Hondo (1953) AR Correction(?)

[Doctor M]

I've read alternating opinions about whether Hondo should be presented in full frame as it was shot, or cropped and enlarged to widescreen, as intended. Apparently, it was early days for wide aspect ratios and Hondo gets a poor rocky grain when presented that way as a result.

Today I opened my Blu-ray that I bought a while back on clearance at Big Lots for about $1 (yup, new and sealed) and was surprised by how poor it looks.

Has anyone considered merging it with the 4x3 DVD version?

I was considering doing it myself, but I never have time anymore and software has changed and improved.

I guess I'm curious if anyone is considering this, and if not, what is recommended to upscale a DVD to 1080p and the best way to merge these.

In the past I would have just used avisynth to resize and cut them together.
Of course there is always the color matching issue (I'm partially color blind).

[Yarp]

this was supposed to be shown in 1:85:1 but was most likely shot protected for academy ratio so that theaters that hadn't upgraded to widescreen could still show the movie. at the end of the day i think the widescreen is probably the most proper way to watch it, but honestly, i'd probably choose based on picture quality and just personal opinion.

imo, the blu-ray still looks way better than the DVD though. it's unfortunately heavily over-sharpened but that might be able to be cleaned up with a heavy dehalo in Topaz AI.

[Nick_M]

https://sites.google.com/site/3dfilmarchive/home/hondo