HD content?

[TimG]

I've got a question about HD content. I noticed that the James Bond series is now coming out on Blu-ray. Yet, over the past few months cable providers, like Comcast (which I have), have been showing HD versions of the Bond movies. I assumed that those movies, and all others Comcast shows with an HD label attached, were taken from Blu-ray (or even the old HD-DVD) sources. But if the Blu-ray versions are just coming out now - that tells me that's not necessarily the case. So, when a cable channel shows an "HD" movie, does this mean it's simply re-mastered, as in audio CD's, from its original source - and not actually taken from a Blu-ray disc? I'm starting to wonder now. Thanks for your help.

[MrBoylan]

I've got a question about HD content. I noticed that the James Bond series is now coming out on Blu-ray. Yet, over the past few months cable providers, like Comcast (which I have), have been showing HD versions of the Bond movies. I assumed that those movies, and all others Comcast shows with an HD label attached, were taken from Blu-ray (or even the old HD-DVD) sources. But if the Blu-ray versions are just coming out now - that tells me that's not necessarily the case. So, when a cable channel shows an "HD" movie, does this mean it's simply re-mastered, as in audio CD's, from its original source - and not actually taken from a Blu-ray disc? I'm starting to wonder now. Thanks for your help.

Hi, Tim,

A film being re-mastered for high definition is actually completely independent from whether it gets released on Blu-ray Disc. Many of the classic Bond films specifically were completely re-mastered a few years ago using an elaborate clean-up process which involved sampling each frame at 4K resolution (twice the horizontal resolution of Blu-ray's 1920 pixels), cleaning up each individual frame for enhanced color reproduction and less noise, and re-mixing the audio in discrete multi-channel surround sound - something that did not even exist when they were released theatrically.

The result of this process was a new "digital negative" for each film - each a massive collection of files several terabytes in size - which telecine experts say is actually better than the original film negative as it captures the same level of detail while being immune to any wear. These masters were then used to create a set of standard definition DVDs, and (later) the Blu-ray Disc versions. The DVDs looked far superior to any home video release that came before them, due to the quality of the source. The Blu-ray versions look and sound even better with 1080p resolution and multi-channel lossless surround sound. But even the Blu-ray versions, as great as they look, do not capture the full 4K detail of the remastered film. Perhaps in the future, some as yet unknown home media (or download format) will support the full 4K resolution.

What you have seen recently on cable may have come from that same 4K master (assuming the cable companies have licensed copies from the remastered version), only the cable versions have been degraded even more by compression of both the audio and video tracks to fit cable's limited broadcast bandwidth, and conversion from 1080p to 1080i (a reversible process if done properly, but still tricky). Also, in many cases, the broadcast versions of these films are "pan and scan" or cropped versions of the original master. Usually, cable and satellite companies (and even over-the-air HD networks) broadcast HD movies at 16x9 (1.77:1) aspect ratio, even though the film was originally composed for (and released in theaters at) 2.35:1 or 2.4:1. They probably don't want their customers complaining about those "ugly black bars" at the top and bottom of their screens.

Many films have been mastered for High Definition for broadcast and cable purposes but are not yet available on Blu-ray Disc (e.g., the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies). Whether these will be released using existing HD masters or re-mastered at some higher resolution or improved process remains to be seen.

But to answer your question, the Blu-ray Disc itself is never the "source" for a cable broadcast because the bandwidth requirements and specifications of the two formats are different. But a Blu-ray Disc and a cable brodacast can come from the same HD master. But what you'll actually see on a Blu-ray Disc is typically going to be much higher quality than what you'll see on broadcast due to the higher bandwidth available (for both audio and video) in the Blu-ray format.

Hope that helps.

-CB

[TimG]

Thanks, Chris, for your informative and extensive explanation of what cable provider's HD movies actually consist of. You touched on all bases, and it makes perfect sense. In other words, the movies are going to look better than standard DVD's of the same material, but not as good as Blu-ray versions of the same film. It increases the viewing options out there.