HBO-HD Monday Night (1 Viewer)

[Jon Long]

Just wanted to say thanks to HBO-HD for a good night of programming last evening (2/5/01)..
Wild Wild West and The Matrix both in glorious HD & DD5.1! Even though these have been run before, it was nice to have them nearly back to back. No, they weren't OAR, but they still looked damn good !
I stayed up and watched The Matrix from 11 PM - 1 AM, and all I can say is WOW ! One of the better HD transfers I have seen. Excellent blacks and shadow detail. I could see damn near every piece of debris flying in the infamous lobby shootout scene! I was viewing it on my Elite 510HD w/DISH 6000.
To be fair though, there was a fair amount of DD5.1 dropouts during the movie. Probably 15-20+ dropouts throughout The Matrix, but usually only for a split second. Just enough to make my B&K AVR-202 register Dolby Pro-Logic before catching the DD signal again..
All in all, not a bad night to catch some of these flicks again. Keep it up ! Anyone watched The Cell yet on HD-PPV ? Any good ?
- Jon

 

[Mike I]

I watch The Cell last night on HDPPV..Pretty decent movie, great visuals and not a bad transfer at all...A few 5.1 audio dropouts near the end of the movie...
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[Steve Tannehill]

I watched "Oscar" (with Sylvester Stallone) on Showtime-HD on Sunday afternoon. The movie is a hoot (a throwback to old screwball comedies), and the transfer was outstanding...and since it was on Showtime, it was OAR.
What else is on this week that is worth staying up late for?
Cheers,
Steve

 

[Roger Clark]

What is it with the 5.1 drop outs? I had them in the Wild Wild West movie as well. I also get them on the Stars DD channel from time to time. I've seen enough other posts on this to think it is from the source, not from our boxes (I've had this happen on two different manufacturers boxes now, Sony A50 and Toshiba DST3000). Monday was clear here in South Florida and I was getting a 97% signal strength. There were maybe three or four dropouts lasting a few seconds each.
Roger

 

[Frank]

The dropouts appear to be recorded on the tape as they occur at the same place in the movie every time it is shown.
Pretty poor quality control on the part of HBO.
I would suggest that they could save money by skipping the expensive pan and scan process and just show movies in the correct aspect ratio. With the money they save they could fix their DD5.1 audio problems.
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Frank...
Turn off the TV and read these books those in power DON'T want you to read...

 

[TimP]

I was also stupefied by The Matrix in HD last night - AWESOME! A few questions and observations though.
I ran my copy of The Matrix on DVD simultaneously with the HBOHD broadcast. Here's what I noticed:
1. The HD broadcast was noticeably better than the already great picture coming from my nonprog DVD player.
2. The quality of the DD5.1 audio was identical between the two (except for the dropouts).
3. The HD broadcast was cropped on the sides slightly (Pan and Scan?) BUT the DVD picture was slightly cropped on the top and bottom!
4. The HD picture was slightly zoomed compared to the DVD having smaller black bars on my 4X3 TV.
Questions:
1. Why is the aspect ratio different?
2. Why wasn't the full vertical picture included on the DVD?
3. What source material is used for these HD broadcasts?
4. Why does such an awesome movie have to have Keanu Reeves as its star?!!
I too have 5-10 audio dropouts per movie. It happens both on HBOHD and ShowtimeHD.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Tim, the DVD is OAR (original theatrical aspect ratio).
- Steve

 

[Frank]

4. Why does such an awesome movie have to have Keanu Reeves as its star?!!

Because the producers wanted girls to see it too?
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Frank...
Turn off the TV and read these books those in power DON'T want you to read...