Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in HDTV! - Page 42

Eh?

Today at 08h40 PM : The Bridge on the River Kwai , Master HD

http://tcmcinema.fr/films/fiche/the-...ai-1957_69690/

All for the benefit of another country, France ???
I would agree if I where in Paris, but I am not. I am here looking at an unequal presentation not deserving of work itself.

Does the signal for the satellite servicing France originate within the U.S.?

Cinéma The Bridge on the River Kwai Master HD .

Csat/Kuro :






Quality Blu Ray .

As in 100% invisible

Urga,
Are these films you're seeing there available with English SAP?

Vertigo was shown at the TCM Classic Film Festival last night. Some people were underwhelmed.

Depending on which satellite it is, and using an extremely low LOS angle you just might be able to get the signal on the east coast of the US, although my guess is that the sat is positioned too far east as there's no point in broadcasting a signal to the Atlantic Ocean.

Find out which satellite is it and there are sites on the Internet that can give you a very good idea if you can see the signal or not, not that one would go through the expense of obtaining the equipment needed to view the signal but there are those with unlimited means who might.



It's been many years since I've looked at charts like this, but apparently TCM-France transmits from Astra 1H at 19.2°E and according to Dish Pointer it looks as if the look angle is a negative 10.9 degrees.

On the other hand, it looks as if the signal is also transmitted from 34.5 W which is definitely a possibility for reception in the US, although that may be just the feed from Turner, I'm not really an expert on those charts and how they work.

If the signal to the satellite servicing France emanates from the U.S., then TCM uses superior prints for their European customers and switches to an inferior print for viewers in the U.S.

Or, ......... do they use the same print for both sets of viewers and the U.S. television transmission and reception systems is inferior to the European?

We seem to have a little problem in that it appears we have reached the conclusion that in the U.S. we are looking at very good prints but they are not of HD quality. TCM says they will be soon, but not yet.

Clearly, France is viewing TCM in the very best of high definition while we view second best for some reason that escapes me.

Any thoughts, Ken and others?

It could be a rights issue, TCM may not have the appropriate rights to air the content in HD in the US market whereas they apparently do in France and other French speaking parts of the world, I notice there's a feed aimed at the Polynesian Islands area of the Pacific Ocean, as well as other areas. Copyright holders in the US can be very different entities from those who own the rights elsewhere in the world.

Turner has the rights to show the Wizzard of OZ and Gone withe the Wind on TBS in HD but not on TCM?

I assume Turner/Time-Warner OWNS those 2, and tons more. There should be no problem having their own cable networks showing their own films in HD.
As TCM caters to movie buffs, they simply may not want to offer the best quality prints in order to push home theater enthusiasts to cough up the bucks for the discs.

Are those still in rotation on TBS? Those rights may have been granted for just shorts runs of the films, TBS may not even have the rights to show the films currently.

On an unrelated (but sort of related) matter...

TCM has had a 4-day "classic film festival" here in LA, whose final day was today. About 100 or so wonderful films shown morning, noon and night at the 7 or so participating theaters in Hollywood. You can buy a complete pass for the whole event, or you can go to stand-in-line and hopefully buy individual tickets for individual movie screenings on an as-available basis.

Anyway, today I made it my business to get up at dawn in or order to get to the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood (adjacent to the Arclight) an hour before the 9:15AM showing of "How The West Was Won", in order to pretty much guarantee I would get in (and I did, of course). This is the 50th anniversary of the 1962 release, and it seemed a fitting tribute to get aired during this TCM Festival at a theater capable of presenting it properly.

It was shown in its "true original theatrical release" Cinerama version, including 15-minute intermission and musical overture at the start of each 1/2 as well as the closing music. The Cinerama Dome in Hollywood is one of the two remaining Cinerama theaters in the country, and has state-of-the-art projection and sound (30 speakers ring the arena, not counting the remarkable speakers behind the screen).

It really was a terrific experience (crew of 5 presents it, 3 projectionists, 1 on sound, and 1 booth supervisor... not a single glitch while showing its 18 miles of film), filled with nostalgia. Every time another "dead person" actor appeared on the screen (as a "child", being 50 years ago when the film was made) the audience applauded adoringly.

But the real extra special treat came at the end of the movie, when Robert Osborne came on stage to interview Debbie Reynolds (was one of the very few people left from the movie who's still alive) who was a special guest for the screening. Lasted about 30 minutes, and was really something. I didn't know she had two pregnancies during the filiming (which lasted about 2 years), and was originally not intended to be in the last section of the movie (when her character was an old great-grandmother) but only in the first section (when she was a young lass). Also, she hung out with Thelma Ritter who had a really filthy mouth but was a great deal of fun. Didn't know that two stunt people drowned during the filming of the river rapids sequence, and that another stunt person lost 1/2 his leg and one eye and was severely and permanently injured during some unexpected happenings during the filming of the train de-coupling and that whole sequence.


