Seinfield Hits TBS-HD in HD

Sure, anyone can upconvert anything to air on an HD station. However, TBS-HD just started airing syndicated episodes of Seinfeld in HD. How is that possible, when HD was in its infancy when it was shot? Like many sitcoms, Seinfeld was shot on 35mm film.  Sony has gone back to the vaults to bring Seinfeld, in all its wacky glory, to TBS-HD. Sony's gone back to the original 35mm films to bring this back in true HD, without stretching or, heaven-forbid, letter-boxing.

It appears that they're compromising, using some cropping and using the TV-safe sections that were normally cropped during the conversion from film to TV screen sizes.

Here's a link to a fascinating thread on AVS Forum. It starts back when TBS in HD was just announced, but it's a buzz today as folks notice the new syndicated HD episodes. There are also some good screen shots to compare.

Yada, yada, yada. -Leslie Shapiro

AVS Forum

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