Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in HDTV! - Page 9

This isn't a question about TCM-HD, but rather moving TCM from analog to digital. Comcast will be adding several new HD channels here and moving some other channels to the digital tier. TCM-HD is not being added, but TCM is being moved to digital.

I have made several digital recordings from TCM to my computer using Firewire from the Comcast box. TCM is flagged as "copy freely" currently (5C). My question for anyone who may know is, when they change to digital soon, will it stay that way or will it be changed to "copy once"? I hope not, since currently it seems that the digital non-premium channels are not copy-protected. But any change makes me nervous that they will monkey with the copy protection settings.

"Downhill Racer" (1969), airing right now on TCM-HD, is the first movie I've seen that is full HD with its proper 1:66:1 aspect ratio (small black borders on all four sides) and it looks beautiful, especially compared with the soft SD TCM feed (the one I'm actually recording ). Maybe new-to-TCM movies from now on will also sport new HD transfers on the TCM-HD feed of the channel. Criterion is releasing this flick on DVD a month from now so that's where the master for this HD presentation probably became available to TCM.

So you think it's not just a good SD upconvert?

Nope, the letterboxed TCM SD upconverts still have black bars on all four sides of a 16:9 screen on the HD channel (such as "The Parallax View"). I'm talking about proper screen-filling aspect ratios and a visible difference when switching between the SD and HD versions of the channel.

Another true HD movie that TCM-HD just aired (Friday night): Charles Laughton's NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. My first time seeing this flick (and boy did it rock my world: I soooo wanted to strangle Mitchum for being such an evil bastard! ) so I decided to DVR it on TCM-HD even if it was an SD upconvert so I could get better-than-regular-TCM quality. Imagine my surprise when I watch it Saturday night and it comes in its 1:66:1 aspect ratio and it fills my 47" HDTV with the thin black bars on the side. Gorgeous detailed B&W and an absorbing thriller that had me glued from beginning to end. Morale of the story? TCM-HD is showing some movies in HD already (probably the new-to-TCM debuts along with older flicks that are getting remasters) but you'll have to tune in or DVR the channel to make sure the movie you're interested in is in HD. So far "Night of the Hunter" and "Downhill Racer" are the only one's I've literally stumbled upon the HD airings by accident.

A year sure went by quickly...

This is pretty much how we were told it would happen. Mostly upconverts with a greater and greater percentage of true HD transfers as they were able to obtain/produce them. There was no hard and fast one-year deadline. I suspect by the time a year has passed, there will be a pretty sizable amount of true HD material in the lineup.

Now if Comcast would just add the new HD channels (including TCM-HD) in my area. Any day now.

I have Dish Network, so I expect to get TCM-HD sometime in 2012.

Am still experiencing horrible audio on some TCM broadcasts. While recent airings of "The Match King" aand "Home From The Hill" seem fine, the audio distortion on "Valentino" made watching the film impossible. Thought it was OK on "Alfie" but the distortion came on at the end.

This seems to be hit and miss, depending on the film itself. Either there is no distortion or distortion throughout.

Anybody else other than Cablevision in the Bronx experiencing this?

It's unfortunate that the excellent Johnny Mercer documentary (from Clint Eastwood's company) was shown letterboxed in a 4x3 frame. The show was produced in HD, and although I'm pretty sure I've not seen any real HD yet from TCM (although a few very good upconverts), this should have been presented in full frame 16x9. Maybe they can get it right for the next showing.

The show was repeated tonight, and they got it right this time!

Thank you TCM.

Just in passing...

If you wanted to re-record content from TCM-HD to high-definition media... i.e. D-VHS tape... (assuming you have a Motorola-family HD DVR with active/functioning firewire ports, and not a SA-family HD DVR which does not), check out this "alert" I just posted in the HDTV Recording forum announcing the suddenly available "flood" of refurbed JVC DT100U D-VHS VCRs at B&H Photo.

