Older Film Technology Allows HD Remastering of Old Reruns by Julia Hall

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Older Film Technology Allows HD Remastering of Old Reruns
by Julia Hall

The growing demand for High Definition Television sets creates some problems when it comes to finding programming to view on them. Some television providers have taken the initiative to produce new programming in High Definition. This is evident in a number of newly offered High Definition channels like HDNet which provides access to special events, concerts, documentaries, news, and travel programs all in High Def. Equator HD and Discovery HD Theater both produce original content in High Definition as do Gallery HD, Ultra HD, and Rush HD. A number of other channels like Monsters HD and Kung Fu HD feature remastered older movies for their content. Although most of these movies probably weren't deliberately filmed in the High Definition format, the fact that they have the wide screen 16:9 aspect ratio required for High Definition and were filmed in a high resolution so that the images would be maintained on a large screen, makes them ideal for High Definition programming.

We see a potential problem though when people start to talk about remastering old television shows, like Gilligan's Island and Star Trek, to meet High Definition requirements. The fact that they have a lower resolution than High Def requires isn't much of a problem- presumably it would be possible to go in and digitally add more detail to the picture on the pixel by pixel level. The problem comes from the fact that all of those old shows had a 4:3 aspect ratio designed to fit normal standard definition televisions.

It's easy enough to turn a 16:9 aspect ratio into a 4:3 aspect ratio. It's done all the time and that's what's meant by the statement you often see when you watch a video cassette of a movie:

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Posted on: January 9,2007

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