ValentineXavier
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Posts posted by ValentineXavier
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> {quote:title=joefilmone wrote:}{quote}I saw it on the big screen and that is the best way to experince the *Mother Ship*
Or, as I like to call it, The Cosmic Chandelier.
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Well, there was Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew-Boys, and Shel Silverstein. Both made country music.
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I posted this link on a thread some months back, but reposting here seems appropriate to me. It is a site called Retronaut. You can pick your decade, and browse.
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> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote}
> Anyway, my part of this debate is about the girls/women
> in the surf movies being unattractive, when compared to
> the women in pre-code films.
>
> To me, the pre-code ladies have always been more
> attractive and seductive, going as far back as when I
> used to see them in old movies on TV when I was a
> teenager.
Easily explained, Fred. By the time the surf movies were made, vacu-forming had been invented...
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Mark, according to the IMDb, *It Happened in Hollywood* was written by Fuller, not directed by him. But, thanks much for calling it to our attention. It had slipped by me. According to a poster on the IMDb, it has a VERY interesting gimmick, which I think TCM fans, in particular, will appreciate:
>"It Happened in Hollywood" (1937)is a frothy little comedy with a brilliant gimmick. The star of the film is Richard Dix, a rugged actor who usually played two-fisted action roles but occasionally gave excellent performances in romantic comedies. It won't spoil your fun if I tell you the gimmick. Some of Hollywood's biggest stars of the time (1937) make brief appearances in this film, including Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, James Cagney, W.C. Fields ... plus Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, who hadn't officially retired from acting yet. Now here's the gimmick: all of those big stars are played in this film by THEIR OWN STAND-INS, the wanna-be actors and actresses who (unlike most actors) had full-time employment in the Hollywood studios, but who only kept working by copying the physical appearance of a better-known actor (or actress) and following that actor from one film role to the next. (Stand-ins, unlike stunt doubles, almost never appear onscreen: their chief job is to stand in for the "real" actor during time-consuming lighting set-ups, wearing a duplicate of that actor's costume. Stand-ins are required to maintain the same build, hairstyle and complexion as the person whom they're imitating, which limits their ability to get acting jobs in their own right.)
>
>So, in "It Happened in Hollywood" we meet Bing Crosby, played by an obscure lookalike actor whose real-life job was to stand in for the genuine Bing during all of Crosby's films. John Barrymore (Drew's grandfather) is played here by Barrymore's full-time double. Victor McLaglen is played by his own brother, who was his real-life stand-in. Marlene Dietrich and Garbo are played by their own stand-ins: real-life sisters named Dietrich (no relation to Marlene).
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The films are always shown at the same aspect ratio on both TCMHD and SD, unless someone screws up the uprezzing for TCMHD. TCM tries to show everything in its OAR, but they are at the mercy of their suppliers.
Usually, they get 2.35:1 films in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and you will see black bars, top and bottom, when watching on TCMHD. Sometimes, but fortunately rarely, distributors will provide 2.35:1 films cropped to 1.78:1, aka 16x9
1.85:1 films are often provided by the distributor in 16x9, resulting in a little bit cropped on both sides. Sometimes they are provided in true 1.85:1, and have very thin black bars, top and bottom..
1.66:1 films are the most problematic. It seems many distributors provide many of them cropped to 1.33:1, for SDTV. Now, they are also providing them cropped to 16x9, for HDTV. Sometimes, we get lucky, and get them in true 1.66:1. TCM recently showed a lot of British New Wave films in true 1.66:1.
For years, TCM has shown *The Green Slime* cropped to 1.33:1. They just showed it in its OAR of 2.35:1, and made me happy! I think the DVD has it in 16x9...
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The German-American Bund wasn't too shy about calling attention to themselves, and they were definitely affiliated with Nazi Germany.
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They liked our music better.
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Although I was never an American Bandstand fan, I can't help but acknowledge what Dick contributed to Rock and Roll. I think he'll be doing the countdown from the other side this year.
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This has happened several times in the past, with serials. They have always been shown in proper order, AFAIK. Of course, I DVR them, so it couldn't be a problem for me.
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> {quote:title=willbefree25 wrote:}{quote}
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> Animals are still being killed and abused and eaten alive in film and television.
