CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

I'm cheap--super cheap!

Back in the day I never subscribed to movie stations--just rent the DVD better quality, etc.

Then came HD and no other way to get movies in HD. So, I have every single HD movie station you can get and I archive the HD movies. This has served me well. I have many movies in HD that are still not available in HD to this day, notables being:
The Incredibles (OAR)
All 6 Star Wars (OAR)
All 4 Alien

On top of this I have SEVERAL (OK, about 30) kids movies that are still not available on BD or HD DVD.

However, with the trickle of BD for new releases and Blockbuster/Netflix as well as most of the movie stations pan and scanning scope movies, I find myself renting more BDs and recording less from HD movie stations. I tend to mostly record kids stuff since we'll watch it a couple times and a $2.50 tape is cheaper than the $5 rental from my local BB.

Given this trend, it seems that paying $50/month for HD movie channels is really hitting the diminishing returns category.

Does anyone know what the HD Movie channel vs. BD trend is looking like?

TechToys · Guest

If HBO shows Star Wars in HD and it isn't available in HD, aren't they just upscaling it before broadcasting? Why is that better than just upscaling the DVD on a BluRay or HD-DVD player?

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

TechToys · Guest

OK. That makes more sense to me now.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:29 pm Post subject:

Dave - We, too have been renting BD more and watching HBO and Showtime less. We've talked about canceling, too.

Since DirecTV "upgraded" my equipment and is phasing out MPEG2, I can't archive, either. Maybe down the road...

SC

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

I wouldn't pay for a premium movie channel that refused to respect the OAR of the movie. I always adopted the HBno position.

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

Wanman, "n't".

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

Person99 wrote:
> I'm cheap--super cheap! <

Ditto.

> Back in the day I never subscribed to movie stations--just rent the DVD better quality, etc. <

Yep. DVDs were usually vastly superior to any broadcast format, even high-quality BUD sources. That's why I accumulated a library of 1,500-2,000 (depending on how you count boxed sets), before HD arrived here via a quality cable source. (I had 0 interest in pizza-pan delivered "HD". Which has continued to decline in quality.)

> Then came HD and no other way to get movies in HD. <

Yep again. And though BD is now a better quality choice, the selection has still got a long way to go. Delays to get films you want are likely to be painful. I don't know exact numbers, but I suspect BD is less than 500 films, and not growing very rapidly. I already have >5,000 HD films, from unmolested cable sources, so the data rates are decent to good. And that's still growing at ~3 TB/month (though that's not all films... it includes episodic series and HD concerts).

> So, I have every single HD movie station you can get and I archive the HD movies. This has served me well. I have many movies in HD that are still not available in HD to this day, notables being: <

Yep again. Though I don't have every HD movie station, unfortunately. The main one I miss is MGM-HD. Interesting to hear you've got MovieCentral, MoviePixHD, TMN-HD, and the PPV-HD channels out of Canada. I've never set that up... mainly because most are redundent with US offerings, and also, at least on BEV, most seemed to be downconverted to 720p. Are they still doing that?

> with the trickle of BD for new releases and Blockbuster/Netflix as well as most of the movie stations pan and scanning scope movies, I find myself renting more BDs and recording less from HD movie stations. <

Not here. I agree with the disappointment of some "premium" channels doing P&S to scope films (actually, it's usually just a non-panning center-crop). However, many recent scope films were done in Super35, and are aired at 1.78 in open-matte. I can live with that, and even convert them back to scope if I like. Also, HDNet Movies is always OAR. Showtime and Universal HD are usually OAR (though both are sadly sparse in new films). Starz is about 50/50 OAR, thogh the newest stuff seems to tend towards crop/open-matte. HBO/Max are usually cropped or open-matte, though I've got quite a few unique films (never shown elsewhere) in true OAR from the evil HBO/MAX empire.

> Given this trend, it seems that paying $50/month for HD movie channels is really hitting the diminishing returns category. <

I continuously monitor and evaluate that, and I haven't reached that point yet. It may come though.

> Does anyone know what the HD Movie channel vs. BD trend is looking like? <

Well, BD isn't ramping up at anywhere near the rate its promoters would like to see. The HD Movie channels are still releasing far more films (even recent ones, not counting older classic films coming out on both HDNet and Cinemax). The main PQ issue there is with action-films, and macroblocking on intense/rapid change scenes, due to limited bitrates (max 14 MBit/sec on HBO/MAX, and 17 MBit/sec on HDNet Movies).

The big downside is that the majority of the newest films are exclusive to HBO/Max for now... and we know their track-record on OAR. Sad

So that's the biggest disappointment, for me.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

> When do you have time to WATCH all that content? <

Gary, you pinpointed my main problem. It's on my ToDo list. Wink

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

I just got comcast (hate it) and they threw in HBO, and SHO. Other than Entourage, which i LOVE, there aint nothing on...

