Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 May 10

= May 10 =

boat's horn
Recently, I watched the rerun of the "Mother's Day" episode of NCIS. In a few portions I heard a sound like a boat's horn. What kind of horn is it?142.255.103.121 (talk) 04:18, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen the episode and wouldn't be able to identify it for sure without hearing it, but is there any chance it was a foghorn? Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 04:28, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

No, it wasn't a foghorn. (Speaking of which, there was also a foghorn in the same episode. It sounded like Foghorn 10 in .) You can feel free to search on YouTube. Perhaps, that could be a little more helpful.142.255.103.121 (talk) 04:44, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The Bottled City of Kandor - Size, etc
How big (or small if you like) was the City of Kandor after it got shrunk & placed in its bottle ? What was the scale & dimensions, etc 194.74.238.137 (talk) 13:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If the authors of Superman didn't expressly state the actual dimensions, then it is unanswerable. If they did, then you'll find your answer in the Superman comic where they did publish the dimensions.  -- Jayron  32  13:57, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The representations of Kandor varied over time. According to this New York Times blog, the largest version, as reproduced by artist Mike Kelley, see this book about his work, was over 40 inches high.  John M Baker (talk) 22:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Insight for writing songs
To what have songwriters (of any genre) attributed their insight for their own songwriting? —Wavelength (talk) 20:28, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Film
Is film shown in theaters in DVD or Blu-ray format ? And which is in higher quality - in theaters or when watching DVD or Blu-ray films on TV ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericvonbauer (talk • contribs) 20:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, neither. If you watched even a Blu-ray on a giant screen, it'd look very obviously blocky, like some horrible Lego animation. Analog cinema usually uses 35mm stock, and occasionally 70mm (both, because of the very small film grains used, give good resolution even on big screens). See the digital cinema article for the massive digital resolutions used for digital projection. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:46, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'm not sure it would be that extreme. According to our articles, the standard resolution of a DCI theatrical system is 2048 x 1080, compared with Blu-ray at 1920 x 1080.  The theatrical format will be better, but not enormously better - and watching a movie at home (no screaming kids, decent sound quality, vastly cheaper) has plenty of advantages over simple resolution. Tevildo (talk) 20:58, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm unable to find any refs, so I assume it's not a common occurrence, but I have heard film critics lament the use of Blu-rays rather than film in theaters. The closest match I found was the showing of Star Trek: Next Generation episodes in theaters (from off of Blu-ray). As Tevildo mentions, the difference in picture quality is not that great and might not be readily apparent, especially on some of the smaller screens out there. 99.255.151.4 (talk) 13:17, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, and to answer the second question, Blu-ray is higher quality than DVD. See DVD-Video and Blu-ray Disc and, I suppose, Comparison of high definition optical disc formats if you want to get technical. 99.255.151.4 (talk) 13:22, 12 May 2013 (UTC)