The Ten Commandments

Why in the world would ABC show The Ten Commandments in Squaro-vision????

An HD version of this movie would be spectacular.

I agree this is stupid.

Yep it is stupid. I'll just watch the DVD and let the A-3 up-convert.

[QUOTE=nowitall;853663]Why in the world would ABC show The Ten Commandments in Squaro-vision????

An HD version of this movie would be spectacular.
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Even if I might somewhat maintain a HD version of the Ten Commandments would be the same garbage its always been, its still a technology question. Can we, now, many many decades after the fact, remaster the original and convert it back to 16:9 HD for television. Was it originally made in squarovision, do the original film negatives still exist in decent shape?

Depending on those answers, we might expect more and more of those old film classics to be remastered for 16:9 digital TV in the future. But we have not yet gotten past the 6/12/09 digital TV transition yet, and its still a squariovision world. Maybe some patience is advised before chicken little panic mongers cry about fallen skies. And even if its remastered for 16:9 HD TV, enough 5:4 sets still exist, and those folks would say, we have been robbed.

There is already a high quality (the trailer appears near-if not-HD) wide screen version of the movie available on iTunes for ten buck$.

Ol' movies are shown in HD all the time, why not this classic?

Oh another thing. I ain't a 'chicken little'. I just demand what technology already allows. To provide the viewers anything less is just plain lazy.

While we're all insult-mongering here, I imagine you like all the writing on the screen that never goes away, so you don't actually have to remember what channel yer watching, don'tcha?

Oh another thing. I ain't a 'chicken little'. I just demand what technology already allows. To provide the viewers anything less is just plain lazy.

While we're all insult-mongering here, I imagine you like all the writing on the screen that never goes away, so you don't actually have to remember what channel yer watching, don'tcha?

I was agreeing with you. I have the WS DVD so it shouldn't be hard to present it that way on TV.

I was aiming my rudeness towards 'NonMcTubber'.

'Chicken Little' indeed...

Even if I might somewhat maintain a HD version of the Ten Commandments would be the same garbage its always been, its still a technology question. Can we, now, many many decades after the fact, remaster the original and convert it back to 16:9 HD for television. Was it originally made in squarovision, do the original film negatives still exist in decent shape?

Depending on those answers, we might expect more and more of those old film classics to be remastered for 16:9 digital TV in the future. But we have not yet gotten past the 6/12/09 digital TV transition yet, and its still a squariovision world. Maybe some patience is advised before chicken little panic mongers cry about fallen skies. And even if its remastered for 16:9 HD TV, enough 5:4 sets still exist, and those folks would say, we have been robbed.
From:The Ten Commandments (1956) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049833/)
The original filming was done 35mm and the original theater release was 1.85, very close to 1.78 of 16:9. 35mm is somewhere between 2k and 4k resolution, so no technical issues other than the conversion and mastering process which is already been done.

In 1989 it was re-released in 2.20 and both 35mm and 70mm prints were made available.

While it is not been released on Blu-ray yet it is scheduled and amazon is accepting per-orders. The film is listed on the National Film Registry and thus there has been a 2k or 4k digital archive made of it. HDNet Movies show National Film Registry films in HD regularly that are not available on Blu-ray or that have been shown on other networks yet, so possibly they will show The Ten Commandments in the future.

There is still some arrogance exhibited by the HD 16:9 demanding, who may well yet be vastly outnumbered by the number of folks who were watching yesterday's The Ten Commandments on old legacy 5:4 ratio sets. At the end of the day, ABC made that choice on which group to short sheet.

And if the 16:9 folks got their way, we are still left with all those folks with legacy 5:4 sets who would lose screen size and feel robbed to watch the Ten Commandments in narrow vision.( Or whatever the proper insult is for that set )

Maybe in future, especially with OTA air viewers, multicasting may offer a way to make both groups happy, and a network like ABC could offer the 16:9 movie version on ABC.1 and the 5:4 movie version on ABC.2., thereby keeping everyone happy.

Those that get regular network channels from satellite, cable, or Fiber optic means may not get those same multicast options unless their delivery systems allocate more local channel alternatives.

Those sets are 4:3 (1.333) not 5:4 (1.25), but a larger issue than that small issue is the TV industry is moving away from the legacy 4:3 programming. They have made some steps to accommodate the 4:3 feeds though such as moving their graphics within the 4:3 frame on the 16:9 frame. When it would require pan and scan to properly display the movie, I'm not sure what the answer is and your idea is as good as any, but that requires each affiliate to maintain and operate two network feeds and two network TV stations. The idea of multicasting was to allow for local control of their subchannels for more local programming, so I'm not sure in practice that would work all that well.

rbinck is correct in pointing out that I erred, and its 4:3 and not 5:4.

