Movie Collector OH

I found there to be a big difference in picture quality (PQ) between TCM's standard-definition (SD) feed and their HD feed. The SD feed never reaches the clarity of the HD feed. The HD feed gets better as the PQ of the source material allows. For instance, I have a commercially produced DVD of The Apartment. I also have a recording made from TCM's HD feed. In addition, I have a recording made from TCM's SD feed. Viewed on a HD set, the SD feed looks like it has a blurry film covering the screen. On the other hand, their HD feed looks like a properly upconverted DVD. There is no harm in upconverting if there is no HD source to work with. It actually looks good. Just not "HD good". So I found that the PQ of the store-bought DVD is only "shades" away from what the HD feed looks like. The HD feed has a slightly less pronouced contrast, whereas the DVD's contrast was tweaked a bit to make things stand out more (perhaps a DVD mastering decision). Doing that brings up the signal noise floor a bit too. The level of detail is nearly identical between the two though. Perhaps a bit better on the DVD, but not by much. FWIW (probably not much)....

Probably made to be shown at a studio party, like the blooper reels. Too out of character I think for actual use.

"Now that's what I call a fine how do you do."

I posted a query over on IMDB, maybe someone over there will follow up.

I was just talking about Battleground with a friend of mine who has a new interest in WWII movies (thanks to yours truly). I think I am kind of in the mood to watch it again tonight.

Judy Garland.

From Wiktionary: Used in the US since the 1920s, originally primarily of boxers. Popularized by Jack Conway of Variety,[2][3] who also popularized baloney and bimbo. Further popularized by Ham Fisher in his comic strip Joe Palooka, about a boxer (published in newspapers since 1930, particularly popular in 1940s).[4]

Yea, one would think... I would go to see it, even at a TCM Fathom event nonetheless. I still think what you saw was an American movie released about 5 years before that. The CN tower was just extra footage that was spliced in for the re-release in Canada.

Sounds more a Canadian version of the American movie, which didn't do so well either.

I'm too busy to check right now, but I wonder if those titles are available on Blu Ray right now. If so, then many of the original digital theaters and smaller digital theaters in the megaplexes, which are "Cinema 2k" screens, would be a natural fit just to play a standard Blu-Ray. If they were doing it on one of the larger "4K" screens, then it would be more comparable to the new "UHD" TV standard which is still yet to come and possibly just upscaled "2k". Either would be slightly less wide though, as it would be an "HD" format being projected onto a "Cinema 2K" or "Cinema 4K" screen). Having said all that, it is really all about watching a movie with a bunch of other like-minded people for me, and not just sitting in my basement. I would go to one of those events if it were near me.

Sneak peak was in TORonto. I don't think it made it past there.

Nice tribute, fxreyman. Count me in as a fan. I count 49 movies of his that I have either on DVD or from TV, and admitedly I haven't seen at least half of them, but eventially will. The one that comes to mind for me is Rio Bravo. It may or may not be a "seminal" John Wayne movie, but I think it is a heck of a lot of fun, considering all the talent. John Wayne • Dean Martin • Ricky Nelson • Angie Dickinson • Walter Brennan • Ward Bond Directed by Howard Hawks

I see some Robert Preston in him.

Sorry, no. That was just that line. She said it as a comeback I think. It did get a big laugh from her audience. It probably went over the heads of those who post quotes and references on IMDB, but I picked up on it, having already been a fan of White Cargo.

That was such a big line back in the day that Lucille Ball even used it on I Love Lucy.

Bramwell Fletcher "It sure is a bloody 'ot one out today, isn't it?" Walter Pidgeon: (smashes glass on floor) "YOU BLASTED FOOL! I'VE BEEN WAITING ALL WEEK JUST TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT!!

I love that line. That word is to Walter Pidgeon what all the British words with the extra "u"'s are to Dargo. I picture Dargo reacting as Pidgeon does. White Cargo is one of my favorite low-end movies. That one warrants dim lights and a beer (if you drink).

Probably the craziest example of this for me is an old version of Autocad that only works up to Windows 2000. Too expensive to play the upgrade game. I think $800 or $900 too expensive... Once in a great while I will use it for doodling around. It still works, using Virtual PC (running Win 2000 on top of XP). Most guys I know use freeware cad, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Sooner or later I will have to throw away everything I have and start all over again. That is computers. The vendors haven't improved on longevity or useful new features, they have only gotten better with throwaway technology, and have come up with some interesting new back doors and vulnerabilities. Oops! Hehe.

