TCM in HD ?

[TNGTony]

The original broadcast quality of most SD streams from the source is a shade better than the XP speed on a DVD (1 hour on a single layer disc) or about 4.5 gigs per hour MPEG-2 file. So yes it will look good, not great, but good.

I saw another thread announcing TCM HD. I just still haven't seen any official press releases! I hope it comes to Dish.

See ya
Tony

 

[mdanderson]

I hope it come to Directv.

 

[TNGTony]

TCM HD is 100% hit & Miss right now. Most of the time it looks just okay. (Better than SD, but only just) Sometimes the picture looks great and a few times it looks worse than a 5th generation VHS copy or a bad TV broadcast on a 2-Head AOC VCR that needed its heads cleaned.

But as of this moment TCM HD is not HD. It's just a very high bit-rate 16x9 SD channel. It will eventually start showing stuff in true HD. So far I have seen this channel show movies in the "Discovery Networs" style zoom with very narrow pillar boxes and cutting off top and bottom of the movie. Window-boxed, pillar-boxed, letterboxed and near full screen with a very narrow (almost imperceptible) window box. PQ really depends on the movie. And it seems to look better on Eastern Arc (72.7°) than Western Arc (129°) but I never saw the same movie from both locations at the same time so this may not be accurate.

So, anyway, it's nice to have, but not as good as it will get.

 

[kstuart]

Sixteen months later and still a placeholder channel...