How do I get my gray bars back?

[texasbrit]

Then how can the original Star Trek series be remastered in HD, as they are claiming? It was shot in 4:3. And if the original recordings are all in SD, how could it be changed to HD?

CBS plans first HD DVD release: Star Trek TOS - Engadget HD

I understand that many TV programs were shot on 35mm, including ST:TOS. And these are all candidates to be converted to 4:3 HD.

To quote from my previous post:
QUOTE There's no technical reason why there should not be 4:3 OAR HD programming if the programming is from film sources. Most movies prior to the early 50s were filmed in 4:3 aspect ratio, so you can do an HD transfer from these film sources and get HD resolution in 4:3, with sidebars. I am not sure how much of this is being done but we may see more of it in the future.
If the film has already been transferred to video than it will be SD source, then upconverted to HD resolution (but not HD quality) before transmission.

As my post said, you can get HD 4:3 if you convert it from a film source and that is what was done with ST. We may see more of this but it is a very expensive thing to do.

To quote from an article on the subject:
All 79 episodes of the original series (plus the two versions of the pilot episode The Cage) were given new fully-digital, high-definition film transfers. Ron supervised this effort himself, delving into the studio's vaults to use the original film interpositives for the process. The resulting D1 component digital master tapes were nearly perfect in terms of video quality, as anyone who saw them on SciFi can attest.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

True enough.

However after I stated that there were decades of TV material that could be made into 4:3 HD, you replied with, "There is no high resolution 4:3 video material, the "decades of TV material" are all SD."

I assert there indeed is a lot of high resolution 4:3 TV material, that was filmed on 35mm, and that many of original sources are not SD.

I agree that "video material" in the form of videotape originals, are SD. However I made no reference to "video material" or videotape, when I make my first reference to there being "decades of TV material." I had been asked what HD 4:3 is out there, and was responding that there is potentially a lot of it.

Of course technically, the "4:3 HD" will be 16:9 with a 4:3 image surrounded by black bars.

 

[texasbrit]

True enough.

However after I stated that there were decades of TV material that could be made into 4:3 HD, you replied with, "There is no high resolution 4:3 video material, the "decades of TV material" are all SD."

I assert there indeed is a lot of high resolution 4:3 TV material, that was filmed on 35mm, and that many of original sources are not SD.

I agree that "video material" in the form of videotape originals, are SD. However I made no reference to "video material" or videotape, when I make my first reference to there being "decades of TV material." I had been asked what HD 4:3 is out there, and was responding that there is potentially a lot of it.

Of course technically, the "4:3 HD" will be 16:9 with a 4:3 image surrounded by black bars.

I think we are splitting hairs here. Certainly some of the 4:3 material was originally shot on film. And you could generate a 4:3 HD version of this by going back to the film masters. But I suspect that this will only be done for "cult" programming such as ST, most of the rest of the 4:3 material will probably remain in SD. However I may be wrong, and who knows what might happen over the next few years.
And of course yes, it will be 16:9 with a 4:3 image surrounded by black bars.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

When HDNet was showing Hogan's Heroes it was re-mastered to 16:9 HD. I assume the 35mm film images were cropped to get that format.

 

[rad]

When HDNet was showing Hogan's Heroes it was re-mastered to 16:9 HD. I assume the 35mm film images were cropped to get that format.

IIRC it didn't completly fill the screen, my set has 0 overscan and there was small black bars on the sides.

 

[texasbrit]

When HDNet was showing Hogan's Heroes it was re-mastered to 16:9 HD. I assume the 35mm film images were cropped to get that format.

Yes they did crop it to a widescreen format.
I saw a suggestion that it might have been just over 14:9 but I am not certain. I had small black bars on both sides also.

 

[texasbrit]

Tom - one of the problems with remastering ST from film is that the original special effects were all produced only in SD and on video. One of the reasons why the process was so expensive - and also why there are "new special effects". They had to redo them anyway.

 

[tdillon]

I think it is great that Original Aspect Ratio discussions are finally coming around again. OAR is very important to me. It is not understood or appreciated by the vast majority of "HD viewers". The average consumer that buys a 16:9 aspect screen gets bent out of shape if anything other than full screen coverage happens. They don't mind squat, portly individuals filling their screens, they just don't want a bit of screen wasted.

VOOM had a lot of 4:3 OAR material that they transferred from film to HD digital. Some of their early transfers they cropped the material to fill a 16:9 screen, but after a lot of consumer feedback they switched their process to maintain the OAR. At the time, the viewers of VOOM were the sophisticated early-adopters of HD. Since that time the masses have come in, and the general population prefer that the picture be chopped, stretched or distorted to fill the complete screen.

There are years of classic television shows that were filmed in 4:3 and could be transferred to 4:3 HD Digital. Likewise there are many years of film that was 4:3 OAR and could be transferred to HD Digital maintaining a 4:3 aspect ratio. It currently bugs me that much 2.35 material is stretched vertically to remove the black bars top and bottom. I always prefer OAR. Maybe someday when affordable, portable HD media is available (something cheaper than Blue Ray) I will finally get good quality HD on my screen. Until then, I have Off The Air digital HD available from my local network providers.

 

[texasbrit]

The average consumer that buys a 16:9 aspect screen gets bent out of shape if anything other than full screen coverage happens. They don't mind squat, portly individuals filling their screens, they just don't want a bit of screen wasted.........................Since that time the masses have come in, and the general population prefer that the picture be chopped, stretched or distorted to fill the complete screen.

I think this is a good point, because it goes back to something in one of my earlier posts. Even if a show was originally produced on film, how much of the material will the industry feel is worth remastering to produce a 4:3 HD version, if the market for it is limited? We may see more of the "Hogan's Heroes" approach, using masking or "pan and scan" techniques to produce a wide-screen picture. It's not OAR of course, but for many programs it's not too bad. The programming was originally produced taking into account the "safe area" recommendations for old analog TV overscan - with digital TVs operating with limited overscan, you don't need to do this anymore and so you can "throw away" some of the original picture because it's outside the "safe action" area and therefore does not contain anything the producers thought was important.
I rarely use any of the stretch/zoom controls on my TV (or on the DVR), and to go back to Tom's original point, I am not really concerned about burn-in, I don't believe it should be a problem if the TV contrast etc are set correctly, and unless you are watching 4:3 material all the time, which for most people will not be the case, especially as all new material gets produced in 16:9 However, maybe Tom can start a campaign to get people who are remastering from film to 4:3 HD to produce the material with grey bars instead of black bars?

 

[GregLee]

Tom must have a (let me see if I can guess) Panasonic PT53x54 rp crt. I have a Panasonic PT47x54, also 3 years old, which does show burn in from side bars. I haven't been as careful as Tom. When I switched from TWC to D* last October, I was a little disappointed to find that I could no longer stretch or crop HD with the HR20 (which I could with the SA8300HD box from TWC). I do use grey sidebars for SD signals, and I do have my TV's wander-about mode set, which it uses to shift around the 4:3 part of the picture to moderate the effects of burn-in. Still, I have burn-in. I don't find it intolerable -- just a bit irritating.

I hadn't known that the E* 622 could impose grey bars on an HD picture. Neat feature. Too bad the HR2x boxes won't do that.