be able to figure this out and it's a common technique used in documentary filmmaking. (I'm specifically thinking of the part where the Marine describes being lost in the jungles of New Britain, while file footage of troops moving through the jungle is shown)

Re: WWII in HD
 

But what's amazing is they have footage of tarawa and saipan and etc etc etc so each voice over IS talking about the place being shown...what I hate is when they do something like this showing footage from Tarawa while the voice over is talking about Iwo Jima or whatever. For instance, because the footage from Dday was lost, they don't show it or try to pretend they have any by showing some other landing....THAT is impressive verisimilitude for television historical documentary...and extremely rare. I think the comparison to Planet Earth is apt - in my opinion this series is unprecedented - and for WWII stuff, that's pretty amazing given all the wonderful series that have been done - particularly World At War...which I love, but it does feel dated when I use it in the classroom. This won't one little bit, and the unflinching images of carnage are an important reminder of the very real sacrifices that not just Americans, but the british, etc made.... so far removed as we are.

The editing in this series is really amazing, and it should be nominated for an emmy. You know in many cases they salvaged fragments of footage and the way they patch them all together is just gripping to watch.

Re: WWII in HD
 

The Blu-ray special features are short, but have some interesting info about the making of this series.

Here's one of the special features posted on Youtube (by History Channel UK), which has the following comment:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Cxg3iRF84
Here's that follow-up video they mention, another of the special features for the set:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u8CUHAuzQ0

That video shows that they are projecting to a screen and shooting it on a RED ONE, at 4K. Going by the procedure in the video, it looks like they'd get the color reels from the archives, clean and project/shoot the whole thing, then use a downconverted version for editing.

Considering that the first video mentions that they found 2000 hours of color footage, if they actually captured all 2000 hours in 4K before they started editing (which it sounds like they did), I can see why they went with the "cheapskate" route. I suppose once they had edited down the footage down to the bits they wanted, they could've gone back and transferred just that footage via a film scanner, but they probably didn't have the time/money for that kind of redundancy (they figured the RED capture looked good enough).