So were any movies filmed before the digital era first released once digital cinema was viable? And were any TV shows shot on film at that time first released or broadcast once there was high definition television*? Note this discussion is only about professional content and only content shot in high definition. It does include content (other than amateur films) that was neither made for broadcast nor cinema if it was not released until it could be released on Blu-ray. *In this day and age, 480 lines of resolution is no longer standard definition, maybe 1080 lines is.
Orson Welles' The Other Side Of The Wind took about 40 years to be released, as the movie got into legal hellhole during post-production for decades. Netflix finally shelled out money to sort out the mess and finish the post-production. Wikipedia article has a great summary of the mess: The Other Side of the Wind - Wikipedia Just browse to "Legal difficulties". You might be searching movies or tv-shows shelved due technological reasons, which I can't think of any.
This is an example of a movie made before digital cinema was viable but not released until it was viable. Digital cinema has only been viable since the early 2000s.
Yeah, Dark Blood with River Phoenix is another one, it was mostly filmed when he died in 1993, but a few key scenes weren't yet filmed so the movie was not finished at the time, till 2011 when the director edited the movie together, and it was shown in a few different film festivals, before being released on DVD in Germany in 2018. When it comes to TV-shows, as far as I know, most American TV-shows have been shot on film, outside of soap operas, tv-broadcasts, daily tv-shows (like talk-shows) etc. I know one of my favorite tv-shows The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. was shot on 32m film, but it doesn't have HD release. MacGyver was also shot on film, and it has blu-ray release, same with some other tv-shows from the 60s-90s, like X-Files, Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation etc. But I don't know any tv-show which would have been filmed, but never broadcast before the HD-televisions. One of the early 90s TV-shows I'd love to see HD release of is Silk Stalkings, it was shot on 16mm film according to IMDB, and it was very colorful show so it would look very good in HD.
