# Turner Classic Movies would be good



## purvis (Sep 3, 2007)

with a HD feed as well. Some would argue that the older movie would not benefit; but even a SD movie pumped up with a higher bit rate would show an improvement 

As matter of fact, 3 to 5 separate TCM feeds would be nice. You could have one dedicated to the 1930's and salient movies, 1940's , modern movies, Foreign films and the like. I think that Turner has something like 20,000 movies in the library, but they have a tendency to show a very small subset of "classics" over and over again. Seems like a lot of movies going to wait. All they would need to run them would be someone manning the DVD player


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

I would love this. Older movies are perfect for HD because most were filmed and as such can transfer to HD very well. The only problem is that many are still on film and would need to be transfered (Read: expensive)

-JB


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## RTE (Aug 26, 2007)

I want movies, TCM is a must. Our kids need to see quality with values.

The important thing is no commercial interruptions. As for the new movies give us the STARZ/Encore lineup of things.

*RTE*


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## bruin95 (Apr 23, 2006)

jrb531 said:


> Older movies are perfect for HD because most were filmed


Most? Uh...try all.


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## dbconsultant (Sep 13, 2005)

We watch the older monster movies on Voom's Monster channel and watching something like Frankenstein via the HD channel is awesome. We would love to see TCM go HD - this is probably the only channel we watch that isn't HD!


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## bruin95 (Apr 23, 2006)

dbconsultant said:


> We would love to see TCM go HD - this is probably the only channel we watch that isn't HD!


Ditto.


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

bruin95 said:


> Most? Uh...try all.


LOL I hate using the term all because someone will find some obscure movie from the distance past that was recorded on punch cards  and say "ha! - not all!"



Yes old movies were all on film. Most 35mm, some 16mm and some 70mm.

I think even 16mm can do HD but I'm sure some tech person here can help.

-JB


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## oldtexan (Jan 21, 2008)

I spend more time watching Turner Classic Movies than any other channel. It would be great in HD!!


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## grog (Jul 3, 2007)

TCM is a great channel.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

jrb531 said:


> I would love this. Older movies are perfect for HD because most were filmed and as such can transfer to HD very well. The only problem is that many are still on film and would need to be transfered (Read: expensive)
> 
> -JB


I saw Sahara (1943) with Humphry Bogart on Film Fest HD a few weeks ago. So somebody is converting these classics.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

jrb531 said:


> Yes old movies were all on film. Most 35mm, some 16mm and some 70mm.
> 
> I think even 16mm can do HD but I'm sure some tech person here can help.


I'm not an expert, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express...

I'm with you, I believe 16mm can do HD as well... though I'm not as 100% certain as I am about 35 and 70mm, each of which are well beyond the current highest HD resolution supported.

I also believe 8mm cannot, though you can still certainly get a better print from re-scanning the negative than DVD resolution currently does... maybe even up to 720p HD resolution, but I'm pretty sure not 1080i/p resolution based on things I've read.

Movies are a different animal than TV shows... since sometimes special effects are applied to TV shows and the "final" cut goes to videotape rather than film.. so some TV shows (Star Trek is a good example) that were filmed (on actual film) had to have all the special effects redone in HD. The old special effects final cuts only existed on videotape, and the special effects were done at a much lower resolution than required for HD.

I would expect movies not to share this phenomenon... however, I suppose it is possible that some films may have lower quality special effects applied than today's standards... so when scanned at HD the people and scenery might be sharp but the effects could be blocky.

So I wouldn't go so far as to say ALL old movies, even on film, can automatically be HD... but with a little elbow grease, they can be.


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## Hutch123 (Aug 21, 2007)

I sent an email to TCM about HD. Here is their reply.

Dear Viewer, 

Thank you for your comments, they are very much appreciated! 

Turner Classic Movies is exploring the possibility of broadcasting in high definition. Unfortunately, we have no time table as when we might achieve this goal. 
Thanks for your interest and thanks for watching! 

Best, 
TCM Viewer Relations


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## dbconsultant (Sep 13, 2005)

Hutch123 said:


> I sent an email to TCM about HD. Here is their reply.
> 
> Dear Viewer,
> 
> ...


That's the same response I got when I e-mailed them about a year ago. Hope they explore faster cuz we love this channel for old movies especially the ones from the 30's!


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

What I meant by 16mm can do HD was that it was at least as high in resolution to be able to. 35 and 70 have no problem as their resolution is so high as to be able to do HD HDD and HDDDDDD 

But they still have to be mastered. Much of the older movies we see have already been mastered for laserdisk or DVD and I suspect that when they master an older movie for laser or DVD that they just do not do it in the DVD resolution. Anyone know if this is true?

All I can say is that if I was taking the time and expense to remaster an old movie from analog to digital I would not just do it just in a lower DVD resolution as it's very easy to downgrade from a higher resolution.

-JB


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## Deke Rivers (Jan 8, 2007)

Paul Secic said:


> I saw Sahara (1943) with Humphry Bogart on Film Fest HD a few ago. So somebody is converting these classics.


yes they have quite a few older classics in HD on Film Fest..it looks great!


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## db2 (Aug 27, 2007)

TCM has no commercial interuptions and is always OAR. The only thing missing is HD!


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

purvis said:
 

> with a HD feed as well. Some would argue that the older movie would not benefit; but even a SD movie pumped up with a higher bit rate would show an improvement
> 
> As matter of fact, 3 to 5 separate TCM feeds would be nice. You could have one dedicated to the 1930's and salient movies, 1940's , modern movies, Foreign films and the like. I think that Turner has something like 20,000 movies in the library, but they have a tendency to show a very small subset of "classics" over and over again. Seems like a lot of movies going to wait. All they would need to run them would be someone manning the DVD player


They should merge TCM & MGMHD. I've seen some 30's movies mixed into HBO once in a while.


