Watch Wing Commander In High Definition (January 12, 2006)

Although channels like Cinemax and FOX have been showing the Wing Commander Movie more often lately, it's been a while since we've spotted the high definition version on tv. HBO, one of the original channels to premiere the HD WC Movie, will be showing it several times this month. This is an exciting opportunity for fans to view the film in much greater detail, since far more people have the hardware to do so than when the HD version originally premiered. Quite a few neat things should reveal themselves when the scenes are shown in 1920x1080 pixels. In addition to the times listed for HBO High Definition, regular HBO, HBO2, HBO Zone, HBO Family and HBO Latino (Freddie Prinze Sr was half Puerto Rican) all list numerous scheduled airings in the near future. The next regular showing will be on HBO Zone Sunday morning. Wingnuts have until Wednesday, January 18, to get their high definition setups ready. Some of us are all set to watch the movie in high def, but archiving a copy or grabbing high resolution screencaps seems a bit tricky. If you'd like to help us out, click the Discuss link below.

In the year 2564, a rookie fighter pilot and his pals hold the fate of the human race in their hands during an outer-space war between humans and a nasty race of aliens. Based on a popular video game. Also with Tcheky Karyo, Jurgen Prochnow (The Seventh Sign), David Suchet and David Warner (Titanic).

Sun 1/15 07:40 AM HBO ZONE - EAST
Sun 1/15 10:40 AM HBO ZONE - WEST
Wed 1/18 04:15 PM HBO - EAST
Wed 1/18 04:15 PM HBO LATINO - EAST
Wed 1/18 04:15 PM HBO High Definition - EAST
Wed 1/18 07:15 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Tue 1/24 11:15 AM HBO High Definition - EAST
Tue 1/24 02:15 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Sat 1/28 06:15 PM HBO High Definition - EAST

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You can find many more show times here.

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Original update published on January 12, 2006

Um...shouldn't that be 2654?

That's just what the HBO people put in the write-up. They're not really big on timeline accuracy when it comes to science fiction shows 600 years in the future. Mixing up the 5 and 6 has been kind of a common thing since before the movie even came out.

Wing Commander in 1080i

Any of you guys in the states going to archive your own copy or indeed have the necessary consumer equipment or HTPC to do so?

Hmm... HBO is cable though isn't it, not OTA (Over The Air) HDTV? ATI have an HD Cablecard in the works, but it won't launch until Microsoft Vista does eventually towards the end of the year. I think that pretty much rules out capturing the movie on a HTPC.

I suppose the other option would be to record the show on a DVD Recorder or TiVO-like device -- the problems being that the DVD Recorder would likely scale the stream to SD resolution, while the hard-disk recorder would probably prevent any external access or transfer to PC, through physical or software lockouts. I've heard from users on another forum I browse that Comcast have a Motorola HD TiVO box, which allows one to transfer HD transport streams and/or recordings via the firewire port to a PC, allow there may be some tweaking involved.

Still, the film should be released at some point on the prevailing HD optical format.

Right on everything pretty much I guess. The PC capture devices won't decode HBO as far as I can tell. There do seem to be a bunch of tivo-like devices that will record in high definition, but they all use firewire in/outs. If you got the movie in there, you could view it on a computer with some generic software if you had a firewire card I think, but the tricky part is getting a cable box with a firewire out. Supposedly cable companies will give you one if you ask, but I don't know about that. For that matter, if you got your cable company to give you a cable box with a firewire output, I think you could just plug that directly into your computer and use one of the recorders that recognizes HD firewire input.

Yeah, it's a pity, but hopefully some Wingnuts will be able to at least watch the HD version and perhaps record it to their TiVo for repreated viewing. This should allow them to make some subjective comparisons with the DVD releases and post some impressions, like "you can actually see the riveting on the hull of the Tiger's Claw" or "The Kilrathi look even more rubbery in the HD version".

Cheers,


BrynS

That one of these moments I wish the people over here would be more open to the new technologie and you could get a good HDTV at a good prize....but we only got these HD ready TVs that aren't even displaying real HDTV but can mostly just process it and rezise it to the TV standart.
For my work in the Bengal model it could be helpfull to see more details.
I just hope that some people will be able to post some screenshots to see the differances.

gevatter Lars said:

That one of these moments I wish the people over here would be more open to the new technologie and you could get a good HDTV at a good prize....but we only got these HD ready TVs that aren't even displaying real HDTV but can mostly just process it and rezise it to the TV standart.
For my work in the Bengal model it could be helpfull to see more details.

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I don't think you'd really use an HDTV for your graphic design though. No matter what country you live in, you can get higher resolution monitors well-suited to that.

BrynS said:

Yeah, it's a pity, but hopefully some Wingnuts will be able to at least watch the HD version and perhaps record it to their TiVo for repreated viewing. This should allow them to make some subjective comparisons with the DVD releases and post some impressions, like "you can actually see the riveting on the hull of the Tiger's Claw" or "The Kilrathi look even more rubbery in the HD version".

Click to expand...

I've seen the suits in person, and they look much better than on tv. Hopefully some of that will come through. It's not about rivets though. There's lots of computer terminals and diagrams and things full of details we can get in the HD version. Clearer shots of all the posters in the pilots' lounge alone would be great.

ChrisReid said:

...It's not about rivets though. There's lots of computer terminals and diagrams and things full of details we can get in the HD version. Clearer shots of all the posters in the pilots' lounge alone would be great.

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Agreed, these areas of the presentation should be a lot more defined in the HD transmission. I don't know what HBO HD broadcasts are usually like, but hopefully they won't scrimp on bandwidth and the transmission will be free of any compression artifacts and blocking for those who manage to watch and hopefully make their own copy.

Cheers,


BrynS

HBO broadcasts in 1080i, so while it isn't as good as a progressive-scan picture, the resolution will make up for it. I'm sure it was a good image for those who had HD capability.