THE SOUND OF MUSIC presentation on Dec.23 ABC (1 Viewer)

[RobertSiegel]

Saturday night, ABC presented THE SOUND OF MUSIC in HD (supposedly). I watched the first half hour and turned it off. Then, with the taped portion on my dvr, compared that to the 40th anniversary DVD. I think the dvd had more resolution, cleaner picture, and much better contrast. The dvd was the correct aspect ratio, ABC presented the movie in 1:85:1 (correct is 2:20:1). The colors and picture on ABC's hd presentation were faded and very pink compared to the dvd. My feed was from Duluth, Minnesota WDIO tv's high def channel on Mediacom cable.

Did anyone else watch this...and I am wondering if it looked any better anywhere else? What a shame with a new beautiful transfer, every year ABC's high def presentation doesn't seem HD at all.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Because it was cropped and Zoomed it was very Grainy I watched 10 min and Did as you did.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Dave, thanks for responding. I thought that maybe my local HD broadcast was screwed up in some way. Technically, even zooming in the little bit they did shouldn't have looked like that. It was actually one of the worst looking versions I have ever seen of the movie (and I've owned 4 VHS versions, 5 laserdiscs and 2 dvd versions, since it's my favorite movie).

I am really surprised at ABC and also surprised at Fox if they didn't provide something better. I heard that when the new 40th anniversary transfer was done for the dvd, it was done from a HD master from the original negative. They must have a beautiful transfer there, so shame on ABC for cropping the version on the HD version of their channel, and showing something so bad. The dvd looks beautiful compared to what was shown Saturday night. I taped about l/2 hour only to be able to compare to the dvd, because after the opening scene on the ABC presentation, I knew this wasn't what I had hoped (and to be honest, prayed for.

Each new vserion in all the formats looked better than the last, but I was hoping for the untimate version Saturday, guess the wait isn't over. It will have to be (I hope) the blu-ray version.

 

[ThomasC]

I have the Five Star Collection DVD and I thought the HD version looked incredible. I haven't watched the DVD in a while. I certainly wouldn't pay for a cropped version, but it was worth seeing it in HD. I viewed it on a Dell 20" widescreen monitor with a MyHD MDP-130 tuner card with the DVI daughter card. I watched it with the Columbus affiliate.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Thomas, if you're really into this movie, I highly suggest the 40th anniversary edition, a stunning transfer...for the first time since I saw it in 70mm, I felt they had finally done it right. The 40th ann.edition doesn't have the same extras, so I bought them both, but for watching the movie on the 5 star edition, I can see how you were happy with the ABC version, it was better than that edition, but the new 40th looks 100% better than the "ABC hd".

My viewing was on Mediacom cable on ABC's hd channel. I had a friend in Minneapolis, who is totally into the movie as I am, watch the first half hour on Time/Warner and he also turned it off.

 

[ThomasC]

I watched it over the air which could have made a difference.

 

[JediFonger]

abc probably dug an old print up and threw it onto the telecine->HD process. quick&dirty job, literally.

the SD-DVD went through more careful remastering process. while the HD 720p had more resolution (just by a little), the SD-DVD looks cleaner, plus it's correct aspect ratio.

this obsession with broadcasters filling the 1.78 AR drives me nuts. why not keep it OAR at all times?

 

[GregK]

I think this is the most likely scenario, even if ABC themselves didn't do the actual film transfer. The modified aspect ratio alone would require an alternate transfer. This has run on ABC in HD for awhile now, so I would bet this transfer was done at least five years ago.

 

[RobertSiegel]

It's really sad. Why didn't they get the new transfer (which was surely done in HD) from 20th Century Fox? What's the use of High Definition if they are using old prints. This movie, which only runs once a year on any channel (the movie has never been sold to cable channels or anyone other than one major network) deserved alot better. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for HD broadcasts. I watched some of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN this weekend on ABC as well, much nicer HD signal than "Music."

 

[Nelson Au]

Robert-

Saw your reply to my post in the software thread. I saw it Over The Air on a plasma. I only have the 5 Star Disc. As you said above, the 5 Star DVD definitely looked a bit washed out compared to the HD Broadcast. I thought the color of the broadcast looked stronger. IIRC the DVD was sharper.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

That's odd. It wasn't in HD at all in my area. Even on the HD channel it was cropped to 1.33:1, faded and had serious digital compression problems. I had to double check that I wasn't watching the SD channel, but no, it was the HD channel - I was on 705 (our ABC-HD channel on Cox cable).

There could have been a problem with the local feed and Cox just switched it to the regular channel, but at the time I just switched it to something else and didn't bother any further with it.

 

[Gary_E]

I began capturing The Sound Of Music and after two commercial breaks I stopped the process. It was painful to watch such careful framing destroyed by ABC's cropped version. The greatest disgrace came a bit later, while singing Do Re Me, two of the Von Trapp children were singing their notes....AND THEY WEREN'T EVEN IN THE FRAME!!!!

I had higher hopes for Monday's broadcast of Pirates Of The Caribbean but it too was cropped. Why bother broadcasting any film with an aspect ratio wider than 1.85:1 or 1.78:1?

Kudos to FOX however for a spectacular broadcast of Spider-man the following evening. That HD recording (7.9 gigs) was burned to a DVD+DL and will be kept as my new HD demo disc.

-Gary

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I can't understand why anyone would want to watch a movie on TV as opposed to their DVD copy which is widescreen and has no commercials.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Mikel, most of us didn't watch it and turned it off. What we were hoping for was a real HD broadcast of the movie. As stated before in the thread, most of us turned it off. Luckily I didn't watch far enough in the movie to see the cropping take serious effect.

 

[Marty M]

Well, I am glad I decided not to record this program. I was reluctant to record since 4 hours of space would have taken up a lot of my DVR disc space.

 

[JediFonger]

mikel,
some of us have HDTV capture cards and would like good archives of movies if they are available =D. that broadcast wasn't archival at all.

 

[Richard Kim]

I've seen both Sound of Music and Spider-Man on HD last weekend. I immediately compared them with my DVD versions, and I noticed that the color on the HD versions seem more saturated and vibrant than the DVDs (Skin tones tended to be reddish). Keep in mind I calibrated my set with Avia.