"Remastered to HD"...4:3 aspect ratio?

[90sTV]

I've come across some old music videos on Youtube where they claim they were "remastered to HD," yet they're still in 4:3 aspect ratio. Are they using the "remastered to HD" term differently from what it really means? As in, it's still standard definition, but they went back to masters broadcast tapes, or cleaned stuff up in some program?

[davexnet]

4:3 can still be considered HD, such as the Star Trek TNG Blu-rays. 1080p, 4x3, 1440x1080 resolution

[netmask56]

remastered to HD refers to definition and not aspect ratio.

[manono]

I agree there's nothing wrong or fishy about HD being 1.33:1, something such as 1440x1080. But it is YouTube, after all, and plenty of channels just take SD material, resize it up and call it HD. But HD resolution doesn't necessarily mean HD detail. It's still just blown up SD.

Unless the "remastered to HD" was done by a studio or music company, I'd be very suspicious. And even the media companies can't always be trusted

[orsetto]

Even some '60s TV series have been remastered/restored to HD or near-HD: if it was shot on 35mm film, and shot with at least a little bit of care, its usually capable of HD picture quality (the original Star Trek and other early color series can look pretty amazing). Old MTV music videos or concerts, perhaps not: a lot of them were shot on lower-res tape.

Unfortunately the misconception "HD = widescreen, not 4:3 (blecchh!)" has effectively caused a loss of the full original frame when broadcast via the several popular "nostalgia" channels. To appease viewers who inexplicably vomit the moment they see 4:3, most older shows and music clips are now being cropped at the top and/or bottom to create a half-assed faked almost-wide framing. I don't get why anyone would want this: it wrecks the perspective, reduces resolution, and claustrophobically frames actors from their eyebrows to their waists non-stop. One would think the primary audience for this old stuff remembers what it should look like, and would be annoyed by the obviously bad cropping, but no. This ugly cropping to 4:2 (or whatever the hell the fake ratio is) has become the new standard for viewing vintage 4:3 material. Eventually the trend will spread until nobody will ever see Betty Grable's (or Madonna's) legs again. But hey, can't have no thick black bars on the left and right side "wasting" our 16:9 TV real estate.

[netmask56]

Coming from Australia when HDTV digital TV became common place all 4:3 was and still is shown with black bars either side but certainly could be a high definition restored 35mm print. I must admit on a trip to NY I was shocked that your local TV practices of stretching 4:3 material and apparently only transmitting 4:3 material as SD came as a surprise. We show material in it's original shot aspect ratio even back in days of CRT 4:3 picture tubes. Black bars top and bottom...must admit Ben Hur looked a bit strange!!!

[abolibibelot]

Unfortunately the misconception "HD = widescreen, not 4:3 (blecchh!)" has effectively caused a loss of the full original frame when broadcast via the several popular "nostalgia" channels. To appease viewers who inexplicably vomit the moment they see 4:3, most older shows and music clips are now being cropped at the top and/or bottom to create a half-assed faked almost-wide framing. I don't get why anyone would want this: it wrecks the perspective, reduces resolution, and claustrophobically frames actors from their eyebrows to their waists non-stop. One would think the primary audience for this old stuff remembers what it should look like, and would be annoyed by the obviously bad cropping, but no. This ugly cropping to 4:2 (or whatever the hell the fake ratio is) has become the new standard for viewing vintage 4:3 material. Eventually the trend will spread until nobody will ever see Betty Grable's (or Madonna's) legs again. But hey, can't have no thick black bars on the left and right side "wasting" our 16:9 TV real estate.

Either that, or the aspect ratio is atrociously stretched to fill the frame, causing heads to look like watermelons. Or both butchering methods are employed at the same time, for someone probably thought that it would be a good compromise. In some instances it would seem like the method changes from shot to shot, which must be a helluva lotta completely pointless work.
Strangely, “pillarbox” borders are perceived as “bad”, while people have long been used to “letterbox” borders or even considered them a hallmark of quality. I had a friend from Algeria long ago who genuinely thought that large black borders at the top and bottom of the TV screen were indicative of a “good” movie, and the larger the borders, the better the movie. (He also thought that the french word “paradoxalement”, meaning “paradoxically”, referred to some mysterious “german paradox”, which would be “paradoxe allemand”, pronunced the same in colloquial speech... And yet that dude was astonishingly “street-smart”. Lost contact more than 12 years ago, wonder what became of him.)

...and claustrophobically frames actors from their eyebrows to their waists