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Can you provide any contemporary examples of that, in US or European films? Apart from wildlife documentaries, of course, I'd be very surprised that such a thing existed.
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> {quote:title=NoraCharles1934 wrote:}{quote}
> So these DVD-Rs with hard drives are intriguing me . . . ?:|
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> I did a little looking around, and they don't seem to be very common. I only found two versions of a Magnavox model in-stock on Amazon.
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Yes, only the Maggies are left, and I believe production has ended on them. So, if you want one, better get it soon. Walmart, Amazon, or J&R for refurbs, are the last sources.
> Do you still need the cable co.'s DVR in this case, or could you just opt for the (cheaper) digital receiver box?
>
Depends on what sort of service you are happy with. You must have a cable co. box of some kind, since most of what you want to watch is scrambled, or soon will be. If you want to record something in HD for later viewing, you'll need the cable co.'s DVR. If you want to record one thing while watching another, you'll need the cable co.'s DVR. Also, most digital receivers can't be programmed to change channels, so you would only be able to record the one channel it is tuned to with your DVDR, while you are away. Having a cable co. DVR makes things much easier.
> How exactly do the input/outputs work re: the TV, DVR & DVD recorder?
>
Assuming you get a Magnavox DVDR, you run the incoming cable from the wall, to the Magnavox, then to the cable DVR. The Magnavox will pass through the raw cable to your DVR. But, the Magnavox will also be able to tune any unscrambled channels (mostly locals) with its own tuner, and record them directly, in SD, without affecting the cable co. DVR.
From the cable DVR's outputs, to your Magnavox DVDR's inputs, you run the S-Video cable and the right and left audio cables.
From the cable DVR to the TV, you run HDMI cable.
From the Maggy DVDR to the TV, you run HDMI cable.
> How do you "dump" a film from the DVR to the hard drive?
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To move a film from your DVR's HDD to the HDD of your DVDR, it must be played back in real time. You select the correct input on the DVDR, set the recording speed, start recording, then start the film playing on the DVR. Basically, you can do that while you are watching the film, or you can set it up to transfer when you go to work, or go to bed.
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> {quote:title=willbefree25 wrote:}{quote}
> Did I take away the correct message, having only seen the last half hour or so? It's better to make two boys orphans and *let a lie pervade the world in the name of religion than tell the truth?*
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I'm an atheist, so far be it from me to reinforce the Christian message in the film, but from the above, I'm not sure you understood the happenings in the film. A lie had already pervaded the world, and had sent it into chaos. Then, the 'truth' pervaded the world, and set things right, and even better. If the Nazi scientist had not been destroyed, he would have made the world believe that 'truth' was a lie, and the world would have returned to chaos. In the context of the movie, the two boys were better off as orphans in an enlightened world, rather than with parents in a devastated one.
Sure, the film was a mixture of various strains of hokum, but I found it rather interesting. The idea that even non-physical contact with a non-threatening alien race who wanted to help us, could throw human society into turmoil, and destroy our economies may be original, and is at least uncommon. The reactions of the scientist, his wife, the military, and the President (Willis Bouchey, looking like Ike) were realistic, considered, and revealing in their contradictions.
Edited by: ValentineXavier on Apr 21, 2012 9:14 PM
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> {quote:title=darkblue wrote:}{quote}
> What I wondered was whether cable was reconverting the digital signals from OTA back to analog - as that's what you and Val said I'm getting through my cable wire. Or did you? I thought I understood and now I'm not sure again.
>
Well, your cable company wouldn't be getting many channels OTA, perhaps just a few locals. Some locals give the cable co. direct feeds. In any event, most of what the cable co. gets is from satellite, and is digital. And the stuff it gets OTA is digital. So, yes, for the few remaining channels cable co.s carry that don't require a converter/set top box, they ARE converting them to analog, and sending them out over the cable. But, they will almost certainly have digital clones of those, because pretty much all the newer DVRs and STBs don't have analog tuners in them. So, unless it is tuned by the tuner in your TV set, it won't be analog. The digital cable signal is called QAM. Most of the digital stuff put out is scrambled, but they are not supposed to scramble your local channels. So, if you have a digital set, you may also tune some digital (and HD) channels w/o a STB. Have I gotten you good and confused yet?
