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Author Topic: Casablanca on TCM Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-28-2009 07:31 PM                        So, caught about an hour of Casablanca on TCM today. It looked like it was made from a used release print. Black dirt, a couple of film tears, white scratches and what looked like a chunk of film stuck to the print. Looks like a washed out 3rd generation copy. Has this film never been restored for DVD? It's Warners and one of their big money makers, and Turner owns (owned?) it for awhile. We showed the Turner restored film version in 1992, so I'm assuming good negs exist. Why is the print on TCM in such bad shape?  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-28-2009 10:47 PM                        Not only has CASABLANCA been restored for DVD but a very gorgeous Blu-Ray disc was released. I have not seen it but I have heard it is probably the best BD from the classic era. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Joe Tommassello Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 547 From: Coatesville, PA, USA Registered: Jan 2008 posted 11-30-2009 12:26 PM                  The BR is the same transfer as the HD-DVD disc and I can confirm it is magnificent.  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 11-30-2009 01:59 PM                     The HD-DVD version looked Great!  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 11-30-2009 03:58 PM                        I can also confirm that Casablanca on HD DVD is one of the finest transfers I have seen of a classic movie, ever. The Searchers is very close to it. TCM should be embarrassed to play a poor quality version when such a pristine restoration exists! I guess that's why I almost always watch movies on Blu-ray whenver possible. If it's available, I'm willing to wait for it to come from Netflix than watch something with so many compromises as broadcast TV, especially in SD. Don't even get me started on those that are cropped, cut, edited for length, time compressed for TV, etc. etc.  |  IP: Logged Joe Tommassello Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 547 From: Coatesville, PA, USA Registered: Jan 2008 posted 11-30-2009 06:54 PM                  Scott - Funny you mention cropping. Last night I saw a first on TCM. They were showing a silent film which is a common Sunday night practice. After watching the BORING Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame concert on HBO I flipped over to TCM HD to take a peek and...lo and behold...saw my first ever silent movie in beautiful upconverted 16x9 widescreen! I couldn't believe my eyes. Of course the SD TCM channel had it at the correct aspect ratio.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-30-2009 07:18 PM                        I had the great pleasure of watching F.W. Mumau's 1922 film NOSFERATU starring Max Schreck about a month ago shortly after TCM's high definition service became available in Honolulu and I was just amazed how gorgeous the movie looked in HD. It was in it's original aspect ratio and the print was spotless. DIABOLIQUE immediately followed it and it too looked fantastic. I must agree, it is unusual for TCM to show a terrible print of CASABLANCA when there is a magnificent version available. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Karl Borowski Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Sulking in GameFAQ Forum Registered: Sep 2009 posted 11-30-2009 07:50 PM                     Joe, don't even get me started about 16x9 crops or "jilt-and-tilts" as I like to call the vertical analog to "pan-and-scan." And HD 16:9 was supposed to get rid of all this shit. If only someone could travel back in time and bitch-slap Astronaut Ed White during his first space-walk for drifting out of the future wide-screen TV aspect ratio, or machine-gun the American marine who was raising of the flag at Iwo Jima during WWI *so high* so that future generations' television sets would not be compatible with the as-yet-unforseen 16:9 aspect ratio! Remember, too, how when analog TV ended here in the States they secretly added in the proviso that now all SD DTV channels would have to "hard matte" the 4:3 portion to the block in the center of the screen! Now there is a real triumph for modern-day TV cinematographers. It makes for a pleasing photographic composition having to protect for 4:3 and, at the same time, compose out to 16:9. Really really is the worst of both worlds. At least SD-only TV new what they were composing for. I really wonder what sort of butchery awaits reruns of shows that never even anticipated their predecessors would stoop so low. I thought this sort of stuff was a relic of the early SD video days.  |  IP: Logged Joe Tommassello Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 547 From: Coatesville, PA, USA Registered: Jan 2008 posted 12-01-2009 11:34 AM                  I am not surprised this is happening...I was just surprised it happened on TCM since they pride themselves in presenting the OAR. As for the hard-matted 4x3 in the 16x9 HD broadcasts I am in favor of that. Much better than the "panorama" feature my mother likes where the edges are stretched much like a single-strip Cinerama film. I call it "Glaucomavision". She simply refuses to accept that little red button on her remote control that will scroll through the screen settings. She'd rather watch a 1.85 image stretched with black bars on the top and bottom than select the correct setting on the TV. I look forward to the day when all TVs are 16x9 only and everything plays in the intended aspect ratio.  |  IP: Logged Jack Theakston Master Film Handler Posts: 411 From: New York, USA Registered: Sep 2007 posted 12-01-2009 12:14 PM                     Gotta use all that real estate! I'm willing to cut TCM slack for the CASABLANCA screw-up though. They've got multiple masters on a number of titles and sometimes pull the wrong one by accident. It's happened to other films, too. Usually they catch it and mark the tape properly so that it doesn't happen again. I must also add that sometimes, it's not the network that's responsible, but the studio that is supplying them the film. These kinks will eventually get worked out.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-01-2009 02:36 PM                        Well, they are scheduled to play Casablanca again this month as part of their monthlong Bogie-a-thon. Let's hope they pull the right one this time. I know you'll all be watching  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-01-2009 07:10 PM                     quote: Jack Theakston They've got multiple masters on a number of titles and sometimes pull the wrong one by accident. It's happened to other films, too. Usually they catch it and mark the tape properly so that it doesn't happen again. That's not how TCM works, Jack. All Turner networks playout to air off Pinnacle MediaStream servers. Chances are that the copy of Casablanca that they show was transferred in years ago, and has lived as a file on the drives since then. When a film is scheduled to air, the broadcast traffic program that runs the system retrieves the file from whatever high density storage it is kept on and loads it into the playout server for air, and then sends it back when it it finished. Nearly all broadcast and cable networks operate in this manner. Direct tape-to-air is practically non-existant anymore, anywhere. Flip around your dial tonight, and 90% of what you see that is not live and on-camera will be file based. Usually, television rights-holders aren't automatically sent upgraded transfers unless they are specifically requested and paid for.  |  IP: Logged Jack Theakston Master Film Handler Posts: 411 From: New York, USA Registered: Sep 2007 posted 12-01-2009 07:25 PM                     Mark, my understanding is that films have to be loaded into the server from tapes or hard drives, correct? Even if everything is on a server, there's no guarantee that there aren't more than one copies of any given title. THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, for example, has a new transfer that they run regularly, but a crappy old transfer got mixed into the shuffle once.  |  IP: Logged Mark Ogden Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 943 From: Little Falls, N.J. Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-01-2009 09:14 PM                     Sure Jack, I suppose it's possible, if pretty far-fetched. It would be a monumental carelessness, possibly setting up conflicts with file naming. Why they would allow that to happen is beyond me. I mean, whoever programs the channel traffic-wise would have to deliberately pick one file over the other to air each and every time the film ran, they would notice a redundant copy. Knowing what I know about broadcast network operating systems, it's hard to believe they would be that shoddy, allow an inferior file to take up drive space and not delete it when a better transfer is ingested. Pretty poor operational practice.  |  IP: Logged

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