Anyone want some Free HD-DVD movies?

[Pedro]

I hedged my bets in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war and bought a few HD-DVDs along with mainly Blu-Ray movies. Now that HD-DVD has lost, I'm purging what I have from my library. Before I put them in the Goodwill donation pile, I thought I'd check to see if anyone here would like them.

 

I have:

 

The Departed
Bourne Trilogy
World Trade Center
King Kong
Field of Dreams
The Dirty Dozen
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Casino
Casablanca
Trading Places
Flags of Our Fathers

[Tailgat0r76]

I would absolutely love Field of Dreams, Casino and Casablanca. All classics that I've never seen (I know! How could I have never seen Field of Dreams?)

 

I also made the mistake of betting on HD-DVD, but luckily I wasn't an early adopter or anything so I didn't buy at an extreme premium or anything. I still use the player for my fairly vast collection and because it's a great up-converter.

[Pedro]

They're yours Tailgator...PM me your address and I'll get 'em out. I think you will enjoy...Casablanca just looked great in HD.

[iluvlamp]

WTC, Flags and Bourne. Pm'd you. Any would be AWESOME!

[Pedro]

Six down, five to go.

[Hammer]

I'll do King Kong and the Dirty Dozen if still available. I too, made too quick of a call on the platform...

[Katuluu]

I'll take whatever you have left.

[Pedro]

Okay, King Kong/Dirty Dozen to Hammer and The Departed, Trading Places, Robin Hood to Katuluu. PM me your addresses and I'll get them out.

 

That's all.

[pitchleague]

how do they make a high-def film transfer of an old film like Casablanca? Or any old film that was originally done on plain old celluloid? How do they make it look and sound so much clearer and better than before (if it really does look and sound better, that is.)?

[Diskono]

how do they make a high-def film transfer of an old film like Casablanca? Or any old film that was originally done on plain old celluloid? How do they make it look and sound so much clearer and better than before (if it really does look and sound better, that is.)?

I have no idea what I'm talking about here, but I'll throw out a guess. If you scan a photo, you can digitize it at a resolution much, much higher than what any digital camera can produce. I'm guessing the same goes for film. Film doesn't really have a "resolution", but if it did, it would likely be higher than any HD broadcasts. Much like a scanner that can transform any old photo into a 20+ megapixel digital image without even relying on interpolation, old film can be transferred into HD resolutions with the proper equipment.

[Katuluu]

Diskono is correct. Celluloid film has a much higher resolution then High Definition, somewhere in the region of 4 to 5 times higher. That means 1080p is vastly inferior to 35mm film. Moving up to 70mm or something ridiculously sick like true IMAX and you are talking potentially hundreds of times more resolution then high def.

 

The reason why HD often will look "better" then film is that companies are now removing film grain in order to make the image as crystal clear as possible. This actually has a negative effect as it results in the image losing depth of field, resulting in a flat image. In the worst cases, as when something is shot using HD digital cameras, it will give the frame a two dimensional look as the individual frame simply doesn't have the information space that film would. It also is much more obvious as the screen is enlarged.

[pitchleague]

okay, but how about sound? How are they making "Gone with the Wind" into a DTS 7.1 surround mix without either (a) downmixing the original audio into the 7.1 channels, or (b) just adding sound effects to the original audio? I can understand the upgrading of the video quality (I guess what you've said makes sense, it just doesn't seem possible. Besides, many people prefer the original version of movies, just like their LPs of classic albums.) But the audio is a whole different jungle, to me, short of "cheating" your way through the improvement process.

[Katuluu]

The audio can be a bit more difficult as it depends on the original recording process, and the masters that might be laying around. Considering how old Casablanca is I wouldn't be surprised if it was a Mono track. In those instances they typically split it into two channels to give the impression that something is "surround sound". It really all depends on how the original audio was recorded and the condition of the masters but my guess is Casblanca is Mono 2.0 for DVD, Blu-ray or any remastered prints playing in theaters.

 

With companies that are very good at doing film restorations (like Criterion and Kino) they will usually remaster everything and split up the audio into separate channels if possible. It is a very labor intensive process, and is a big reason why it takes so long for them to put out discs and the typical high cost of them. It probably isn't possible for them to do 7.1 in the vast majority of cases, but true 2.1 is pretty common and typically sounds very good and even Mono 2.0 can sound pretty impressive when done right. But we are talking films made pre-1960 or so. By the 80's pretty much everything was recorded so you could remix it into absurd numbers of multiple channels.

 

Also, to clarify, remastering audio doesn't really mean making the soundtracks sound better, but it is about making the film sound as how the director originally intended. Films that were recorded in Mono will always be 2.0, and it is simply a matter of making that 2.0 sound as good as possible for home theater. It may not seem right, but Casablanca in Mono 2.0 would sound much better then in 7.1.

 

So I guess the answer is if they can make something 7.1 nowadays they will, but they won't artificially turn a Mono soundtrack into 7.1. Hopefully Robert steps in and explains this better then I can.

[pitchleague]

I appreciate the effort that you took, katuluu