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Comment by smacktoward | Hacker News Reader

But that wouldn't satisfy the people Simon is (obliquely) talking about, the "OHMYGAWD WHY DOESN'T IT FILL UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN" knuckle-draggers. The point of the new widescreen transfer is to take away the thing that's keeping those people from watching The Wire.

Ironically, these are the same people who used to scream about widescreen transfers back when 4:3 sets were the norm. The only difference is that the black bars they were complaining about back then were on the top and bottom rather than the sides.

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I'm a bit incredulous at the existence of these knuckle-draggers. There's a big difference between boxing out the sides of a 40+" screen to 4:3 and boxing out the top and bottom of a smaller screen to 16:9 (or 2.35:1). You really had to be a dedicated film buff to watch Lawrence of Arabia letterboxed on a 32" TV. I watch 4:3 content on my TV all the time (e.g., I've been watching poorly deinterlaced Star Trek: TNG via Netflix) and I hardly even notice.

"I'm a bit incredulous at the existence of these knuckle-draggers. "

I've met many people who will not watch any film - no matter how good its reputation -- if it's in black and white. The first time I heard someone say "I can't watch this - it's in black and white" I thought it was a joke. That was 22 years ago, and he was a post-grad student. He was utterly serious. Since then I've met others like that.

I guess SD is the new black (and white).

Many films originally printed in color for theaters had their delicate color internegatives lost or destroyed or decayed. Often only archive mono prints manages to survive, because of better or more stable chemistry.

Ted Turner wasn't all crazy. He had history on his side, for some movies. But then he also got a huge upsurge in viewing, of the films he colorized. I think there's fair argument that more distribution, more viewing, of a art form, is a good thing.

Also, what's dismissed as SD is so often truly awful SD, not clean and heavily compressed.

Like the commented above, I often wish for just a decent SD copy. Really well transferred DVDs are pretty good to watch.

I'm sorry to say, but I think those people would be the majority of viewers. "What no HD? This must be old and rubbish".

I expect the same argument could be used when remastering old stereo movies to surround sound - the people who know what's going on complain, but the general public are "wow it sounds so good".

I dunno -- when DVDs first came out, there were lots of people saying that the decision by most studios to use widescreen transfers on them would doom the format. The logic was that the knuckle-draggers were such a majority that launching a non-4:3 format was hopeless. But that turned out not to be the case, DVD was a huge success. So there's hope that most people can recognize better product when they see it.

I don't see any reason not to release in HD 4:3. Surely the cost would be minimal. And I doubt fans would complain about needing to by another box set.

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