F.Y.I. - Set your HD Tivo's!!!!! Showtime is airing "Sign 'O' the Times" on it's High Definition channel today, March 17th @ 2:00pm est. It will also reair it in HD March 29th @12:30pm.

Since it wasn't recorded in HD, essentially it will be the usual version just scaled up?

metalorange said:

Gotta be. Should look better than how they usually show it on cable. Or you could just watch the DVD.

metalorange said:

what? I'm sure they made an HD master like they do with all new movie transfers now. NTSC is going to die.

This was shot on 35mm film which is a bit better than HD.

Maybe I'm not understanding your statement....

ufoclub said:

If they've made a HD master from the original 35mm film, fair enough. Though I'm not sure where they would have got that from, other than that Canadian company that created the widescreen dvd from the original print. I was thinking they would just use the standard version they've been showing on normal tv all these years...

While it's certainly possible that the movie was transferred to HD and that would improve the quality vs the DVD, the guide does not list the show as HD.

I think:

the mastering was most likely done by a specialist company, and they would only make an HD master these days from the master print, then scale it down for ntsc and dvd video... so I think the same master is being used for all formats and it is simply scaled down for ntsc. Then alliance gets it. Then showtime gets it.

its another party that does the transfer, would have to check the end credits of the dvd to find out who....

You know, as much as I hate NTSC, I'm suspicious of HD-TV, purely because it's a digital carriage system and as such will probably carry more DRM crapola to stop people recording stuff from the telly.

Even the UK's DVB system Freeview, isn't as "free" as it seems. I tried to record Tim Burton's Planet Of The Apes film from Channel 4 the other week and my DVD Recorder was having none of it. It was as if a poltergeist was messing around with the brightness and contrast controls on my television.

I don't think that the British public are aware that some content broadcast via Freeview already carries a form of Macrovision.

Justin1972UK said:

I feel your frustration.
My dvd recorder will only record HD if it is in 480i HD format. I can record on my tivo up to 1080i which is great but when I go to record onto dvd I have to set the picture quality at 480i to get a picture.
Then I usually tranfer to mpeg4 on my computer for ipod playback.
SNL - Fury looks incredible in HD.

Justin1972UK said:

Don't get me started on Freeview! We got a digital box about 6 months ago, from a supermarket for £40, it's rubbish! The first one's power adaptor (which gets really hot) died and needed a replacement, it only lists the next program and half the time the information is incorrect, sometimes you switch to a channel and it is black and you have to flip back and forth to get it to come on, sometimes the signal drops for a few seconds, and the scart leads at the back won't stay in!

We've only got a VHS recorder, you can only tape from one channel L1 for all the freeview channels, which means you have to watch the freeview channel you're taping! And they call that progress? I tried taping something the other day and it came out black - until half-way through the program when it suddenly clicked on - but without sound!

Never had those problems with the non-digital terrestrial channels, and yet eventually they are going to switch over completely to digital which means everyone in the country will have to fork out for digi-boxes! How the heck am I gonna tape different channels when that happens? It's just a way of forcing people to spend hundreds of pounds on new equipment, that's what, I mean you will need a box for every tv in the house just to watch the bbc, unless you wanna mess around with putting in a splitter box.

Aaaargh I said don't get me started!

metalorange said:

Well, touch wood, I've never had any major problems with my Sagem Digibox except for the fact that some Freeview broadcasts do seem to have Copy Protection.

Look at this link here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/h...6186.stm#6 and scroll to the bottom...

Somebody from the Association of International Broadcasting (?) has verified:



They don't really advertise this fact in your local Argos store when you buy a DVD Recorder, do they? Bastards!

this tread got sidetracked - was the show in HD or not?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Showtime only shows true HD stuff on their HD channel. And, SOTT already supposedly showed in HD on ShowtimeHD when this new master hit before the dvd came out many months ago (last year).