WWIIinHD

[N80]

Yes, there was color film and from what I understand all the footage in the WWII in Color was original color film. Ted Turner had a number of B&W movies and war footage "colorized" but that was an artificial process and looked really bad. The actual color film shot in WWII is really remarkable. I tend to think of that war in B&W. Seeing it in color seems to bring the reality of it home for those of us who grew up with 'color'. (We got our first color TV when I was 7).

Anyway, yes, the think the HD process is computer based. Some sort of scanning technique. I guess that if previous scans of the tiny 16mm film frames were only done to suit the resolution of average TV screens (72 pixels per inch or less, I'm guessing) then I suppose scanning at higher resolution for the higher resolution HD TVs would give better results.....but still, 'high def' seems like a stretch.

Regardless, I love watching any old WWII footage.

 

[Western]

I thought color did'nt come till the 60's? or was that just the tv technology?

 

[N80]

I'm not sure when color film came out but it was prior to 1939, which is when the Wizard of Oz came out. A quick trip over to Wikipedia shows that the topic is complicated. The Wizard of Oz was film in Technicolor which is a three strip film process. However, Kodachrome 16mm film came out in 1935 and was probably what was used in WWII, but that's just a guess.

Interestingly, there are color still images from WWI. So the process has been around for a long time. I imagine that in WWII the film, film handling and storage and processing was expensive and difficult. So it is clear that someone felt that it was worth the effort and money....and it was.

Also, on these TV series, they show a fair amount of color film shot by the Germans and a small amount shot by the Japanese.

Today is a great day to be thankful for what all of our WWII vets did for us and what our current troops are doing for us now. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

[hitekcountry]

Speaking of hallowed ground from WWII, I think of the town in France that I saw when I was there a few years ago. The name of the town is Oradour Sur Glane. I don't know if many people in the US have ever heard of it, I know I had not before my visit there.

Oradour Sur Glane is a town where on June 10 1944 German solders massacred everyone they could find in the town, killing 642 men women and children then burned the entire town to the ground with all the people in it. It has been left in the condition it was found after the massacre so that people will never forget. It is now a memorial to those who were murdered there.

Walking through that town is a very sobering experience, it will cause you to reflect on mans ability for cruelty towards his fellow man.

 

[jimmyj]

it will cause you to reflect on mans ability for cruelty towards his fellow man.

A frighteningly accurate statement that sadly does not seem to change over time.

 

[dmccarty]

For some reason I have not watched this series. My first guess when I saw that the adverts for the show was that a good bit of the film used was Kodachrome due to its archival qualities. But I don't know but I want to know.

I do know that Kodachrome was used during the war. Seems like I read a reference to it in the back of a book about Tarawa. Since I extensively used Kodachrome for years, Kodachrome is Dead, Long live Kodachrome, the tid bit of information about Tarawa stuck out to me.

The last batch of Kodachrome was made last summer and should be mostly gone from the stores at this point.

But I still use my Nikon lenses from my film cameras on my DSLRs!

Later,
Dan

 

[Chuck52]

The resolution of film can be amazing. I wouldn't think that a high definition TV would push the film limit. They probably mainly just worked on the steps to transfer the recorded image to the broadcast format, and didn't need to enhance the actual recorded images all that much, at least for the films that had been well taken care of.

Chuck

 

[twarr1]

I've been watching it too and enjoying it. I've seen most, but not all of the footage. Just curious though, but how is this "HD". I imagine most of that footage was 16mm film, maybe some 35mm but I doubt it. How can you make something high definition that wasn't high def to begin with. In other words, you can't improve on resolution that isn't there. Unless I'm missing something the "HD" thing is a gimmick.

"HD" itself is the gimmick. Real film has essential unlimited resolution. It's when the film is "digitized" that losses occur. There is just less "loss" with HD.
I agree with you if the new show was re-recorded from the original broadcast tapes there can't be any improvement. But if the are digitized from the original films then they can achieve "HD" quality. (Which is still way lower "resolution" than the original film)

 

[JB4310]

Supposedly the Russians got alot of footage from their angle, most of which has never been seen. Don't know if any of that is in color