Posted by JoeBloe on 01/04/07 01:03

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:45:44 -0500, "Joshua Zyber"
<joshzyber@comcast.net> Gave us:

> even High-Def. DVD
>barely captures a fraction of it.


Though the bulk of your remarks were correct, this one needs
clarification.

A VERY good master of King Kong looks REAL good from HD DVD, and I
have the DVD and a non-up-converting player to compare with.

Though film is better, I wouldn't describe it as "barely captures a
fraction of it".

I say this because I also have Full Metal Jacket, which some of the
grainiest film stock I have ever seen. A bit disappointing.

Then, there is Blazing Saddles, which give one the impression that
they are looking right at film. It is clean and crisp. I was
impressed. I expected it to be bad, being from so for back.

I was also impressed with The Forbidden Planet.

SO I'd put that fraction, as you call it, at at least one third, and
more in some cases, depending on the source media.

An interesting, though not directly related is the story of how the
DVD of "The Lathe of Heaven" was compiled.

The BBC had problems with their archives from a fire or flood or
such, and lost a lot of material, including any prints they had of
this interesting movie from the Ursula LeGuinn book. Maybe just film
decay issues with that one archive/warehouse location

Some of the scenes are from VHS copies they dug up in search of a
complete master. One can see it in the video when watching the DVD.

Likely not a candidate for HD formats any time soon.

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