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## TNGTony (Mar 23, 2002)

Cinemax has the "morning classic" movies on several times a week and I love those!

See ya
Tony


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

Be careful what you wish for. Turner also created TBS-HD and look what that has gotten us. We all imagine the old great Hollywood classics getting the white glove restoration treatment, but this is from the same genius who introduced colorization.

I read I guess on a AVS thread about TCM-HD a while ago that going HD was a long shot. Each Turner channel is responsible for turning its own profit. Basically, TCM doesn't make much money since it doesn't show that many commercials, but it makes up for it by owning its library and that keeps its cost down. So it gets by.

But going to HD would mean more than just upgrading their broadcast facilities, they would have to go back and re-do their library as well. The cost for that is what is keeping Turner from going forward with HD flavor.

When we do see TCM-HD, I expect it will be a upconvert stretch like we see with TNT & TBS.

Kinda takes the wind out of my sails knowing what could have been.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

HDMe said:


> I'm not an expert, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express...
> 
> I'm with you, I believe 16mm can do HD as well... though I'm not as 100% certain as I am about 35 and 70mm, each of which are well beyond the current highest HD resolution supported.
> 
> ...


Last night I was watching TCM and it was pixelating and blotching badly, so I flipped to 5 MAX and watched Primary Colors & was OK. TCM must had some glitches.


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## Chinatown (Dec 13, 2003)

Cyclone said:


> Be careful what you wish for. Turner also created TBS-HD and look what that has gotten us. We all imagine the old great Hollywood classics getting the white glove restoration treatment, but this is from the same genius who introduced colorization.
> 
> I read I guess on a AVS thread about TCM-HD a while ago that going HD was a long shot. Each Turner channel is responsible for turning its own profit. Basically, TCM doesn't make much money since it doesn't show that many commercials, but it makes up for it by owning its library and that keeps its cost down. So it gets by.
> 
> ...


As long as they show the 2.35 to 1 in their true aspect ratio...........


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## TNGTony (Mar 23, 2002)

The way TCM shows movies I wouldn't worry too much. They show movies in OAR. 1.33:1 movies in pillar box format would more than likely be the norm if they keep their current business model.

See ya
Tony


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

Sadly, DN has really cranked up the compression on regular TCM of late, resulting in lots of smearing and other strange artifacts where a person moves and leaves a block trail that's filled in a second or two later.

It's not a signal strength issue, and I've seen the same thing happening on TLC, but it's particularly egregious on TCM given the high quality of the channel's presentations in the first place.


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## grog (Jul 3, 2007)

TCM looks fine here. Great for SD that is.
I have not noticed any "new" issues with the feed.



kucharsk said:


> Sadly, DN has really cranked up the compression on regular TCM of late, resulting in lots of smearing and other strange artifacts where a person moves and leaves a block trail that's filled in a second or two later.
> 
> It's not a signal strength issue, and I've seen the same thing happening on TLC, but it's particularly egregious on TCM given the high quality of the channel's presentations in the first place.


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## bruin95 (Apr 23, 2006)

grog said:


> TCM looks fine here. Great for SD that is.
> I have not noticed any "new" issues with the feed.


Same here.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

bruin95 said:


> Same here.


It's come and gone, but a few times in the past week it's been really atrocious.

It was particularly bad during the showing of _Young at Heart_ Sunday afternoon.


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## himini (Feb 13, 2007)

I'm so glad to learn that I'm not the only one who would LOVE to see TCM in HD! One of my favorite channels, but I tend to skip over it lately because my brain has gotten so used to focusing on that glorious "HD" symbol on the left when scrolling through the guide!


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

As it stands, the percentage of TCM movies with an HD transfer is probably less than 1%. If they started doing 10 transfers a year (most of these movies would need extensive restoration), it would take years to have enough HD content to warrant switching the channel to HD. Then there's the cost of the restoration and HD transfers, which, right now, would be lost money, because there isn't a large enough installed base of Blu-Ray users to make money on them via disc sales (they certainly won't make much from showing them on TV).

Given the circumstances, the biggest being a lack of content, there isn't a very compelling reason for TCM to go HD anytime soon. *IF* Blu-Ray adoption accelerates dramatically over the next couple of years, and Blu-Ray classic catalog titles start selling well, (most existing catalog Blu-Ray/HD-DVD titles have sold very poorly), then perhaps the situation would change.

At this point, the bandwidth would be much better used by a network that is actively creating new HD programming, which would benefit immediately from the HD upgrade.


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

Any channel that shows classic material will be showing SD for a long time.

TCM HD upconverted from 480 will still have better PQ than the SD channels we get from DirecTV. A good example is the detail shown on shows such as "Ghostbusters" on SciFi HD. It shows immensly more detail as compared to watching on the SD channel. Other show on other HD channels do so, too.

I realize that DirecTV could provide the SD channels with the proper bandwidth to allow this detail to be visible, but they don't.

I vote for TCM HD ASAP.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Just recorded and watched "Auntie Mame" (1958) last night on HDNET Movies - excellent picture and still MPEG2 (wink, wink).


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2008)

jrb531 said:


> I think even 16mm can do HD but I'm sure some tech person here can help.


Correct, if it's on film it can be remastered in HD. A lot of the older stuff wasn't shot in a wide aspect ratio, but still looks great in HD.


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