Last week there were some episodes of Seinfeld on BCTV in HD.
As this was not announced, i contacted them about this but they had no any info about any hd content on their channel. All they could tell me was that their HD signal is being streamed from Calgary.
Comparison with the original episode (from my archives):
^^^^
What aspect ratio was it filmed in? Basic 35mm is close to 4:3. If that's what it was filmed in, then you'll still have pillars, unless they cut or stretch the frames.
If you do a search on the forum you will find discussions on Seinfeld in HD.
What they did was enhance the edges and crop some of the image from the top and bottom to make the 16x9 image. This is the same for other series that were on film; Cheers, Friends, etc.
I have been enjoying watching some HD episodes that City TV plays at midnight here and they say right in the credits; 'Filmed in Panavision'. So there was plenty of material at the sides that they were not using. Therefore it's not cut or stretched. It's like you were watching a centre-cut version before and are seeing the whole thing now. Pretty forward-thinking if you ask me.
How come Seinfeld in HD looks so "zoomed in" (due to the top and bottom being cropped to get a 16:9 image), but Friends in HD does not? Was Friends filmed more "zoomed out" originally than Seinfeld?
someone gave the answer about Seinfeld being "cropped" to a 16x9 frame, so yes they probably cut out some of the image to make it fit the 16x9 frame, but to answer your question about friends, check this link: Friends remastered in HD - Forums @ The Digital Fix
If you look at the captures for Friends, there is also some slight clipping from the top and bottom. Both Friends and Seinfeld were both produced to be displayed on 4x3 sets. What they have done is enhance the edges and cropped a bit of the top and bottom to give you the 16x9 image. If they don't cropped some of the top and bottom off, the result would be a pillars on the left and right of the image.
Yes, I understand what they did and why bigoranget, but again, Seinfeld looks a lot more zoomed in than Friends does in HD. Those images in the link you sent Paolo don't seem that much different from the top and bottom, at least not as much as Seinfeld. In some Seinfeld HD scenes the heads are so close to being chopped off it seems like, and that's certainly not the case with Friends. And with Seinfeld, the zooming in is a bit too much that it distracts you from the natural viewing of the show I find.
Also, with both shows being framed originally for a 4:3 ratio, I'm surprised we don't see more crew visible just off to the side of the characters with the 16:9 aspect as mentioned in that link, but I've watched each Friends episode in HD several times (and only seen a handful of Seinfeld episodes in HD), and certainly haven't seen any crew members (I know there are other crew member goofs pointed out on certain sites, but that applies to the 4:3 ratio as well).
I could just be that Friends was filmed with a slightly wider film and/or lens or in the case of Seinfeld they might not have been able to recover as much from the edges due to exactly what you described above. I have only seen a handful of episodes in HD. The thing I notice more is the missing scenes cut out of syndication. Does anyone know if CraveTV has Seinfeld episodes in HD? Perhaps when CraveTV comes out in January to all Canadians, I'll rewatch them.
Yeah... maybe the crew did like to be closer to Seinfeld's cast than the Friends' cast, that would explain things.
I have noticed that certain Friends scenes are not in HD, like the Phoebe twin scenes (that were filmed using a green screen I guess).
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