Most oxymoronic TV show ever


Television


This week on History Channel, they have been running 'WW2 in HD'.

High Definition?

Now wait a minute. This is film that was taken with 8mm cameras (for the most part) 65+ years ago. No matter how good a job anyone does restoring this footage, no matter how much colourizing is done to it (because we all know if it's not in colour, it didn't really happen), the film itself will never meet HD quality. The technology used to record the film at the time was incapable it.

So what's the point?

Don't get me wrong. This is a very good documentary; it's the first one I've seen that even mentions the Aleutian campaign. Still, since the films are still going to be grainy, what's the point of calling the documentary 'WW2 in HD'.

I salute History Channel for uncovering new footage and for their efforts to produce such an excellent show. I salute them for finally getting off the endless reruns of 'Modern Marvels', 'Ice Road Truckers', and the like, but I am mystified how they can think this show is really going to be HD.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Because showing old film in 480i still involves a loss of picture quality even with degraded film. Also, HD means HD form factor, so you don't get ugly black bars when you're watching the show on your shiny widescreen TV.

Dark Archive

M. Balmer wrote:
This is film that was taken with 8mm cameras (for the most part) 65+ years ago. No matter how good a job anyone does restoring this footage

Well, technically, 8mm film should have a *lot* more information in it that even the nicest of digital cameras. The trick is how you get that analogue signal re-distributed, and digitised....

Not that I'm saying you are wrong, I don't actually know, but just because it's old and analogue doesn't mean it may not be inherently high def...

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Typical 8mm film will not hold more detail than HD - the emulsion isn't fine enough to support that kind of detail. But it still supports more detail than you can get on a non-HD TV signal. So there's reason to broadcast it in HD.

Might even be more than 720p can show, which is what broadcasts are. Digging into it, it seemed like typical 8mm emulsions are close to what 720p can show.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Also, HDTV offers a wider color space (and more accurate color reproduction in general), plus a vastly improved contrast ratio.

(Frankly, I value the more accurate and broader range of colors than I do the higher resolution!)

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

I have it on good authority that Vic especially prefers the more accurate and broader range of colors on CSI Miami.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

This show is causing quite a stir in the film archiving/preservation community because what THC is doing to the films is neither preserving nor restoring the original, archival prints. They are getting telecines of the 8mm footage (16mm if they're really lucky) and then digitally enhancing that telecine. But they're doing nothing that I've heard of to actually preserve the original documents, nor are they transferring the media back to film when it's been enhanced.

While HD is the new hotness now, in thirty years, it will certainly have been superseded by something else and chances are very good that HD signals won't even be able to be read. How easy is it to view early video formats from the early days of the format now? Just converting between various HD codecs that are still in use (like HDCAM SR, XDCAM, DVCPRO HD) is costly and complicated. I can't imagine that in several decades whatever format these films are being "preserved" in will be any more accessible.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Gary Teter wrote:
I have it on good authority that Vic especially prefers the more accurate and broader range of colors on CSI Miami.

There's only one color on CSI: Miami. Orange.

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