Fake HD
(Apologies for not adding material here for a while… I’ve been finishing and revising MARIPOSA, the sequel to QUANTICO, and now it’s in production with a November pub date from Perseus/Vanguard… More time to blog!)
It’s no biggy in the grand scheme of things, but the little irritations and the small dishonesties can add up over time.
And so it is with a deep sense of proportionality that I bitch about cable television channels and their fake claims of broadcasting movies in high definition. Having just Tivoed DEEP IMPACT on TNTHD, for the second time, trying to watch a decent high-def version of a pretty good movie, I am once again stuck with what appears to be a standard-def picture, and not even a wide-screen picture, but a “stretched” version from a 4:3 aspect ratio copy.
This seems particularly common for films from Dreamworks, which has either not paid for hi-def transfers of many of its films, or doesn’t care that their pictures are being marketed under false pretenses.
All good movies, but—
The screen roll-bys announce these are hi-def, available on hi-def channels only, and they aren’t.
It matters in several ways, because cable companies are competing with each other for bragging rights over the most hours of hi-def shown. Fake hi-def showings are counted in those listings.
Notable exceptions: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, in true hi-def on TNTHD from the beginning, and JURASSIC PARK, which debuted in the bad “stretched” format a year or so ago, and finally has been shown in decent hi-def on SCI-FI HD and elsewhere.
All of the Lord of the Rings films have been shown multiple times in true hi-def.
TWISTER has not—it’s stretched standard-def. STARSHIP TROOPERS–stretched.
USAHD has shown a fine HD version of CASANOVA, and yet has also deceived–too often–with other films to be trustworthy.
A beautifully colorful transfer of JACKIE BROWN (probably my favorite Tarentino movie) suffers only from a creative language edit that replaces the F-word with a fascinating variety of poetic euphemisms.
And that brings me to the second part of this rant. Up until a few months ago, the late and somewhat lamented MOJO network and the still-extant Universal HD showed their films in uncut hi-def, complete with full credits and minimal commercial interruptions. A lot of obscure movies (and quite a few very good movies, not always mutually exclusive) got shown multiple times on these networks, notably 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, uncut, unaltered, usually in their original aspect ratios; a movie fan’s dream.
No more.
MOJO is gone and Universal HD seems to have teamed up with USA HD to co-broadcast many of the same movies, now cut for time, language, and the irritating commercial aspirations of somebody who really no longer gives a damn about the movie audience.
I suppose it’s all about survival.
But it’s also about the diminishing of the basic cable dream these two networks were offering late-night and other viewers: that they wouldn’t have to pay for HBO to see movies as the filmmakers intended them to be seen.
And so–back to Netflix. When streaming internet video brings us full hi-def in a few years, then it’s bye-bye to the last few inane deceptions and one-size fits all world of broadcast and cable TV.
(Of course, if it all works, we’ll be paying for those films individually–or perhaps as part of a non-cable package… And that might end up costing as much as HBO, but at least the selection will be bigger.)
Away from the broadcast world, video tapes and Laserdiscs are essentially analog media (some eventually acquired digital soundtracks), which means it is was not technically feasible to hand over control of the viewing of such material to the studio lawyers.
As soon as DVDs came along, that changed.
DVDs are digital start to finish, and studios have forced player manufacturers to cater to them in oh so many ways to even be able to license DVDs of their films.
The result: we’ve all seen the FBI slide about piracy every single time we plug in a disc. We can’t avoid it. The lawyers want to grind it into your eyeballs, because they don’t trust you, even when they have your money. (To be fair, the public attitude toward piracy doesn’t engender much trust. If hamburgers were digital and could be hacked and copied, McDonald’s would long ago have gone out of business–because as we all know, hamburgers want to be free, just like information.)
But the lawyers aren’t solely to blame for losing control of your viewing life.
Plug in a DVD, and as often as not, it will go straight to trailers–or other warnings about piracy–while deactivating your skip or chapter controls. The display on the screen, when these useless buttons are pressed, should read, “Sorry, schmuck. The ad department says if we don’t force you to watch these things, you’ll just skip them. So here goes. But wait–you say you bought this disc of Pinocchio twenty years ago, and those movies in the trailers have long since come and gone…? Well, that means you didn’t buy the latest digitally enhanced transfer on Super Triple Def DVD, available for a limited time only…”
Pfaah.
As for production credits–real flesh and blood people labor long and hard on movies and TV shows. They are frequently well paid, but credit is part of their pay, as well. When those credits are truncated, sped up, shrunk to a crawl, and supered over with commercials or promos…
That’s a crime.
