MovieChat Forums > House of Cards (1991) Discussion > The video quality is beyond terrible for...

The video quality is beyond terrible for the time

posted 8 years ago by intothevoid297
6 replies | jump to latest

This looks like it was filmed in the 60s. I had to double check and make sure I was watching the correct show and it did indeed say the 90s. Is this what Brits thought of as acceptable quality? Were they unaware of how much better American television looked?

Also, Netflix has this show cropped to 16:9 so it looks zoomed in which is super annoying. They should leave shows originally filmed in 4:3 alone, unless they can make it 16:9 without cropping it (like what they did with The Wire).

[–] amyghost 8 years ago

BBC has always been notorious for tight budgets. They don't seem to allocate much for film stock, so even their classiest productions don't tend to look all that posh film-wise, and sadly they tend not to transfer well to home video. 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' is even worse transfer quality than HoC. And you definitely need to see the series in its original 4:3 format, 16:9 simply rapes the visuals.

[–] Kinomachtfrei 8 years ago

It's interesting, however, when this works to a program's advantage.
I viewed a number of the Jeremy Brett-Sherlock Holmes discs, and then finally watched the final series, (Memoirs), which seemed to be shot at far higher resolution.

At first it looked so cheap and it took me a moment to realize that the higher resolution simply betrayed poor lighting and overdone make-up. On Brett at times it looks like product placement for Max Factor. Of course Brett was quite ill by that time and perhaps there was actually more make up, but the lighting still annoys.

I haven't done any A-B comparisons with the earlier series, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, or can explain it another way.

[–] ironjade 8 years ago

It looks like it was shot on 16mm or Super16mm.

"Say it with flowers . . . give her a Triffid."

[–] kurt7825 8 years ago

the blu ray is excellent

[–] amyghost 8 years ago

I have it on regular DVD and the quality looks pretty decent to me.

[–] LucasCulas 7 years ago

Blame Netflix, the blu-ray quality is amazing.