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> {quote:title=slaytonf wrote:}{quote}Thanx for the explanation, VX. I think I got most of it, though I was slipping a little at the end. If I get you right, if I want to get a sharper recording of a wide screen movie from TCM (SD, which is what I get here), I will need to get a converter, which will go midstream between my cable box and my DVD player (DVDR ?). You say you have various flavors of them. Is is worth getting the lower end ones? I may not go for the $200 ones or so, but I don't want to simply throw away $45, either. I imagine I can find them at a place like Fry's (if you are familiar with that big box electronics store).
No, sorry, you didn't quite get it. You can only make the sharper, anamorphic DVDs from a *HD* source, such as TCMHD. You can't do it from a SD channel. I've been rather satisfied with the cheaper converters, eevn if they aren't quite as good. But, I may have just had good luck. Some people say they are awful, or don't work at all.
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> {quote:title=slaytonf wrote:}{quote}
>
> > ValnetineXavier said:
> > Another word of caution - most cable boxes don't output an anamorphic (squeezed wide screen) signal over the S-Video output. So, to make anamorphic DVDs, (what they call "enhanced for wide screen" on commercial DVDs,) which uses all the pixels to hold the picture info - none wasted on black bars - you'd have to buy an adapter. You'd want one that converts the three wire picture outputs from your DVR, called component outputs, into S-Video, which would give you the squeezed anamorphic picture. Of course most people don't get that involved with it.
>
>Slaytonf wrote:
>I'm not sure I understand--no, I'm sure I don't understand what you posted. But I have a question for you. Right now, I record directly from my cable box to my DVD player. With wide-screen movies, on the playback, I have to use the zoom feature to make the best use of the screen. Inevitably I lose some picture quality. You mentioned not wasting pixels on the black bars. Is there a way to record to my DVD with an enlarged picture that I won't have to zoom and thus not lose picture quality?
Well, I'd hoped that my parenthetical additions above would make that at least semi-intelligible for most people. But, I can see that Mark was right, and it didn't. I'll try to give an understandable outline.
When you buy a commercial DVD of a wide screen film these days, it is almost always 'anamorphic,' or as it will usually say on the box, "Enhanced for wide screen." What does that mean?
A DVD frame has a 4x3 aspect ratio, it can't record any other way. If you record a WS film in letterbox, on a 4x3 frame, well we're all familiar with that. You get the black bars on top and bottom, and that space carries no useful information. So, to make use of that space, making a sharper picture, and saving us to have to "zoom" on our HDTVs, to make a LB picture fill the screen side-to-side, (which also makes the picture grainier,) the WS image is squeezed horizontally, to make it 4x3, not 16x9 (the HD ratio.) Then, with proper settings on your DVD player, and either auto or manual picture mode selection on your HDTV, the image is stretched back out to the original aspect ratio. Then, you have a sharper picture.
So, how can you do that at home, with your own DVDR? Your DVDR will record just what you send it, so, you have to send it an already squeezed picture. First, you can only get that anamorphic (squeezed) image from a HD channel, not from a SD channel. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cable and sat. systems only output an anamorphic signal over HD outputs, like HDMI, and component video (RGB) outputs. They output a LB signal, from HD and SD channels alike, from SD analog outputs, like S-Video, and composite (yellow wire.) With a very few systems, you CAN get the anamorphic image output over S-Video, but those are rare.
For the rest of us, to make an anamorphic DVD from cable, or sat., we need a converter that takes the anamorphic signal from the component (RGB) outputs, and converts it to S-Video, that our DVDRs will accept. Those converters range in quality, and price, from about $45 to $300, to even $1,000. I have a couple of the $45 persuasion, and a couple more of the $200-300 persuasion. I can go into detail, if anyone is interested. Or, they can go to the AVS Forum's DVDR forum.
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A teacher, addressing his class, said:
In some languages, such as English, a double negative is a positive. And, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is a negative. But, there are no languages in which a double positive is a negative.
A voice from the back of the room said "Yeah, right..."
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SansFin, the consensus on the Audio Video Forum is that 8x discs are the best for modern DVDRs, that's what they were designed to burn. I use Taiyo Yuden 8x -R, which I buy on line.
