The Godfather on A&E HD

[Yes616]

Looked totally horrible in HD stretch-o-vision.

I kept trying to ignore it but it was bad. Very bad.

All 3 Godfather movies I always lliked to watch were now to see in HD and I hated it.

2 thumbs down to A&E!

 

[swade]

A & E looked terrible

I agree. TNT used to look th way all the time but now looks better most of the time. Lets hope A & E improves itself in the near future.

 

[grb]

Nothing worse than stretch-o-vision. It's almost insulting -- like we are only going to broadcast this program in 4:3 SD, but we'll stretch it out and the ignorant viewers will never know the difference...

 

[Rangers484]

That wasn't stretch o vision, Marlon Brando really is that fat.

 

[DanLee]

keep in mind these movies are at least 17 years old. HD wasn't around then.

 

[Sean Mota]

Film was. Thus, HD re-mastered could be done. But A&E is to cheap for that.

 

[DanLee]

From what I saw of Godfather III, it was no worse than HDNet Movies which is supposedly HD.

 

[Ronald_Jeremy]

keep in mind these movies are at least 17 years old. HD wasn't around then.

If it was shot on film it is higher quality than HD.

 

[aperry]

Exactly. There are numerous examples of shows that were not done in HD, but because they were filmed (like a movie), the HD conversion can look fantastic. A couple that come to mind that I've seen recently are the series Firefly and the movie Flash Gordon (the campy one from the 80's).

Both look really great in HD!

 

[M Sparks]

keep in mind these movies are at least 17 years old. HD wasn't around then.

AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

[M Sparks]

From what I saw of Godfather III, it was no worse than HDNet Movies which is supposedly HD.

This is exactly why these "HD" channels suck.

 

[M Sparks]

Nothing worse than stretch-o-vision. It's almost insulting -- like we are only going to broadcast this program in 4:3 SD, but we'll stretch it out and the ignorant viewers will never know the difference...

TBS had The Wizard Of Oz on the other night. It's IN 4:3! Nothing could be easier for them to get right. Just upconvert it and LEAVE IT IN THE CORRECT ASPECT RATIO! I mean, no one would probably know the difference without scopes. But no, they've got it all stretched out.

It's TOTALLY insulting...none of this "almost" business.

 

[M Sparks]

Film was. Thus, HD re-mastered could be done. But A&E is to cheap for that.

At this point, I don't even care. Just stop stretching it. An upconverted SD picture in the correct ratio still looks WAY better than a standard, overcompressed SD signal.

 

[allargon]

TBS had The Wizard Of Oz on the other night. It's IN 4:3! Nothing could be easier for them to get right. Just upconvert it and LEAVE IT IN THE CORRECT ASPECT RATIO! I mean, no one would probably know the difference without scopes. But no, they've got it all stretched out.

It's TOTALLY insulting...none of this "almost" business.

Yeah, that is messed up. My brother is one of those people that stretches and zooms his 50" RPTV because he can't deal w/ black bars. He would hate to see Casablanca on HD-DVD as that's native 4:3 as well.

I don't know what goes on through the mind of execs at A&E and TNT. Actually, I do. They got tired of people calling in and complaining that there's no HD on the HD channels. So, they stretched the SD to fool 80% of the people that complained. Most of those folks are like my brother and stretch SD anyway. As a result, they think they are getting HD.

 

[aperry]

The only time I "stretch" is on SD channels when they show widescreen stuff. I select the "Zoom" option, at least that's what I think they call it. Regular SD stuff has the bars.

I have done SD in stretch mode in the past (I had a CRT RPTV and didn't want to have to worry about burn-in with the black bars), and I will say that you get used to it. But it did take a while.

 

[DanLee]

They really should give US the OPTION. We have stretch capabilities on our receivers. If we want it stretched, we can do it ourselves. This way it would satisfy those that prefer stretched over 4:3 as well.