Unfortunately, TCM HD will never be what some people expect. If not financially prohibitive, in many cases impossible for HD conversion...negatives long gone or in too bad of shape. I predict that at best, only 50% of the movies will ever be seen in true HD. The only way they can increase the percentage would be to drop films from the 30's and 40's and increase titles from the 60's and up. I personally hope they don't do that. I could imagine possibility that TCM HD would be a completely separate channel from the SD version.
I think you will see a lot of improvement in TCM HD, which, in spite of comments above, has been around for close to eight months now and just made available by Dish this week.
TCM now owns Warner Brothers and they have put in a bid of 1.3 billion dollars to purchase MGM - about to go belly up because the banks will no longer extend their line of credit and they have until 4 May to come up with the money or find a buyer.
The fact that they own Warner Brothers is extremely important to their now being HD. Warner has a project to scan and fully restore - as close to historically accurate as possible, no coloration, nothing added, nothing removed, with scan depths of between 4K and 12K [when using Technicolor negatives]. The initial results are nothing short of remarkable. TCM has also begun to re-shoot all of their drop-in material in HD, re-do all of their promos in HD, and will, whenever possible, be showing HD versions of all of material whenever it is available.
It is absolutely amazing what data is stored in the film used during the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's when it is properly scanned and cleaned up. Warner Brothers, in conjunction with UCLA School of Film Preservation, and lots of others resources has devoted a lot of man-power and computer processing power to these film restoration projects, made a promise to maintain total accuracy, and the initial results are nothing short of incredible. Check out the 70th Anniversary Blu-Ray edition of the Wizard of Oz, or the restoration of Gone With The Wind.
I'm sitting in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel as I write this and will be attending the first
Turner Classic Movies Reunion and there is bound to be a whole lot of discussion of not only their transition to HD, but the financial woes of MGM and their bid to add MGM to the Turner Family.
The opening night event at the TCM Festival, tomorrow night, is a digital presentation of the 1954 Judy Garland version of A Star is Born at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The Blu-Ray will be released to the public on Judy's birthday in June. [If you're a collector, as we are, it's available for pre-order now.]
While not everything is going to look "incredible" on TCM HD, the fact is there area a lot of other "HD" sources, both on Dish, cable, and broadcast television which are abominable in their content and, unless someone can find reliable source material, compare it to a reference print, and spend the time and money to coordinate the resources necessary to do a full and proper restoration, we will all have to put up with.
At the risk of being bombarded with negative responses, I would also suggest that anyone with an HD set, running HD content, whether from Dish or any other provider, invest in a GOOD HD / surround sound calibration DVD. They are worth their weight in gold and in just a few hours - when done properly, you will probably be blown away by the capabilities of that giant screen you spend a lot of money to purchase. After I properly calibrated our 52" Phillips in the living room, my Partner could not believe how good even older content looked.