Save your monthly fees and buy Blu-Ray's !! Wink

MikeEby · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 5237 Location: Osceola, Indiana

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

Dang. I keep forgetting to manually tag topics i've posted in, and then lose track of them. Anyway...

MikeEby commented:
> The MP4 PQ isn't really too bad, it's not Blu-ray but still very decent. <

Yes, I agree. I knock the mini-dishes, but MP4 offers the possibility of significant improvements. I can always hope.

Dave,
thanks for the Verizon FiOS list. That certainly puts my cable lineup to shame. OTOH, I did a quick check the other day when they notified me they'd be moving the bulk of the HD channels to another tier, and charging me an extra $36/month for them! I said, "adios, muchachos!". I honestly could get by fine with just 3 (pay) HD channels: Cinemax for mostly recent films, HDNet movies for mostly older classics, and HDNet for SciFi-type series and HD concerts.

Thanks also for the full list of Super35 films. That could come in handy, and the last time I checked IMDB, they didn't have it so well organized.

> OK, smart guy. <

Thanks for the compliment, and your erudite observation. Wink

> my point is, this does seem like and increasingly small number, is that not your impression? <

Yeah, I suppose so. Here's a raw list of all I grabbed in the last week or so...

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

But who cares about movie channels that chop up the movie's original aspect ratio? Its not like you are getting the entire picture.

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

WanMan,

that's a good point. And one reason why I log the ARs. I always replace cropped recording with OAR whenever possible. I also always replace UniversalHD recordings, due to their very low bit-rates. I also replace recent Showtime recordings, when an opportunity comes along on HDNet Movies, because of the omnipresent logo on SHO airings.

OTOH, some stuff I don't care quite so much. I.e., comedies like "Mad Money" above I seem to tolerate better, but that one was Super35, so it may have been open-matte. Whereas "The Boston Strangler" suffers from being cropped. "House of Bamboo" especially so, since I just noticed its OAR was 2.55. This is when I really get annoyed at HBO/MAX, because they usually tease you by starting out in OAR (because zooming would be obvious due to the chopped off titles) then abandon OAR when there's "only" the movie content to destroy. !?!?!?

As it turns out, HoBamboo is something I'd like to watch, so I record what I can get, rather than turn my nose up at it. OTOH, I'm just as likely to seek out the SD-DVD, and watch the _whole_ movie upconverted, than watch a butchered version in "HD".

One flaw in your argument though is that "movie channels that chop up", don't do so on every film. So a blanket condemnation isn't possible.

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4899 Location: Flower Mound, TX

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

Person99 commented:
> perhaps if I were a 15 year old boy that masturbated to the Victoria's Secret catalog these would have appeal. <

Ah, Dave. You have such a cordial way of expressing yourself. Rolling Eyes

Far be it from you to infer that anyone who appreciated the female form or beauty of expression, and exotic locations must, without any doubt, be an immature degenerate wanker.

> I'm not sure how your service works, but for us UHD is part of the general "HD" tier. <

Yeah, same here. Though in 25 days, Charter is pulling 13 of the 18 channels in the "HD View" tier, leaving _5_ and thereby justifying its renaming to "HD Ultra View". Confused

Anyone wanting to get them back (not me) can do so for "only" an extra $36/month. With their multiple rate increases this year, and tier transitions, they're doing an excellent job of drumming up customers... for their competitors.

However, as I indicated, it was a raw list, and I included UHD simply because they do air uncut, OAR films (though no longer w/o commercial interruptions). Also, while not all are keepers, and some I may never even get around to watching, at <$2 each (media + cable cost), I can afford the luxury of archiving a few less august films, for when the mood strikes, or an audience here requests it. Variety is the spice of life, and all that.

[I'd also like to mention in passing that I've occasionally found myself quite surprised by films in the past. I.e., some that I would never have guessed by their writeups would be worth my time, proved to be quite enjoyable. And some others that I anticipated with great expectations turned out to be huge disappointments I'd never watch again. The point being that you can't always judge a film without seeing (at least part of) it. Unless, of course, it's a Lorenzo Lamas action flic. Mr. Green

That's a no-brainer.]

> At best I saw a couple, <

Well, it WAS only a 1 week sample. So that would imply perhaps 8 a month. BTW, feel free to name them. That will afford us the opportunity to heap ridicule and opprobriation on your selections. Wink

Next time, I'll try and cull my list down to RIFTDAMNS, to mitigate your scorn. (*)

> Actually, your list has help[ed] to confirm my suspicion. <

Great! Glad to be of assistance.

- Tim

(*) Really Intelligent Films That Dave Admits Might Not Suck