Anyway, just had to share that with the readers of this thread, as I thought you'd appreciate how all-around special this opportunity really was. Even the stunt man (now an old man) who DOUBLED FOR DEBBIE REYNOLDS ON THE HORSES was in the audience, and was asked to stand up to take a bow.

Great picture, excellent presentation (the left and right 1/3 strips were bright and clear, with the center 1/3 being just a bit darker... but all in all these analog film prints are 50 years old, so you just have to accept it), and some truly terrific "special effects" sequences which were obviously real and not CGI (buffalo stampede, and train sequence).

They had an exhibit of posters from all the Cinerama movies in the lobby, along with various cameras, projectors, film cans, etc.. Very entertaining.


Incidentally, for those who care and for which it might be applicable, the Cinerama Dome is having a "Cinerama film festival" of its own in September. I don't know what the details are yet, but I'm sure more will be made available as the summer approaches.

That film holds a special place in my heart as my grandfather was a grip on it and his wife was an extra in it. I would have loved to have seen that presentation. My Gramps worked on a lot of films while at MGM, but that one will always stand out for me. The Cinerama Dome is quite a unique venue, I believe I saw It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World there many, very many, years ago.

I too was fortunate enough to attend this morning's Cinerama screening of How The West Was Won. I had seen Cinerama presentations as a kid, but somehow missed this movie. As mentioned above, it was a memorable experience.

The cast? Geez -- every real Movie Star who ever was, at the time: James Stewart, Debbie Reynolds, Carroll Baker, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Henry Morgan, Walter Brennan, Karl Maulden, Henry Fonda, Thelma Ritter, Richard Widmark, Eli Wallach.... And that's just the ones I remember. The theater (all 870 of them) broke out in applause at each cameo. Special.

And Ms. Reynolds is still lookin' pretty good. Too bad I missed the previous evening's screening of a newly-struck print of Singin' In The Rain at the Grauman. She was there for that too.

Speaking of video quality, the 'live' feeds from Hollywood of the TCM Classic Film Festival segments with Bob Osborne look like streaming video over a 56K baud modem. Not even approaching SD resolution. What gives?

Let's give all of them credit...

There was also Lee J. Cobb, Robert Preston, Russ Tamblyn, Andy Devine, Raymond Massey, Agnes Moorehead, and of course narration by Spencer Tracy. Pretty amazing.


I had occasion to see a small piece of the Smilebox BluRay version of this film last year. It was an attempt to provide an image suitable for presentation on a flat screen what would provide the same type of wraparound curvature to your eyes/brain that seeing the original "rectangular" Cinerama version projected onto a highly curved screen would provide.

The center of the projected image is relatively thin compared to the left and right "wings" of the image which get progressively taller (both above and below the horizontal) the further away you go from the center of the image.

Kind of like taking the original Todd-AO logo and "mirroring" it so that it has "wings" that not only go down but also go up. Todd-AO was another one of these pre-IMAX attempts at dealing with super-wide images projected onto curved screens.

Anyway, I have to say that I was NOT impressed with that Smilebox BluRay version of "How The West Was Won". It was simply odd (and looked obviously strangely mathematically distorted) though perhaps you'd get used to it after a while if you watched the whole film. I didn't like looking at it, and it was not enjoyable.

Today's genuine Cinerama version was obviously what was originally intended. Maximum enjoyment.

OK. What is "downconverting?"

Are you saying that TCM takes a beautiful HD transfer (like what we see from France) and "downconverts" the video quality of the transfer prior to transmitting it on a 1080i television system?

Remember the comment of the doctor at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai? .................. Madness!!!!

The Mayans predicting the end of the world in 2012 is a mystery. But defending the fact TCM isn't giving the United States at least as good a presentation as another country by repeating what we heard from them for years that it will happen in the future is like saying that the Mayans in the future will eventually be right.

TCM is wrong.

TCM Classic Film Festival and Bob Osborne, great!

But what "TCM Inc." is doing is insufferable and it harken back to the days of Corporate TCM wanting to colorize anything shot in black & white and who had to be told to please stop coloring black and white films like bunch of hillbillies with a crayon.

The TCM Inc. "suits" are showing the same disrespect for these historic and cultural works now as they did back then. The HD format is today's standard and TCM presentations of not meeting this standard here, but meeting it in a foreign country is unacceptable at many levels.

" Dave Bowman TCM HD " control room TCM HD fr :


http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/v...16373&start=30

I don't quite understand his response ,
unless he is just stating the obvious. Your question asked him why they were different, not confirm that they are different.

Using Chrome with Google Translate.