House of Cards

BBC Post Production has worked with BBC Worldwide to successfully re-master in High Definition many well known titles from the BBC archive. Where archive titles exist as a film master, these can be successfully re-scanned using our High Definition Spirit Telecine to yield some additional resolution, improving upon the original Standard Definition transfer.

“House of Cards” is a great example of how this process can bring added value to archive titles. House of Cards is one of the most engrossing political dramas ever made; portraying a corrupt Chief Whip who shares his innermost thoughts with the viewers as he successfully demolishes all rivals to attain his greedy ambitions of becoming the Prime Minister.

The body of this popular programme existed in the library as a 16mm film print. This format is limited in the amount of resolution it can capture. The print also had gaps where sequences had been added electronically during post production many years ago. A 35mm aerial shoot used to create a 16mm optical opening title sequence was still available as raw footage to the BBC Post Production team. The 35mm footage was re-scanned in High Definition along with the 16mm body of the programme. All the material was transferred into our Quantel eQ High Definition editing and finishing workstation, where High Definition captions were combined with the higher resolution 35mm footage to create a new much improved title sequence, using the old one as a guide.

The new title sequence was combined with the re-scanned main body of the programme and missing elements which had previously been created electronically were up-converted from the Standard Definition master and inserted.

The result was a re-mastered High Definition version of an archive title with increased appeal to buyers looking for HD content.

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