I am in agreement too. I liked it. It has historical significance like very few movies do, such as Prelude To War, Hollywood Canteen or Stage Door Canteen. As America was holding off from entering the war. Prior to Man Hunt, pro-war movies were seen as being bad for international business in America by the studio heads, and were thereby discouraged (sound familiar?). When this came out, war was right around the corner and this was one of those movies that was in the right place at the right time. The Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie (2008) gained some new interest for Man Hunt, although it wasn't really a remake, or even in the same league.

And Impact is a chance to see the lovely Ella Raines nonetheless. (from another thread I believe)

I don't know about difference in OS. I haven't gotten that far yet. I am using a small 3GHz DuoCore with 2GB of memory. The HD-PVR2 is really what is doing all the work, so computer power just doesn't matter for that computer. I am still running XP SP3 for my PC DVR. I don't give a rat's behind about Microsoft's upgrade antics. It isn't used to surf the web anyway. Its been up and running for about two years now, from when I first installed it. When I am encoding/recording to it, I record to the internal HDD and then transfer to a USB HDD when it is idle and not recording. (I may be superstitious here, but I don't want to overburden the USB bus while it is recording). My Hauppauge device has no tuner - I am using a Genie Mini as the tuner. There are slight synch issues that I get. This happens on the main unit too, which is only connected to my tv. So it is either a provider issue or a network issue. We had this with cable too. But the sat offset never even gets close to being as bad as the offset could get with cable, where the offset was sometimes off by entire spoken words, not just fractions of a second. Sometimes no offset, but if so it is often around -50ms, and sometimes up to -150ms offset. Correctible with VideoRedo using +50ms to +150ms on audio correction slider (sliding it to the right). I compress my movies a bit, down to about 4 or 5Mb/s, down from the full 13.5Mb/s bitrate of the Hauppauge HD-PVR running at best quality (best way to use it), as the source content is nowhere near 13.5Mb/s. Videoredo is set to dual-pass encode on a different computer - a very very fast one (I don't want to put this load on my DVR PC). Dual-pass compression gives superior results, but is not possible on a hardware encoder. It basically looks no different from the original yet takes up around 1/3 the space. The same amount of compression done on a hardware encoder (single pass) butchers it, so I don't even try. PC video player is MPC-HC (freeware). MPC-HC also has an audio delay correction slider, but is labeled backwards. So to correct a -50ms offset, you would set the slider to -50ms, not +50ms as with VideoRedo.

I got a Hauppauge HD-PVR2 (a video encoder). Connect to the sat box video & audio outs and then run that into a PC via USB. It comes with its own software and drivers for the computer to run it. To transfer, you would basically just operate it like you would a VCR. The only caveat is you will have to record that in real time though. (PM me if you should decide to go this route for more details) This is the core of my setup, except that I record directly to the computer - using NextPVR - a PC program to schedule and automate, and skip using the sat box DVR altogether. The rest of the details are too much for this reply, but you get the idea.

I have a list of TV movies. Not too many, but this is probably the first I would bring up: The Last Song (1980) - Lynda Carter A riveting drama about a singer who discovers the reason why her husband was murdered. She learns of the the plans of her husband's killers to cover up a toxic polution scheme and they are out to silence her... I remembered seeing this one with the parents and grandparents on TV when it originally aired. That was a while back. There is a song which Lynda sings, which sounds to me like a better-known singer from that era. I was looking under that different singer and therefore couldn't figure out the title. Until now. There is a DVD of this available for cheap, but it is reportedly not up to par picture-quality and sound-quality wise. Maybe there is a better copy out there which TCM could use, even though this is just a TV movie (but one I remembered after all these years).

I'm one who couldn't care less about post counts. It is only a quantitative statistic at best. There isn't really any way to indicate qualitative in absolute terms, so long as upvoting can be based on aliances in the community and not content. I do find it interesting and unusual that this forum limits the amount of upvotes per day. For that reason I am a bit hesitant to use upvotes here, as they seem to be loaded like dynamite in certain situations. In another forum, there is also vanity indication of total hours online. That one is equally non-essential I think. On yet another forum, a professional one, things are a bit more regimented. The members gain "credence" most easily by having the knowledge gained from professional associations and affiliations which many post in their signature area. Those posters are not at liberty to promote product or answer certain questions though, as it may lead to a conflict of interest, and is against board rules.