Itunes Movie Quality for Older films

[MikaelSmoot]

Dont have an appletv yet but was looking on itunes and it said the old universal horror movies, dracula and stuff are available in hd on apple tv.

This true

wouldnt think theyd have hd for something made in the 40s

 

[spinnerlys]

Those old movies were filmed on film, a medium that is "HD", so all they needed to do is scan them and clean them up a little bit.

Are those movies in their original aspect ratio (4:3 I presume) or did they revamp that for the HD release.

 

[mstrze]

Why not?

Film, especially those films like Gone With the Wind and the like were shot in hi-resolution formats...sometimes 70mm film, but usually 35mm.

The 70mm film has a much higher resolution that even an HDTV at full 1080p resolution can display.

The 35mm film print is close to current HD standards, but still (I believe) has a higher resolution than even a 1080p image. And in the case of AppleTV, 720p is the limit so you are absolutely getting a better image via an HD 'scan' of even old B&W movies.

The data is there, the 'pixel count' (if you want to call it that) of even old B&W movies is of 'HD quality' for sure.

Of course film quality and graininess will come into play...