I happened to be looking at the upcoming program lineup and some movies being shown on TCM-HD (which just last month became available out here on TWC/LA) and was quite startled at the beautiful black-and-white quality of these old classics. For example, right now there's a gorgeous "Somebody Up There Likes Me" showing in what looks like 1.66:1 OAR 1080i with DD5.1 sound that looks stunning! HD D-VHS preserving every "bit" of what you see and hear is really the only way to make my own private copy of this.

If I were going to make my own private copies for posterity, I'd want them in D-VHS tape (as the only real HD alternative to the still non-available BluRay-from-DVR recorder device... if that will even ever be allowed by the studios).

Consider this JVC DT100U D-VHS VCR opportunity at an 80% discounted price from its original MSRP... if you're lucky enough to have a Motorola-family STB/DVR with working firewire.

Does TWC use Motorola equipment in LA? I know that in some other areas (like NYC) they use Scientific Atlanta.

I'm still waiting for TCM-HD.

It's worth mentioning that if your provider uses Motorola STBs then a viable and potentially even better HD archiving solution is to have an STB modified by Nextcom (http://www.r5000hd.com) to provide post-decryption access to the digital stream via USB. Paradoxically they'll only modify SD boxes (which lack a Firewire port) but in many/most cases the channel map visible to an SD box is the same as to an HD box, so HD streams can be captured.

It does require using a Windows PC and recording software, but the results are outstanding and about as portable as one could hope for.

For Verizon FiOS customers, another solution (in addition to this Nextcom solution, which is available since Verizon uses Motorola STBs) is to use a TiVO HD or Series 3 with CableCards. Most channels on FiOS (at least for now) are flagged in such a way that programs can be extracted from the TiVo using several different software solutions.

LA is a hybrid area. Former Comcast locations (such as my own) use Motorola headend, infrastructure and equipment. Former Adelphia locations use SA equipment.



I waited a long time, and quite honestly am overjoyed at what I now see and hear. But I haven't spent enough time watching or recording anything to know if the "quality anomalies" reported in the NYC area are from TCM or from CableVision, etc.



Cable boxes are rented, not purchased. I would imagine modifying these yourself would incur pretty hefty fines, assuming you were found out.

Also, I prefer having my off-DVR HD library on a portable medium like tape. I currently own two D-VHS VCR's, soon to be three, supporting all three of my HDTV locations. Being able to record/play a DVHS tape at any of the three displays is infinitely useful to me.



Not quite as flexible as DVHS capability at each true HDTV.



I can't vouch for the veracity of my suspicion, but I would find it hard to imagine that any such "legitimate/legal" offloading capability would allow for digital copying of 5C-protected "copy-once" content. Certainly no computer is 5C-compliant, which is why firewire connections from DVR-to-computer are severely limited in what they will deliver, to OTA "copy always" content from networks.

In contrast, D-VHS machines are 5C-compliant and thus the firewire-enabled DVR will present ANYTHING YOU CAN RECORD TO DVR (i.e. everything except pay-per-view and OnDemand) to the D-VHS VCR via firewire. Thus EVERYTHING you might want to put on D-VHS tape can be put on D-VHS tape (e.g. I have the complete "Sopranos" from HBO-HD on D-VHS in its original 1080i/DD5.1 HD form).

Again, firewire-enabled D-VHS machines are "legal", 5C-compliant, work immediately and without modification with a firewire-enabled STB/DVR, and at today's B&H prices for a DT100U (which includes a built-in ATSC tuner and HDMI/component plus optical audio output) should not be passed up by anyone who's been on the fence about this product.

There's an error message box that gets presented on the screen (I forget the error number) by the VCR indicating that this content cannot be recorded. Effectively you have no picture and no sound, and most of the screen obscured by the error message box.

It doesn't work "live" attempting to even just watch (via the DVHS machine, fed by firewire from the DVR) because the DVR won't even deliver any data via firewire from this "copy never" content. And you can't even record PPV or OnDemand to the DVR. Since it's PPV or OnDemand you can actually watch/resume anytime you want during the lease rental period, so there's no reason to be able to record it (which is my explanation for why things work the way they do).