I’ve probably spent six or eight months of my life being warned by the FBI not to steal this disc that I’ve already rented or purchased. I think the lawyers can assume that every human being on the planet who watches movies knows the text of their warning by heart.
Interpol may have expressed interest, but I do not.
Give it a rest. And get the technical details right. And give control of our viewing experience back to the audience that pays your way.
Coming soon to Kicky Baby: The Great Nipple and F-word shortage of 1940.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I’ve been hearing a similar rant from my Wife since we bought our HD TV a year ago, and then the Cable Company and TV stations saying they were going Digital, on the assigned date.
Her worst gripes currently are with THE SyFy (feh) Channel, the local CW affiliate that aires Supernatural (the whole station hasn’t gone digital yet, and their analog broadcast is streaky on a HD TV) and the ENTIRE RUN of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION which is in Syndication again on two different cable channels: and the copies that are being run are incredibly NON DIGITAL.
As to Cable TV going Extinct once we all get Fiber Internet to our Front Door…don’t know about that…the Electronic Camp Fire has firmly established itself in Modern Life, and it’s some times a communion experience for various people around the country to gather by their TVs at the same time (though TiVo and DVR is changing that for many viewers, freeing them from time-bound viewing).
“Radio” hasn’t gone away completely, and is still with us, as it’s something that keeps folks connected but they don’t have to look at it. PodCasting of radio shows may also breathe new life into the media, as there are three Radio Programs that air at hours I am asleep, from different parts of the country, that I otherwise would not hear. I do think our Cable TV experiences will eventually become a bit more interactive than they currently are, but will probably not be driven exitinct by Internet Only Media Delivery, which right now tends to be an “individual” esperience….though the HP Media Centre PC I bought for the Wife two years ago was bought with the intention of being a “Back UP” for the TV/Cable if those should go out.
MG
May 1st, 2009 at 8:32 pm
I’ve becoming a fan of your work. I read Eon a long time ago, and will reread it as I’ve forgotten much about it (I seem to correlate it with Rendevouz with Rama).
Recently, I’ve read, in order: Quantico (and looking forward to its sequel), Forge Of God (to which I’ll follow up with Anvil of Stars), and Darwin’s Children (while I enjoyed it, I don’t think I’ll read its predecessor, though).
Thanks for the hard sci-fi!
Brian
May 5th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Bravo! for you point about film credits. I’ve so often been accused of insanity for staying in my theater seat until the lights go up (if people have no respect for the cast and crew, might they at least hear out the composer? “End Credits” is often one of a score’s best tracks).
TV verses Net: it’ll all come down to the Bradbury “Wall” eventually, I guess–and that’ll be every wall, and floors and ceilings too. Spray-on LCD? “Show Me: (fill in the blank).”
I’m not above occasional fast food. I wonder if I’ll ever go into a McDonald’s again, without the words hovering in my mind: “Hamburgers want to be free, just like information!”
May 6th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I’ve been a fan of your work for a long time, but reading Quantico recently was an entirely different experience. This book felt much less focused on the science, and more on the fiction.
Not a bad thing in this case, as this thriller was nearly impossible for me to put down. It also read very cinematically. I could absolutely envision a screenwriter adapting this for the movies.
I’m excited to read that you’re completing a sequel. Yay! And thanks.
Tom Levy
May 7th, 2009 at 1:45 am
As you live in the US, you have to put up with US TV’s technical standards, Greg. We in the UK have had 625 lines for years, and are consequently used to much better picture definition. Now we are switching from analogue to digital it’s better still, and for those of us with the right equipment (true, a minority at the moment) there is access to the new HD channels.
These, however, are not making as much difference as HD is in the States - for the simple reason that our pre-HD picture wasn’t that bad to start off with.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
The post made me chuckle quite a bit. Sums up a general frustration many have.
I for one see “electronic piracy” less as a crime than an indication of failed methodology–and a bit about what it means when you’ve held an audience hostage (much less captive) against their will.
On the positive note one of the awesome shifts that has happened recently is Netflix’s increasing library of on-demand movies. In fact… Netflix has made the concept of owning movies nearly obsolete for me. No weird trailers, no FBI warnings… except for mail-delivered DVDs.
The streaming technology they’ve created for their inexpensive pay-service is one evolutionary step to me. It’s also counter to something that companies like Microsoft still haven’t learned–nickel-and-diming is just a lousy solution.