Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 'The American Civil War" picture quality on video

This is topic 'The American Civil War" picture quality on video in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 02-21-2003, 05:35 PM:

I have a PAL VHS copy of Ken Burns' 'The American Civil War', three cases, six cassettes, nine episodes, and the picture quality in the modern interviews is poor, in places it looks like a third generation pirate copy, which it isn't. Is there a reason for this, have I just got a bad copy, or are they all like this? Has it been put through a bad standards converter?

I saw the work when it was broadcast here, but I can't remrember what the picture quality was like then.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-21-2003, 05:59 PM:

Stephen,

I had the complete Ken Burn's "CIVIL WAR" on laserdiscs once but sold the set to a friend when I found out that it was comong out on DVD. The DVD is out now and I have it and the quality is much better than the laser. I do not know if the title was released in Region two where you are on DVD yet but if it has not, you might consider getting a multi region DVD player and order a Region One copy. If you like it as much as I do, I promise it will be worth the effort.

-Claude

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-25-2003, 03:47 PM:

"The Civil War" was remastered from the original 1989 16mm film footage, so the new release is much better quality:

http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/film/remaster.html

http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/film/remaster-kb.html

The quality was always in the film negative, but the scanning technology has improved tremendously since. Many new transfers offer much better quality than transfers made even a few years ago.