DNR (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Robertson]

Well since I have upgraded my primary display to an LED-backlit LCD, I am now more clearly seeing what others have pointed out. HD material with excessive DNR applied makes objects looked smeared and lacking in detail. And, yes, people's faces look like wax-figures. I have noticed this quite a bit with Universal's HD-DVD of "The Last Starfighter" and to a lesser degree with the "Life of Brian" BD.

With my 57" rear projection CRT, the noise removal just comes across as the appearance of reduced resolution and was not too distracting. With a precision display, excessive DNR is very noticeable and a practice I hope will end with future releases.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

You should be aware that almost all LCD displays smear compared to CRTs since their reaction time is too slow for a smear free picture. This means two things:
- Even smear free sources look more or less smeared, only the best LCDs will add not more than marginal smearing.
- A smeared look is considered normal by many since they are used to it. One of the reasons for the endless discussions about how bad DNR smearing on transfer X is. People don't see the discs as they were made.

 

[Jeff Robertson]

Michel,

I happen to have one of the best LCDs and only a couple of poorly executed discs in my collection reveal this problem. It is obviously in the source material and not attributed to the display technology in this case. I do not doubt your claim as it applies to older, less advanced LCDs out there, however.

 

[Leo Kerr]

Noise reduction is a tricky thing. There are two obvious methods, and variations on those themes. 1: blur filters, medians, or whatever you want to call it where it operates on a single frame, and 2: time-domain filters: averaging static parts of pictures across multiple frames. Unfortunately, this tends to turn everything into the stained-glass-window look when used...

And if you can notice any NR filter being used, it's set too aggressively.

Leo

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Good for you.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

In my case that usually means they have to turn it off. If it's effective I see artifacts.

 

[TonyD]

I'm not sure you really upgraded.
isn't a very good crt still better then or at least as good as a great lcd at
reproducing a proper image?
you didn't mention what crt or lcd you have.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

You also didn't mention whether or not you've gone through and properly calibrated your LCD. Most of them come with DNR dialed up to the max out of the box, as well as other unnatural effects like 120Hz "motion flow" on by default. My LCD may not be the best, but because I've dialed down the DNR to zero and calibrated the contrast, brightness, gamma, colour, tint, etc., I see a lot less smearing and waxiness than when I first set it up. The end result is very filmlike and I do know what film looks like: I worked as a projectionist for 2 years.

 

[Jeff Robertson]

Again, I'm only seeing the effects on some titles so I couldn't point to the display as the cause. Yes, my set is calibrated and it looks great on the majority of HD material.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Jeff,
Is this thread about your new display (congrats) or did you wish to open it up for a complete discussion of affected titles?

If it's an open thread on dreaded "DNR" on HDM, I just picked up "PotA".
Heston is in a wax museum (I was half expecting Vincent Price too show up at any minute); I was only able too watch too the point where the stars (apes) show up. So I'm not really sure if I'm seeing "waxy" or sweat.
Any one (if its OK w/Jeff)?
Thanks.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I do my reviews on a CRT-based HDTV and I have seen the same issue with the waxy faces, smeared detail, etc. on supposedly HD sources. It's not so bad with VC-1, for some reason, but it could be the skills of the techs using it rather than the algorithm itself. Universal is a bad offender; Paramount was bad back in the HD DVD days but have gotten a lot better. Warner is generally pretty good.

 

[Loregnum]

hehe now you know why we (the anti dnr crowd) make a fuss about it and why it is so annoying when what should be perfectly good releases get DNRed to death for no reason.

I use a JVC RS-2 at a 106" so imagine what you see blown up even more.

 

[William Ward]

I understood why it was done back in the day, but honestly with today's HDTVs and the clarity that generally comes therein, why are studios doing this to their products??

 

[Dave H]

In many cases it was done out of sheer ignorance just like excessive edge enhancement. Many of us have been complaining for nearly ten years or longer about EE on DVD (and I don't think we got too far with that battle actually).

Furthermore, on some BD catalog titles, older masters which were used for DVD and broadcasts had DNR applied while using small monitors. As a result, Blu-ray and larger, better displays quickly exposes those flaws.

 

[William Ward]

Yeah, I guess I was hoping that the HD masters that went into Blu would be free of this. Although, ESPN and ABC apply liberal amounts of DNR to their HD sports broadcasts so it could be that small monitor thing. Not enough seem to care about how it effects the picture for them to do anything about it. Trouble is, its not like its actually helping on even those with 30" HD displays. I don't think you would hear any complaints if it was removed.