04-14-2011, 11:22 PM

I was looking at picking up the DVD box set of the Twilight Zone, and stumbled across a listing for it on Blu-Ray, completely remastered, etc etc. Wasn't expecting that to ever hit Blu-Ray, but I am soooo in!

Amazon.com: The Twilight Zone: Season 1 [Blu-ray]: Rod Serling, Anne Francis, Burgess Meredith, Claude Akins, Ida Lupino, Jack Klugman, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Ted Knight, Ron Howard: Movies & TV

04-15-2011, 02:09 AM

Weren't most of those old Twilight Zone TV shows in B&W? What would make them look any better on BR? I guess if you're a Rod Serling fan and want the entire collection.....

The SciFi channel on cable used to air the old TWZ shows but lately I haven't seen them advertised.

04-16-2011, 12:11 AM

Originally Posted by chscag

Weren't most of those old Twilight Zone TV shows in B&W? What would make them look any better on BR? I guess if you're a Rod Serling fan and want the entire collection…..

They most certainly will look more detailed if remastered from the source footage (and they were). Lack of color doesn't equate to lack of detail. Lemme dig up a YouTube video someone made showing some examples of SD vs HD, which included some B&W.

Well I'm having trouble locating that clip, but here's something worth reading:
Blu-ray Myths: Old Movies Do Not Benefit from HD - Film Junk

The SciFi channel on cable used to air the old TWZ shows but lately I haven't seen them advertised.

Probably pre-empted for wrestling matches. *mumble grumble*

04-16-2011, 12:12 AM

Aha! Here's a review comparing screen shots from the DVD vs Blu-Ray releases:
The Twilight Zone: Season 1 – Blu-ray Disc Review | HighDefDiscNews

04-16-2011, 02:40 AM

Not bad at all. Sort of like what iPhoto can do for the lousy photos I take.

04-16-2011, 03:16 AM

Do de do do, do de do do...

Remastering is amazing, you should see what an amazing job they did with Seven Samurai on Blu Ray.

04-16-2011, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by Kevriano

Do de do do, do de do do...

Remastering is amazing, you should see what an amazing job they did with Seven Samurai on Blu Ray.

Yep, and although these are in color, the original Star Trek series, How the West Was Won (particularly great job on this one)...

04-16-2011, 07:47 AM

The question is:

Film shot digitally. There's no physical film to scan at some stupidly high resolution. How are you gonna Blu-ray that? Do they leave it at the 1080 for Blu-ray and just downscale to 720 for the SD dvds?

Cause from what I read if the old physical film is very clean and scratch free you can scan it in at much better then HD (1080). But the digital footage is mostly shot at 1080 or 4x. 4x is from the number of columns across. And 1080 is like almost 2x. If I read it right. I'm not 100% sure.

04-16-2011, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by the8thark

The question is:

Film shot digitally. There's no physical film to scan at some stupidly high resolution. How are you gonna Blu-ray that? Do they leave it at the 1080 for Blu-ray and just downscale to 720 for the SD dvds?

Usually they have to do that because of the physical limitations of the medium not to mention the difference in the BR and DVD specs.

04-16-2011, 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by chscag

Not bad at all. Sort of like what iPhoto can do for the lousy photos I take.

Not really. In your example, iPhoto is manipulating something that started as lousy, but you ultimately can't add real detail that never existed. The raw footage for video generally has a level of detail FAR in excess of what you end up seeing. Even HD resolution of 1920x1080 is LESS detail than what you can potentially pull off of film. Broadcast television, DVDs, and yes, even Blu-Rays, have always been a compromise on what the media, transmission systems, etc can handle. Thanks to restoration efforts and releases on Blu-Ray of old movies, we are actually just now seeing how good these really looked in the theater back in the day. With regards to TV shows, you never saw how good they could look because of TV's limitations.

04-16-2011, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by the8thark

The question is:

Film shot digitally. There's no physical film to scan at some stupidly high resolution. How are you gonna Blu-ray that? Do they leave it at the 1080 for Blu-ray and just downscale to 720 for the SD dvds?

Cause from what I read if the old physical film is very clean and scratch free you can scan it in at much better then HD (1080). But the digital footage is mostly shot at 1080 or 4x. 4x is from the number of columns across. And 1080 is like almost 2x. If I read it right. I'm not 100% sure.

SD resolution is 480p. 720p is a "lesser" HD resolution than 1080p, but in some situations 720p is indistinguishable from 1080p (more on that in a moment). In one of the articles I posted, they indicate that most digital footage today isn't shot in 1080p, but much higher. There are exceptions, like Star Wars: Phantom Menace. It was shot at 1080p and that's as good as it will ever get. That actually explains finally why it looked so grainy in the theater. No loss… what an awful movie.

But anywho… 1080p realistically is as good as you need for most home viewing scenarios. The level of detail that the human eye can resolve is dependent on the screen size and viewing distance. Every chart I've read says that for under 50" at a typical distance of 8 feet, you cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. You simply can't resolve the additional detail. To appreciate resolutions higher than 1080p, you'd have to be sitting REALLLY close, or have a HUGE screen (probably 70" or greater). And the latter is why movies need to continue to be shot in resolutions higher than 1080p because those movie screens are quite huge.

If you apply what we know about pixel densities and the Retina Display, this should make more sense.