Can Old Black and White Movies Look Good in 720p

From a personal standpoint, one of the most frustrating things I hear, in regards to preferences in a film, is that some people dislike films simply because it is in black and white. Because old films aren’t worth their time. Because black and white is old-fashioned, and therefore too outdated for us to watch when you could watch a photo-realistic CGI move and are able to view everything in picture-perfect HD.

The Columbia Classics Volume 1 set has Mr Smith Goes to Washington on 4K UHD (the same set as Dr Strangelove) and it looks sublime - everything you would have hoped for: fine detail, grain wonderfully managed, superb contrast ratio, etc. If you just cast your net forward a decade, there are a number of great 50's films that also look brilliant - the recent Hitchcock Collection has Vertigo in which frankly is one of the best looking 4K transfers around.

Quote: Originally Posted by rboster /forum/post/0 Yes, they do benefit from the higher resolution. What is HD suppose to look like that B&W films wouldn't benefit from the additional lines of resolution?

Perhaps film grain (which is more noticeable at higher resolutions) is affecting our judgment? Perhaps they used a crummy source for the video. Perhaps they used the wrong encoding optimizations. ... Common sense suggests that the difference will be little, if any, if you are viewing a small TV from a long way away. If you have a large TV, and sit close to it, the difference between 1080p and 720p (or even 720i on non-progressive-scan TV's) will be much more noticeable.

How-to Geek has a great write-up on how the process works and the inherent flaws in the early days of “digital restoration.” Here’s a good example of DVD-quality remastering vs. Blu-ray. ... The above screen capture doesn’t even show off the true potential for detail the 65mm film master can provide. A future remastering of the film coupled with a large 4K HDTV set could yield a viewing experience that lets you count the creases in bridles and the hairs on the horses’ heads. So to put that in perspective, if you’re watching an old “HD” DVD of your favorite movie (or ripping it online), you’re several steps removed from the original recording.

The enhanced results make it perfect ... sacrificing quality. For old black-and-white movies, you can not only improve their quality to the next level but also colorize them to bring them back to life again....

When filmmakers re-release a color film in black and white, claiming it was always intended this way, it can sometimes feel disingenuous to audiences. In contrast, take Mank, David Fincher’s black-and-white film for Netflix.

Why do modern directors and cinematographers choose black and white for features?

Contrasting the point above, black and white can also be used to make scenes feel more real. In the color film era, directors use black and white in big-budget movies to achieve a certain counterintuitive realism, a documentary quality that recalls historical photographs, as is done inThe Elephant Man, Ed Wood, and Goodnight, and Good Luck.