And also basically pointed out the original Ten Commands was shot in a format closer to the modern 16:9.

But still, we should not just limit this to one single movie called The Ten Commandments, or even just movies per say. Its going to be a huge problem going forward when there is a huge body of 4:3 content, a huge body of basic 16:9 content, and there may be no good way to up or down convert it without leaving one group or the other unhappy.

Only time will tell on the various ways various players will adopt. But I expect, in the end, the 16:9 format will likely become the de facto standard. And even if nearly all newly produced programming is likely to be produced in 16:9, there is likely to be a many year period where the 4:3 content predominates on older legacy content.

As it is, my local ABC affiliate only offers a digital 6.1 and a 6.2 weather channel, still leaving them 3 unused multicasts. And I can hardly view them as public service FCC kosher when they used 6.1 this morning to run an informercial. And the only OTA network that I get that has filled all five multicasts is a religious channel I have zero interest in watching, but five religious multicasts hardly fits the definition of community service either.

Worse yet, I have a few multicast channels that runs children's programming in Spanish, if they made an effort to offer some Spanish to English dual mode education in the process, I would say it would be community service educational, but the way they do it basically traps these children into a Spanish speaking only mode, hardly wise when these children will have to function in an English speaking nation in the very near future.

From:The Ten Commandments (1956) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049833/)
The original filming was done 35mm and the original theater release was 1.85, very close to 1.78 of 16:9. 35mm is somewhere between 2k and 4k resolution, so no technical issues other than the conversion and mastering process which is already been done.


Yes it was 35mm but it was exposed horizontally using Paramount's VistaVision Lazy-8 cameras, effectively making it a large format negative on a par with the 70 mm formats of the day. This, coupled with the Technicolor print process, allowed them to produce a higher quality (less grainy) print than the industry standard vertically exposed 35 mm negative of the time.

It should definitely have been shown in its theatrical release OAR of 1.85:1

Basically the BrianO contention boils down to, if it was originally shot in a basic 16:9 format, it should now, even before the digital conversion is complete, be shown in 16:9. Even though the majority of televisions in the USA are still 4:3 format and the film in question also has a 4:3 alternative format.

But where the BrianO argument somewhat collapses lies in the bulk of television legacy programming built up in the last 60 years plus. And only in the past 15 years has any of that been shot in anything but 4:3 format, and even today, new television programming is shot in both 4:3 and 16:9 formats. If anything, television legacy content dwarfs its film legacy counterpart.

And if BrainO wants to make a consistent argument, he must advocate that old I love Lucy rerun must be always be shown in its
old 4:3 format for perpetuity, even long past that some future date when the majority of this countries television sets will be 16:9.

In short, we have known this dilemma was coming for years, as the following dated 1998 NYT link shows.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/27/technology/l-television-past-and-future-555223.html

And as rbinck somewhat points out, we don't have an answer yet to that question.

And if BrainO wants to make a consistent argument, he must advocate that old I love Lucy rerun must be always be shown in its old 4:3 format for perpetuity, even long past that some future date when the majority of this countries television sets will be 16:9.I know BrianO. BrianO is a friend of mine...

Ok enough of that old pol joke, BrianO, I'm sure as do I, will contend just that. Any 4:3 format show of yesteryear should be shown in its Original Aspect Ratio (OAR) and that would extend to many classic movies as well. 4:3 was the OAR of movies until the early 50s, so they should be shown in 4:3 as well.

If people want to use stretch-o-vision or zoom to fill their 16:9 screens, it should be their choice. But what we are talking about here is a film that was shot widescreen chopped up to be shown in a 4:3 format with no choice to restore the cropped areas.

Why in the world would ABC show The Ten Commandments in Squaro-vision????

An HD version of this movie would be spectacular.

I couldn't believe it either!

The Ten Commandants was filmed in VistaVision:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaVision

List of religious precepts sacred in Judaism and Christianity. They include injunctions to honour God, the Sabbath, and one's parents, as well as bans on idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and covetousness. In the book of Exodus, they are divinely revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai and engraved on two stone tablets. Most scholars propose a date between the 16th and 13th century BC for the commandments, though some date them as late as 750 BC. They were not regarded with deep reverence by Christians until the 13th century