"Mastered in High Definition"

I bought Bram Stoker's Dracula today on SD DVD at Wal-Mart for $5.00 (it was in the $5.00 movie bin). When you look on the back and read the specs on it, it says "Mastered in High Definition". What exactely does that mean? I have seen it on other SD DVD I bought also.

Thanks
-JS

All new movies, whether they are originally shot digitally or on regular film stock, are transferred digitally to high-definition hard drives because that's how films are edited these day, digitally at 2K - 5K horizontal scan lines. They are then either printed to regular film-strip reels for playback in conventional motion-picture theaters or sent out on hard drives to theaters that project movies digitally. From the 2K-5K digital masters, the studios can then make 480 standard-definition DVDs or 1080 high-definition discs.

More and more older films are also being archived at 2-5K as well, and films like "Bram Stoker's Dracula" are first mastered from the original film stock to 2-5K digital (thus, the "high definition" reference) and then down-converted to DVD, HD DVD, or Blu-ray.

John

[Post edited by John J. Puccio on Mar 22, 2008]

Thanks for the info John, that answers it all. I know when I bought Terminator it had the same thing on the back.


-JS

FYI...

> Film to High Definition Transfer - from an HD source of resolution/mastering (higher than the 480i of SD-DVD). And industrial video equipment is used in mastering films for home video. While your source is of high-definition, the FORMAT (like that DVD) is not. DVD is very good (in 480p progressive, or 'enhanced definition'), but it's not the same quality obviously as true HD seen in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs.

From the link above...

"Usually when studios master movies for home video release they use assets in high resolution and then master them to 1920×1080 and/or 1280×720. For standard definition applications (e.g., DVD or SDTV), they are also anamorphically compressed and mastered to 720×576 (PAL) and 720×480 (NTSC)."

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Mar 22, 2008]

Thanks LH


-JS

That's odd, I too purchased Dracula from Wal*mart in the $5 bin about a month ago. My daughter has been wanting to see it, as she's at that age where the horror genre is of interest. I also have that "Mastered in Hi-def" on the back of my case! What the hell is going on here! I'm so confused! lol

mmmmmhhhhh, Wal-marts $5 bin...