Remastering movies to high definition quality?

Film is the ultimate high definition.. so it will depend on the quality of the originals.

12-22megapixel digital cameras are just getting to quality level of 35mm film.

the answer is yes, if 1. the formats or at at least one, stick around...and 2. If the original film elements are in pristine condition to begin with. 'some' films look as good as they are ever gonna look right now. the quality of ra negatives is all over the place, and in some cases companies cheat and use inferior source material. crap+hi def=supercrap. the hi def format exposes flaws, and the money invested to fix those flaws is a great deal more than the standard def. also, there are no remastering industry standards for the audio, so its possible to use the dts logo, and really make no changes to the audio, from the previous version. the porn industry has adopted HDDVD, so if we look at the history of vhs vs beta, etc, the eventual winner is always the one without censorship. As of this moment, sony censors content. so far both hardware formats are not setting the world on fire. even best buy is cautious, and not carrying many software titles. this is not a good sign, at least for the near term.

Jaybo: Yeah it was interesting to read about the CES/Porn conventions and how Sony refused to allow any of their US blueray manufactures to duplicate porn, so they have gone to HD-DVD... the Porn industry is what killed betamax, so Sony is going to mindisc/betmax/SACD it's technology again. They also said that the hardware to create bluerays is stupid money and that little shops will not be able to produce movies cheaply.

I love my HD-DVD player.. it totally blows away my HD cable. My player has its glitches but who cares for under $500 and the output is so amazing.. it's like when I adopted laserdisc when DVD's looked awful.. If you have a 103" you really appreciate the extra resolution and I will go 1080p on my project before the year ends..

The format war will continue but after using HD-DVD I won't buy another standard def DVD... I might even considering doing netflix since they have 150 HD-DVD titles currently for no difference in rental fees.

sony is doomed to failure. historically, its 'their thing'. once the average consumer figures this out, hddvd will have an open field. censorship and new media don't mix.

Thanks for your input everyone! Looks like some purchases will still be on hold for me.
Cytocycle: The Netflix news was great as I was not aware of their HD movie selection. Does this mean that Netflix is only backing HD-DVD?
Jaybo: Very informative information. What percent chance would you then give to HDDVD in comparison to BlueRay?

Netflix and Blockbuster (online) have both BlueRay and HD-DVD but blueray disk's have like 1/10th the resistence to scratches so the rental market on those should be filled with great fun.

If you have a big display (projector) I think it's a must spend $500 but if you have a 50" or less tv and you are sitting more than 8' away it's not as important..

2 of my friends have also made the plunge and are amazed and have no regrets as to the cost associated of the player based on the huge benifits.

Yes they did ....