A recent highly pleasing discovery triggered by channel surfing:
TBS-HD just started showing “Seinfeld” episodes that have been painstakingly converted into widescreen HDTV format from the original film negatives, rather than the awful looking stretched image they’ve been running on this and other sitcoms for the past few years. This is great news, because as far as I know, the first and only other classic sitcom given this treatment so far was “Hogan’s Heroes” on HDNet. (HD versions of “Northern Exposure” can be seen on Universal HD and the reworked classic Star Trek in syndication, but they are still in the old 4x3 screen ratio rather than widescreen format).
Such alterations are controversial with those concerned about changing the original experience of watching these shows, but I’m all for it, as long as those original versions remain available. I hope this becomes a popular trend. In theory, any series shot on film can be converted to HD, because generally film has much higher image resolution than the HDTV format. So one day perhaps we'll see high def widescreen versions of “I Love Lucy,” “The Honeymooners”, and “Gilligan’s Island”, for instance.
Unfortunately, many sitcoms from the 1970’s through the 1990’s were shot on low resolution videotape and can never be converted to HD. So for these, current DVD releases are probably going to be as good as it ever gets.
TBS-HD just started showing “Seinfeld” episodes that have been painstakingly converted into widescreen HDTV format from the original film negatives, rather than the awful looking stretched image they’ve been running on this and other sitcoms for the past few years. This is great news, because as far as I know, the first and only other classic sitcom given this treatment so far was “Hogan’s Heroes” on HDNet. (HD versions of “Northern Exposure” can be seen on Universal HD and the reworked classic Star Trek in syndication, but they are still in the old 4x3 screen ratio rather than widescreen format).
Such alterations are controversial with those concerned about changing the original experience of watching these shows, but I’m all for it, as long as those original versions remain available. I hope this becomes a popular trend. In theory, any series shot on film can be converted to HD, because generally film has much higher image resolution than the HDTV format. So one day perhaps we'll see high def widescreen versions of “I Love Lucy,” “The Honeymooners”, and “Gilligan’s Island”, for instance.
Unfortunately, many sitcoms from the 1970’s through the 1990’s were shot on low resolution videotape and can never be converted to HD. So for these, current DVD releases are probably going to be as good as it ever gets.
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