how old movies produce 720p format, eventhough they shot with less Pixels camera?

Question

how old movies produce 720p format, eventhough they shot with less Pixel's camera?
for example:i saw gone with the wind (1939) in 720p, how it is possible?

Answer 1

I agree with iridflare and lare.



With digital images, light enters the camera's lens and is focused on an electronic imaging chip that contains the pixels. The pixels "see" the light and convert that to a series of zeros and ones - the digital format - that is recorded to the storage, whether digital tape, flash memory, hard disc drive or optical.



With film, light enters the camera's lens and is focused on light sensitive film. The film moves through the camera and the shutter opens and closes allowing each frame of film to be exposed to the light for a short time. When ready, the film is removed from the camera (in the dark), packaged in a light proof container and processed using chemicals. There are no electronics associated with any imaging chip, no imaging chip and no "pixel count". When an old film is remastered, each frame of the film is individually scanned, so in theory, the limiting factor will be the quality and resolution of the scanning device - not the film. If you saw "Gone With the Wind" in 720p, you were watching one of the lower resolution versions as a 1080p version is available

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1381/gonewiththewind.html

Answer 2

movies were not made or shot originally with "pixels". they used an analog process called film where a miniature image is made on individual frames that are projected onto a screen. the original film frame is very high resolution as most major hollywood movies in the old days were shot on 35mm film which has a 1 inch image size. (starting in about 1950, hollywood switched to 65mm film which has an even bigger 2 inch image).



to make a modern video copy of the film, like a DVD, each frame image is scanned. there are a number of ways of doing the scan, but they can easily produce a video with 720p or 1080p resolution.

Answer 3

The old movies are took using a film. So when converting it into digital, the pixels can be changed into 720p or even into a 4K resolution which is higher that 1080p.

Answer 4

The original film was shot on film, not in a digital format. How you compare film to digital in terms of pixels is often debated, but no one would argue that film was less than 720p.

Film is transferred to digital formats by telecine or, more recently, image scanning.