# South Park in HD



## kdwebsol (Jan 29, 2006)

XBOX Live has a free episode of South Park in HD. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/?WT.svl=nav

Maybe a sign of Comedy Central HD in the future.

Ken


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## grooves12 (Oct 27, 2005)

Seriously doubt Comedy Central will go HD ANYtime soon... more likely a preview of HD-DVD re-releases of the seasons to go for sale soon.


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## Capmeister (Sep 16, 2003)

South Park is filmed. Film can be converted to HD easily--it's already a hi-def picture itself.


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## bigthrust (Feb 21, 2007)

I saw the episode on my son's Xbox 360 last night. It looked awesome on his Sharp LCD.


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## bobukcat (Dec 20, 2005)

Yes, it's important to have an intentionally poorly animated program shown in HD. :grin: 

Seriously, I'm a big SP fan but I'd have to rate this toward the bottom of shows / movies I'd like to see in HD.


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## kdwebsol (Jan 29, 2006)

bobukcat said:


> Yes, it's important to have an intentionally poorly animated program shown in HD. :grin:
> 
> Seriously, I'm a big SP fan but I'd have to rate this toward the bottom of shows / movies I'd like to see in HD.


Not high on my list but, still better then anything on VOOM. Nothing like an old monster and kung fu black and white movie in HD to take up space. Plus, I think there are more South Park episodes to show then the entire VOOM network combined.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

With the exception of the 3D Pixar/Dreamworks/etc style of theatrical animation... 480p widescreen SD when it is not overcompressed does most of what you need for most animation.

When you start talking about Toy Story or Shrek or something, then HD looks spectacular for those types of animation... so it kinda depends on what we are talking about.

I 100% agree that South Park in HD is not the best experiment. I would not turn down an HD Cartoon Network that had HD modern cartoons on it... but I'm not sure South Park is one that would benefit much from the additional resolution.


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## emathis (Mar 19, 2003)

The episode they chose to convert to HD was probably picked because much of it was originally shown letterboxed. Every time the kids were shown as anime characters, the scene was wide screen.


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## zlensman (Jan 15, 2006)

I watched South Park in HD and it looked great. Not only was the picture sharp and clear of compression artifacts, the color clarity was superb. Compare this to the SD version from Comedy Central after Dish compression...well, it's like night and day.

Also, I'm surprised to hear people pooh-pooh the idea of HD Comedy Central, HD Toon, or HD any other network. What kind of HD snobs are you? I wasn't ecstatic about getting A&E in HD, but _this _HD snob sees it as a good trend.

kdwebsol doesn't want Kung Fu or Monsters HD, but I like them. To each his own. There are plenty of Voom channels I could do without and I would happily trade them in for Comedy HD, SciFi HD, USA HD and, yes, Toon HD (Adult Swim, anyone?).

Finally I beg to differ (please let me differ!) that animated shows don't deserve high quality presentation. I like anime, so I can hardly stand to watch it in SD. "Ghost in the Shell: SAC" is a perfect example. After watching series 1 on DVD in anamorphic WS with DD5.1 sound, I can't bear to watch series 2 in SD letterbox with 2ch PCM audio. I'll wait for the DVDs.

I hope it's clear that I'm not dead serious here (see the winky?) and I'm not trolling for an argument. Just one guy with his 2 cents of opinion.


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## Amon37 (Mar 5, 2007)

I agree. GITS:Innocence is out in Japan on blu-ray in 1080P with an Uncompressed 7.1 PCM track. It has gotten some of the best reviews.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

zlensman said:


> Finally I beg to differ (please let me differ!) that animated shows don't deserve high quality presentation. I like anime, so I can hardly stand to watch it in SD. "Ghost in the Shell: SAC" is a perfect example. After watching series 1 on DVD in anamorphic WS with DD5.1 sound, I can't bear to watch series 2 in SD letterbox with 2ch PCM audio. I'll wait for the DVDs.


You do realize those anamorphic DVDs you speak of are SD, right?

SD resolution is really nice for most cartoons (Pixar, Dreamworks 3D stuff not withstanding)... as you use in your example of the DVDs you own.

SD broadcast and on cable/satellite is much more compressed than on those DVDs so of course the quality suffers. IF we had non-compressed SD on satellite I daresay you would find it to be of high enough quality that you wouldn't be waiting for HD cartoons.

There are always exceptions... but traditional line-drawn non-3D cartoons look just fine in SD as long as you aren't getting an overcompressed signal.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

New episodes of the Fox Sunday Night line up look great on Fox HD, Family Guy is stunning, it even looks pretty good on Cartoon Network. There was actually an episode of King Of The Hill that was in HD a few weeks ago, but it was in 4:3. I stretch 4:3 content, and even stretched it looks great.


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## dbconsultant (Sep 13, 2005)

Cartman in HD? Frightening!!!!!!:lol:


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## grooves12 (Oct 27, 2005)

HDMe said:


> You do realize those anamorphic DVDs you speak of are SD, right?
> 
> SD resolution is really nice for most cartoons (Pixar, Dreamworks 3D stuff not withstanding)... as you use in your example of the DVDs you own.
> 
> ...


While the resolution is the same... it is not really SD. It is technically ED. DVD's are in a progressive format and even with good deinterlacing tech in your TV, 480i SD looks a lot worse. The p vs. i advantage diminishes greatly as your resolution goes up... but at 480 lines of resolution the improvement is pretty noticable.

And like you said, the compression that dish adds is the biggest problem.

Personally, I could forgo HD COMPLETELY... if it were possible to do 480 widescreen with little to no compression for ALL of the channels instead of having a handful of overcompressed HD resolutions that look no better than 480p but take up more bandwidth and then having to suffer with absolute crap on many SD channels.


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## grooves12 (Oct 27, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> New episodes of the Fox Sunday Night line up look great on Fox HD, Family Guy is stunning, it even looks pretty good on Cartoon Network. There was actually an episode of King Of The Hill that was in HD a few weeks ago, but it was in 4:3. I stretch 4:3 content, and even stretched it looks great.


Family guy is not in HD... what you are seeing is what an uncompressed HD picture is SUPPOSED to look like.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

grooves12 said:


> While the resolution is the same... it is not really SD. It is technically ED. DVD's are in a progressive format and even with good deinterlacing tech in your TV, 480i SD looks a lot worse. The p vs. i advantage diminishes greatly as your resolution goes up... but at 480 lines of resolution the improvement is pretty noticable.


Granted, ED technically covers the 16x9 "standard" resolution... ED vs SD at that point is essentially talking about the same thing.

BUT... your statement about 480i vs 480p is completely untrue. The image resolution is exactly the same whether interlaced or progressive. The only difference is how it is displayed on the TV... and because of the way your brain & eyes work, you cannot tell the difference between a 480i picture and a 480p picture when all other aspects of the compression/resolution are equal.

Saying "480i looks a lot worse" is simply untrue and one of those bits of misinformation folks keep perpetuating about interlaced somehow containing less of a picture.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

grooves12 said:


> Family guy is not in HD... what you are seeing is what an uncompressed HD picture is SUPPOSED to look like.


I know Family Guy is not in HD, I just said it looked stunning. King Of The Hill was in HD though


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