SkyHD pushing HD remasters of classic British films
By Richard Lawler 
posted March 3rd 2008 10:53PM
posted March 3rd 2008 10:53PM
Sir Michael Caine finds HD quality "unforgiving", but we're sure more than a few movie buffs will appreciate a clearer look at classics like Zulu and The Italian Job (not the one with Marky Mark in it) prompted by Sky's need for movies to fill its new HD channels. Of course many films have already been remastered for HD, but as HD adoption grows worldwide, we can look forward to high quality transfers of more international flicks.
The Italian Job (not the one with Marky Mark in it) looks like crap as source material I believe.
I'd love to see a good BluRay of it, but it'll take a lot of restoration. A lot of restoration that likely would never pay back in sales here in the US. So I guess we have to hope we can ride the UKs work (which is easier now that BluRays are format-compatible from here to the UK).
They're TV format compatible, but could potentially be blocked by region coding. Fortunately it seems the studios are using this very sparingly, just to prevent discs from being released into regions where a movie is still showing theatrically.
I agree with you though, that every film released on Blu-ray should have painstaking restoration done on it, so we can get the ultimate in quality that's possible.