SF, and TikiSoo, about "analog broadcasts," yes, they ended, but only for OTA (over the air) broadcasts. Those are all digital now. That has nothing to do with analog vs digital cable. Cable companies are under NO gov. edicts to convert to all digital. They are doing that because digital takes up less bandwidth, freeing up space to add more HD channels. The phasing out of analog cable is in progress everywhere, but at different rates, even with the same cable provider. With Comcast, where I live, I think there are still 17 analog channels. I believe that all have digital clones.
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> {quote:title=willbefree25 wrote:}{quote}But the people weren't really killed, the animals were and still might be.
>
> Big difference.
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> I don't appreciate gratuitous violence in movies, even with humans.
There is NO "gratuitous" violence in *Forbidden Games*.
>2: not called for by the circumstances : unwarranted
It is a film about children trying to cope with the horrors of war. Showing that horror was absolutely necessary. If the parents, and/or the dog had been blown to bits, and we saw the bloody lumps of flesh, even that might be justified, given the reality of that war.
The way the dog is treated, in the context of the film, is much as one would expect under the circumstances. But, how was the dog treated, in reality, while making the film? That question concerns me too. I did some poking around on line, but couldn't find a definitive answer, only speculation. Certainly, I hope that the dog wasn't hurt, but I can't be sure that it wasn't.
In our times, TV and the movie theaters are filled with mindless, gratuitous violence. So, I had to respond when you said that a powerful, beautiful, humane film like *Forbidden Games* had "gratuitous violence." It doesn't. Of course, if you don't want to ever watch a film that includes violence, that is your prerogative. But, that doesn't leave you much to watch, not even *Bambi*.
I have NO idea why this came out all underlined, and tinted. I had no such intention. Sorry.
Edited by: ValentineXavier on Apr 17, 2012 9:20 PM
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Sans Fin says it well. I'll add a bit. My DVDR, using 8x or 16x discs, which are standard, will record a two hour film from the HDD to DVD in 12 minutes. This saves wear and tear on the lasers, since they are on for 12 minutes, not 2 hours.
HDDs will hold a lot of films. You can keep transferring them from your cable DVR to your DVDR, then edit them down, and dub to disc, whenever you have the time. Those editing abilities that SF speaks of are very nice. You can insert chapter marks at favorite scenes, lots of different stuff.
There are some tricks to unattended dubbing of films from DVR>DVDR w/o a HDD. You must know exactly how long the film is, and set up the recording to run just a tiny bit longer. One way is - say the film is 96m long. Say your DVDR does One-touch recording in 30m increments. You start the recording, start playing back the film on the DVR, and wait 7 minutes. Then, you hit the OTR button 3 times, for 90m. Or, most units you can set up a timer recording of the appropriate length, and start playback on the DVR, and the timer recording, at the same time. Either way, you'll get just a bit of non-film at the beginning, and end. With a DVR with a HDD, you can always trim that off, before burning to disc.
Edited by: ValentineXavier on Apr 17, 2012 7:16 AM
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I have not noticed any general lowering of TCM's volume level. But, I find it rather common for some of the older films to have a very low volume level, and get lower as they play. I do turn them up, but it doesn't seem to help much.
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I wouldn't mind seeing made-for-TV movies, once in a while, if they are good. TCM has already shown a few, including Man from Uncle movies a few years back, and more recently, at least a couple from a 50's TV series about Rodger's Rangers. One TV movie I'd really like to see is 1988's *Gotham*, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen.
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Yeah, that one always brings tears to my eyes, and a lump in my throat.
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I have a DVD recorder with a hard drive, which makes life a lot easier. It's just a little bit trickier to dump a film from your cable (or sat.) DVR to your DVDR, if it doesn't have a hard drive, to get the timings right. But I'm sure you can do it.
Another word of caution - most cable boxes don't output an anamorphic (squeezed wide screen) signal over the S-Video output. So, to make anamorphic DVDs, (what they call "enhanced for wide screen" on commercial DVDs,) which uses all the pixels to hold the picture info - none wasted on black bars - you'd have to buy an adapter. You'd want one that converts the three wire picture outputs from your DVR, called component outputs, into S-Video, which would give you the squeezed anamorphic picture. Of course most people don't get that involved with it.
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Perhaps someone can provide us with Jimi Hendrix' quote about never hearing surf music again?