Films that DON'T Need to be in HD - Page 2

Thanks! So it is a case by case basis.

Do any HDTVs have the option to display a 480p SD DVD on only 480 lines with black bars all around the image instead of converting it and spreading it out over all 1080 lines?

I wouldn't mind a smaller image with my SD DVDs if it looked better. This could be a temporary measure as I slowly upgraded my movie collection to HD.

I've often wished that my TV would allow me to shrink the image size. It would make watching standard def TV signal less painful.

It seems like it would be an easy option for the HDTV makers to include. I do know the Standard Def channels look nice and sharp when they are shown in the upper right preview pane on the Channel Guide Screen.

I think it's less important for us to try to re-interpret intent (or worse) than to figure out how to best duplicate original exhibition quality. I want as perfect a recreation as possible of what Hitchcock ended up with, not a 1st, 2nd or 3rd person report of what he was going for.

Despite HD's resolution being closer to film's, I think there are differences in "clarity" and the way FX are taken in, when comparing home & theater. Just in the ways the human eye perceives a projected image (in the dark) compared to a digital screen (LCD, plasma, etc). And that's not even including human-error. I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a flick in the theater under perfect conditions. It has to be the perfect darkness to see a projected image well. The film has to be in perfect focus and framed correctly. Your distance from the screen can alter your perception (in a theater I tend to sit between the 1st 3rd to the middle where the edges of the screen are right at my periphery). Even different projectors and systems will effect viewing experiences. I'm not arguing that films shouldn't be clear on our TVs (or that we should watch films in subpar theaters), but I do think that digital home display CAN be less forgiving as far as the seams go (and I'm not even referring to freeze-frame scrutiny). I notice things on disc that I didn't pick up in the theaters all the time.

No, I don't think that the film-makers intended for my experience to be blurry b/c the projectionist fell asleep or obscured by someone's cellphone display-light.

After watching some softcore Cinemax nonsense in HD, I've revised my opinion slightly. I can count the stretch marks on these otherwise lovely ladies.

Every Olevia set I've seen, including my own, has had the option for "1:1 mode" where the image is shown centered in the HD frame at its native resolution, dot for dot, without scaling. It's one of the aspect ratio/zoom options.

Very Cool!