Will older films be produced on blu-ray or HD?

Some older films have already had hi-def transfers to HD DVD. I already watched the HD DVD version of Spartacus from Netflix. And one of the free HD DVDs available from Toshiba with the purchase of a player is Casablanca.

If there's one company that seems really committed to high-def digital, it's Universal. They have a really nice HD station, Universal HD, which shows really nice 1080 digital transfers of movies going back 15-20 years, plus the Northern Exposure series. Anything they show on that network means they've already done a high-rez digital transfer, and many if not all the films they show there are--or probably will be--available on HD DVD.

Universal has 129 HD DVDs available to date, and many of them are from 10-20 years ago, some vintage. To see them all, click here and click the [Next] button to flip through their offerings. So far everything from them that I've seen on the UHD channel or on HD DVD has looked really good. In the case of Spartacus, the limiting factor was the film grain itself, not the digital resolution.

There are already movies from the 60's that are out on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

majicjazz.....the problem isn't that they can't do a hi def transfer on all films, its that you can only bring up so much detail before the film's flaws show as well....if you try to remove those flaws you create pixles and smear....the source material is more limited as well. for years many of thepal releases have been nothing more than uploaded ntsc masters that were properly done. this will apply to most of the hi def stuff too. also there are no audio standards for hi def....using the dts logo requires no approval as long as the dlt(digital linnear tape)is hi def......a production curve has only begun.

I think the answer is quite simple.

They will be produced if the company thinks they can make money on it. And based on the music industry, companies make a lot of money selling consumers what they already own in a new "improved" format. Toss out that vinyl and buy a CD with no scratches and "perfect sound forever". Toss out those old VHS tapes and buy a DVD. Then toss out that DVD and buy a whatever.

As to which format, the company that owns the rights will choose the format they support. So, for example, a film owned by Sony will be Blu-Ray.