This starts airing tonight at 9 PM eastern time:

http://www.history.com/content/wwii-in- ... 5-WWII_CNN

Good thing they had High Def cameras back then!

Yes.

World War 1 would look amazing in HD.

HD can be reshot pretty well from analog film, depending on the quality of the reel. Analog exposure didn't pixelate in the same way, so some pre-HD film can look better on our home sets than it could before HD.

But alas, NFL is on, without Peyton vs. Tom.

This was good stuff.

A little known battle of World War 2, captured in HD:

Most films shot on film will have a higher resolution than HD when scanned from the original negative. 35mm film has a maximum of 4096 pixels of horizontal resolution before all that is being scanned is the details of the film's grain. 16mm, which is half of a 35mm frame, has a maximum of 2048 pixels of horizontal resolution. Since 1080 HD has a horizontal resolution of 1920 pixels there will be some extra detail and resolution added over the normal SD horizontal resolution of 720 pixels. They will most likely add black bars to the side in order to keep the 1:33 ratio of the original frame which translates an active picture area of 1440 pixels wide.

You think you're so much smarter than us, don't you?

You sicken me with your "facts" and "information".

The important thing to remember is that if an old film comes out on Blu-ray, it could look much better (if they do a good job on it). It's not the case that they needed better cameras than we have now.

They were shooting for a picture that did not need to be broadcast or taped, and would be projecting straight from film on a huge white screen (and it would still look awesome at that size). So, for example, Lawrence of Arabia probably looked much better to that original movie audience than you have ever seen on video to date.

Plus the condensed size increases the effective resolution for us -- we're watching on a 52" screen something that looked good on a giant movie screen.

I just recently purchased THE WIZARD OF OZ on Blu-ray. I was amazed how a movie that's now 70 years old has so much detail that I've not seen before.

Yeah. The only real advancements in film production are faster film stocks (higher ISO, so less light is needed to get a good exposure) and,the decrease in the size of the film's grain.

I want blu-ray so bad, but I can't afford it.

I have the Wizard of Oz Blu-ray meself.

And Judge Wan, just get a PS3 in the name of science.

I know, I know...

Maybe for Christmas.

I hear that there will be several $100 Blu-ray players offered as part of the big Black Friday sales next week. The discs are becoming more affordable. Many big new releases are now being sold at 19.99 versus six months ago when they were typically going for $25. I've bought many catalog titles for as low as $9.

I've greatly reduced my purchases of disks. Netflix has a "blu-ray" only feature and I use Netflix to see a bunch of awesome looking movies.

I still buy some movies for the kids, because they watch them over and over.

And I buy some movies that I really think are worth, if they are cheap.

I'm in the same boat as you. If I get Blu-Ray, I have to upgrade to a HD TV to get the full benefit...

I've got the 54" HDTV, so I'm OK there.

I love you all for encouraging me to buy a Blu-Ray player.

I want a HDTV, affording one is another matter...

Fixed.