Star Wars Trilogy in HD on HBO

[rockymtnhigh]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away...


HBO-HD is showing the Empire Strikes Back in HD today. The original Star Wars (or what my nine year old refers to as Episode IV: A New Hope, premieres 2/4.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Checked the HBO schedule... looks like we'll have to wait another month for Return of the Jedi in HD. But who cares. This is great!

 

[dfergie]

Yeah, just saw IV in my guide for the morning... II comes on Tuesday 6:30am Mtn time with repeat at 4:30pm Mtn...IV repeats Friday at 12:30Pm Mst followed by V at 2:45 Mtn...

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Took a quick look at Empire. In OAR; looked really good, but waiting for IV to record, to watch them in order.

Star Wars: A New Hope starts in 40 minutes (9am MST, 11am EST).

 

[Sean Mota]

I watched both Star War and the Empire Strikes Back. Great flicks but the HD version of HBO does not look any better than a regular DVD. I have both DVDs. It looks like the only way to watch these great movies in HD will be when they come out on BR or HD DVD. Otherwise, HBO is just as good as regular DVD.

 

[vurbano]

I think you might be exagerating a bit Sean.

 

[Sean Mota]

You think it was much better than DVD?

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I will pull the DVD for Empire and run them next to each other for my own comparison; I thought it looked good though on HBO. Haven't looked at SW yet; too busy yesterday.

Sean -- was the version of Empire (which I have only seen a small amount of so far) the original, or the 1996 re-do?

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Watching Episode IV right now, and I think there is a clear difference between it and the DVD. It looks great.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Am watching Star Wars now, and while I think the PQ is good; some scenes are better than others. Then again, it might just be that it looks like a film made in 1977.

and it is the 1996 re-do; I noticed the scene with Jabba and Han in the hangar bay on Tatooine. Most definitely not from the original 1977 version.

"Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?"

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Watching Return of the Jedi in HD right now; PQ is excellent. A great movie.

 

[dfergie]

DVR ALERT! for those that have missed these... Episode I The Phantom Menace is on at 11:45 am today, Episode II at 11:30am Monday, Episode II at 11:30am Tuesday, Episode Iv (original) 11:30am Wednesday, Episode V The Empire Strikes Back at 11:30am Thursday and VI Return of the Jedi 11:30am Friday... All Times Edt

 

[kstuart]

You think it was much better than DVD?

I think the problem is that a 16x9 program on Discovery HD Theater or HD-Net has 1080 lines of resolution.

A 2.35:1 movie that is shown in Original Aspect Ratio ("OAR") must be letterboxed to be shown on 16x9 sets, so when it is HD, it uses only part of the resolution - 817 lines.

So, some concert or sporting event on HD-Net, or Best Beaches on Discovery HD Theater, is going to be 25% clearer than Star Wars (or any other 2.35:1 movie) in HD.

It's unfortunate that none of the HD broadcast formats or disk formats have some sort of "anamorphic" system - that would be similar to DVD's "16x9 enhanced" system that preserves the 480 lines in 16x9 films.

You could then have LCDs with 1428 lines of resolution that would then have the full 1080 lines in the 2.35:1 portion, and HD disks would have 1080 lines, but a flag would tell the player to squeeze the image to 2.35:1 (it would have been stretched in the mastering process).