It's A Wonderful Life on NBC - STILL in SD

There was another thread on this from years ago which has been closed, but here we in in 2016 and NBC is still running this in SD.

There's been a wonderful HD mastering available for years on home video, why is this happening?

 

Wow... There really is no excuse for this in 2016.

 

because they don't care...with the beautiful home video version it's moot in SD, with commercials, and probably cut.

 

It's NBC. Nobody cares, because nobody's watching it there.

 

It's on for people that are doing other things. Decorating the tree, etc. Not for serious watching. It's Saturday night. They don't care.

 

This. It's sort of the equivalent to the video yule log.

 

Maybe the network just chooses to do it this way instead of doing it in HD.

 

It's almost as bad as what they did to the 50th anniversary of "Mr. Magoo's A Christmas Carol" back in 2012, they aired it like an afterthought...

 

Commercial break every two seconds. Grrrrr.

The sad part is the film is best seen in SD since the HD master was done in the DVD era and is degrained quite a bit. I prefer the old transfers which also have better audio. In fact the old Criterion laserdisc looks exactly like the prints that play at art houses these days.

 

I'm guessing that you're in the minority opinion here...

 

Really? The Blu Ray doesn't look good?
I bought it last year but haven't watched it yet.

 

It looks spectacular.

 

This.

For a classic like IAWL, I wouldn't even bother watching it on broadcast television any more than I would Gone With the Wind or the Wizard of Oz. Those days are long over.

 

Anything other then a sporting event or news I don't watch live anymore. No point to it. If it's got commercials in it, I DVR it then skip right through them. Movies especially make no sense.

 

Of course, but this type of showing allows for newcomers to come across it by accident, like many of us originally did....a reminder of how the film became a late-blooming classic in the first place.

 

Right, but if that happened to me I'd simply DVR it and then watch it later skipping through the commercials. Unless, as I indicated earlier, it was simply on as background entertainment while doing something else.

 

Doesn't work that way anymore. Needs to go on Netflix.

 

A very romantic outlook that I'm afraid no longer holds up in an internet / social media world. Too many quotes / memes / adaptations / references to George, an Angel getting his wings, etc. Not to mention older relatives discussing it in front of children, and teens.
It's NBC. Nobody's really paying attention anymore.
Let it go.
.

 

There are at least 20 different ways to degrain nowadays. Which of them specifically do you dislike?

To me, a knob is just a knob. You have to know whether to turn it to "11", turn it down to nothing, or go some where in between. I think the key for a movie of this period is to have a reasonable amount of grain but not an excessive amount. Nobody wants it to be completely grain-free, because it robs some of the life out of it. And by the way, grain reduction (and grain management) can be done to the point where it's not noticeable. I'd point to Citizen Kane as an example of a 1940s film done very well. Ditto with Wizard of Oz (albeit from 1939). Both were remastered by Warner MPI in Burbank.

 

I suspect the attitude goes something like this: "It's black and white, nobody but old people will watch a b&w movie, and most of them still have their old SD TVs anyway, so who cares?" If you want to confirm this, check the demographics on the commercials they run during the movie.

Hell, I can't even get TCM HD on Verizon FIOS despite Comcast having it available for years now. They'd prefer I go with the latest Marvel abomination for $9 on their On Demand service.

 

I'm going to post a very minor disagreement, actually more of a personal opinion. The remaster looks truly great. It's like I'm right there on the set with Dorothy and Toto. But, I don't WANT to be right there on the set with Dorothy and Toto. I want to be in OZ! I prefer my old VHS for that reason, it's a step removed. I think too much reality in a film that is 100% fantasy is distracting, and takes something away from it.

 

Film grain and a soft picture aren't reality. A lack of grain and a sharp picture don't detract from the fantasy. I think you're confusing a degradation in quality with a benefit.

 

Regarding NBC showing it in SD, I think assuming they thought about it and decided "Meh, who cares, people won't mind" is actually probably assuming they put more thought into it than they actually did. They probably just grabbed whatever version they had most easily accessible, or just grabbed the first version they looked for.

As for the "someone will come across this randomly and discover it on TV", while it's easy (and ultimately correct) to point out how many people use Netflix and Hulu and the like (where, it should be noted, they *can't* stumble across it in progress and would have to *choose* to watch it, which makes "discovering" a film or TV show a much different process, for better and worse), it's not as if *nobody* is left watching actual cable or broadcast TV live. I rarely watch it, and extremely rarely watch it live. But stuff still *can* be discovered on TV. Some younger (ish) person could be visiting their parents who have it on TV in the background, etc.

 

I just pop in the BD and enjoy.

 

This is such a great movie that I can't imagine ever watching it with commercial interruptions, time compression, and edits.

Do your family a favor and just buy it on Blu-Ray or DVD and watch the whole movie uninterrupted and unedited as it was meant to be seen.