TCM HD finally arrives for TWC San Diego this Friday!

http://sandiego-mail.timewarnercable...mber/SDHD.aspx

EDIT: here's a better link... http://www.timewarnercable.com/SanDi...g/nofeehd.html

Unfortunately that is The Movie Channel rather than Turner Classic Movies.

I can wait a while longer before re-subscribing to Time Warner Cable.

Saw "North By Northwest" this afternoon. It was amazing and breathtaking in HD.

Hi DSperber,

Thanks for the tip, however, here in New York we have the SA HD-DVR.

Yes, it seems TCM has begun remastering some of their library and overall the prints seem to be much sharper and detailed. And I'm also very happy with the picture quality on my DVDs. True, the source is downconverted to 480i but our Panasonic is an excellent recorder and with playback upconverted to 1080i and through HDMI the recording comes close enough to the original in terms of sharpness and color detail.

But TCM still has occasional problems. It seemed that the audio distortation I had posted about a while back cleared up - I was able to record "Home From The Hill" (gorgeous print) a few weeks ago unlike it's prior airing when the audio was horrible. But the audio was messed up at the beginning of Sunday night's premier of "Miss Mend". Fortunately, it only lasted for a minute so it didn't wreck my copy (love silent movies).

Last night "A Face In The Crowd" (a little-known classic with Andy Griffth doing a 180 degree about-face from Andy Taylor) was shown windowboxed, like many were when TCM first went HD.

How about with you and the west coast feed?

- Joe

P.S. Does your JVC record in 16x9 or is the recording window-boxed and you need to zoom in the picture in order for it to fill the screen?

Yes, you're right, it's TMC-HD (The Movie Classics) on channel 776 - not TCM-HD (Turner Classic Movies) being added. It's easy to transpose letters and not realize what you're typing!

My bad.

Ummm.. That is The Movie Channel..... classics has nothing to do with it.

Last night "A Face In The Crowd" (a little-known classic with Andy Griffth doing a 180 degree about-face from Andy Taylor) was shown windowboxed, like many were when TCM first went HD.

Update: This evening the 1939 "King Of The Underworld" was shown with it's 4x3 aspect ratio stretched out to 16x9 with the top and bottom of the opening credits cut off a bit.

TCM HD has been messing up quite a bit recently when it comes to aspect ratios. The Oklahoma Kid tonight started out as zoomed in 16x9; sometime into the film it was returned to its correct 4x3.
And last night's Radio Days was shown as letterboxed in a 4x3 window.

The thing is - we expect TCM to be perfect when it comes to showing films the way they were intended to be seen. When standards are so high, it's a long way to fall.

On another topic: Does anyone know when we'll be getting real HD and not just upconverts.

"An old, old transfer?"

Maybe so, but the transfer had nothing to do with the picture being stretched out. The between-program fillers appeared the same way as did the Humphrey Bogart special that followed.

In trying to resolve the window-box problem TCM created a new one with picture zoom. Not only are we missing material cut off on all four sides but now we're also getting blurry pictures with washed out color and letterbox presentations in pan and scan.

Who knows, we might wind up seeing the film sprockets before TCM finally gets their equipment back to working properly.

"Walk Don't Run" appearing in what seems to be it's correct aspect ratio. Print looks very good, too.

I saw another zoomed Bogart last night too. Not cool at all.

Don't get me wrong; I love TCM - one of the most worthwhile channels on cable. But they have set their own very high standards for showing films the right way, and it's always a shock when they get it wrong. I wouldn't bother commenting if it were IFC or any of a number of other channels that just don't seem to care.

The WB library is indeed one of the largest, but a surprising number of their films already have HD transfers. However I understood that they were not set up to air any true HD yet, that everything would be upconverts for a while. Do you have info to the contrary?