Scrubs has had a strange attitude to HD - I know that they made one 16:9 episode as an experiment and then returned to 4:3 again, but not sure which series that was.
Except the entire of Season's 8 and 9, which are 16:9 and 720p... the latter season of which, is already better than I thought it'd be.
Scrubs has had a strange attitude to HD - I know that they made one 16:9 episode as an experiment and then returned to 4:3 again, but not sure which series that was.
Except the entire of Season's 8 and 9, which are 16:9 and 720p... the latter season of which, is already better than I thought it'd be.
Are you sure it was shot 720p?
AIUI almost all ABC drama (Lost, Desperate Housewives etc.) is broadcast in 720p (as that is the ABC broadcast format) but is post-produced in 1080p (allowing higher quality broadcast on 1080i outlets like C4HD, Sky1HD etc., and for 1080p Blu-ray release) Some shows are shot 1080p video, but most are shot on film and then scanned at 1080p/2k - or even 4k in some cases I've heard.
ISTR that Arrested Development, on Fox - also a 720p network, was one of the few US productions that was posted in 720p - but that was because it was shot on Panasonic Varicams which at the time were 720p only (shooting to DVC Pro HD tape)
Yeah it was filmed in 1080p yeah but transmitted in 720p. The bluray will obviously be in the original 1080p format.
Oh, and he not she, for the record.
The one programme that's surely an issue for E4 HD, seeing it's shown at least every half hour, must be Friends. I can't see that being high definition.
Hurrah to the continuation of black bars down the sides for 4:3 programming!
What's the deal with HD and 4:3 programming - is it like the rest of digital TV where the viewer chooses how to receive such programming (black bars, cropped, squashed), or is it down to the broadcaster with the HD channel always in a 16:9 frame?
As to why E4 before Film4 - considering C4 had bid for Film4 to take a Freeview HD slot, I wonder if Sky made if difficult to get a rival HD movie channel on their platform. And as others have said, in pure numbers E4 should do better and has a relatively high quota of HD programming.
Hurrah to the continuation of black bars down the sides for 4:3 programming!
What's the deal with HD and 4:3 programming - is it like the rest of digital TV where the viewer chooses how to receive such programming (black bars, cropped, squashed), or is it down to the broadcaster with the HD channel always in a 16:9 frame?
To be fair non 4:3 footage in SD looks bad enough, imagine it in HD?! It's like watching an old DVD or release on Bluray, most upscalers and bluray players place bars in for you to stop the image from being stretched... the picture's far more superior as a result.
Scrubs has had a strange attitude to HD - I know that they made one 16:9 episode as an experiment and then returned to 4:3 again, but not sure which series that was.
Apparently it's been shot 16:9 safe since the very beginning, as they expected HD to appear sooner or later. You can tell this because in Season 8 which was actually broadcast in 16:9 they still used the original title sequence, yet the titles had more picture in them as opposed to less, so they weren't cropped.
Whether it was actually edited in HD though is another matter. Probably not.
Isn't Scrubs shot on 16mm though? Wouldn't make for the best 1080p picture if so.
Isn't Scrubs shot on 16mm though? Wouldn't make for the best 1080p picture if so.
Perhaps that was the case for Season's 1-7, but I'm guessing ABC changed that with the move to HD. They seemed to change everything else about its visual presentation.
Hurrah to the continuation of black bars down the sides for 4:3 programming!
What's the deal with HD and 4:3 programming - is it like the rest of digital TV where the viewer chooses how to receive such programming (black bars, cropped, squashed), or is it down to the broadcaster with the HD channel always in a 16:9 frame?
There is no offical or proper 4:3 HD standard (so you can't send a 4:3 SD picture upconverted to 4:3 HD) - the broadcasters have to send a constant 16:9 HD signal - so they do the conversion from 4:3 to 16:9. Most use a 4:3 full pillarbox (12P16) for 4:3 shows as doing a 14:9 (14P16) or 16:9 (16F16) zoom will reduce the resolution to below SD, which is hardly great on an HD outlet. 4:3 SD content included in a 16:9 HD show is a different matter.
The exception to this is Sky Sport HD who stretch 4:3 SD stuff to 16:9 HD with no aspect ratio conversion - presumably they think sport viewers wan't their screen filled at all times...
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As to why E4 before Film4 - considering C4 had bid for Film4 to take a Freeview HD slot, I wonder if Sky made if difficult to get a rival HD movie channel on their platform. And as others have said, in pure numbers E4 should do better and has a relatively high quota of HD programming.
Ratings - AIUI E4 rates higher than Film4 - and they want it to continue to rate highly - so making popular US imports (and some UK home-grown shows like Skins) available in HD (as many others are on Sky 1) makes sense.
Whilst it may seem obvious that Film4 should be able to go HD - I don't know how expensive it would be for C4 to source HD masters of all the films they show on Film4. For some films in their catalogue I suspect they'd be funding a new transfer?
