High Definition DVD

Learn more about HD at our HD Explained page.

Currently, none of the DVDs on Vat19.com are native HD.

So, why do we have "Shot in HD" on the following DVDs?

We put the "Shot in HD" logo on those DVDs because we shot those DVDs with a high definition camera. So, we started with 1080i footage (which is about 2X sharper than footage created with a 720p camera) and downconverted it for usage on a standard DVD player.

An HD camera is going to capture a higher level of detail than a standard television camera. It's also why a DVD that was originally shot on film looks better than your cousin's home video footage shot on his HandyCam. The better the camera (and lighting), the better the resulting image, regardless of the final output format.

So, your DVDs are not HD?

No, none of our DVDs are native high definition. They are standard DVDs that will play on any DVD player. If you have a BluRay or HD-DVD player, all of our DVDs will play in your player. However, they are not native BluRay or HD-DVD.

So, your DVDs aren't going to look HD on my HDTV?

They're not going to look any better or any worse than any other DVD movie that you watch on your HD-TV. If you have a progressive scan DVD player that upconverts the signal, you'll find that the quality is quite excellent.

Remember, it's the quality of the lighting and the camera that are going to determine the fidelity of the image. Someone equipped with a $250,000 camera who doesn't know the first thing about lighting isn't going to produce an attractive image. Give a trained cinematographer a few good lights and they can create an attractive image with nearly any camera.

Luckily, we are fortunate enough to be trained cinematographers who also used the best HD cameras to create our DVDs. So, the fidelity of the image we are capturing is extremely high.

Beating the horse completely to death...

To reiterate the basic concept here, if you were to compare the Lawrence of Arabia DVD and the Lawrence of Arabia High Definition DVD, you will probably notice a difference. However, if you compare the Lawrence of Arabia DVD to your local High Definition newscast, you'll probably enjoy the Lawrence of Arabia DVD a little bit more.

So, are we saying to go out and purchase the Lawrence of Arabia DVD instead of one of our DVDs? No, but I think what we're trying to say is that "High Definition" is a relative term.

HD-DVD plans

So, despite everything we've been saying about high definition, we are extremely excited about it! We can't wait to be able to show off all of our native HD footage in the highest quality possible.

We plan to create native HD versions of our most popular titles as soon as the technology becomes available to us.