A few Questions...A few inquries...ahh... maby i'll just ask ya later :)....about HD (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

Hey all,

We purchased our first HD TV set in December, splitting the costs, and I've been watching alot of HD content since then, so a question...

What exactly does HD entail?

Sports and news casts are recorded with an HD Camera, so they are true high resolution and native widescreen. However, what about Movies and TV shows?

For instance, I was watching Knight Rider in HD on the universal channel. The Picture dosn't look stretched or distorted, like it would if you fit a normal 4:3 picture to fit your widescreen TV...So, do we loose any picture when they do this to 4:3 shows?

Also, for movies... When the HD is displayed, does this mean they have been cleaned up for the best possible picture and sound possible, or that it's just being presented in it's original widescrene and sound ratio?

sorry to sound like a newb....but just something I've been wondering...I'm also surprised that all news casts and commercials arn't filming in HD already....

Thanks!

 

[Rocky F]

Neil, I can't answer all of your questions, but I'll at least start it off. I only have OTA HD, no sat or cable, so I can't speak for Knight Rider, but I did see a comparison at another forum that showed that it was slightly cropped top and bottom but maybe with a little put back on the sides. It just started running on UHD this week, so it's a pretty recent transfer. It can be transferred to HD for the same reason movies can, it was shot on 35mm film. This is something a lot of newbies to HD do not realize but its a very important thing to know: 35mm film has a much higher "resolution" than HD. I put resolution in quotes, because film doesn't have lines of resolution, it is different than video, but if you were to compare it is equal to something like 4000 lines of resolution as opposed to HD's 1080. Now film certainly looks different than video, and of course there could be other issues like scratches or dirt on the film that could affect it's transfer, but resolution isn't a problem. That even applies to really old films, like Wizard of Oz. As far as news goes, most network and local news is still in SD. Good Morning America is one major exception.

Well, that's my rambling answer, others can maybe give more detailed info.