The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Fine, I'll take a big whack at this. I am critizing your very skewed priorities on what we need to improve the overall HDM experience.

First you are not going after the big improvement here that everyone one will benefit from or even a tiny fraction. You are asking for the difference between effectively transparent and on-paper transparent. There are several ways for a perfect digital audio stream to be corrupted on its way to creating air pressure that you hear.

1. The D/A converters must be perfect. Even the best you can buy are not going to be perfect.
2. The speaker wire itself must be a perfect conductor. Since we don't have room temperature perfect conductors yet, there is going to be a slight change to the sound.
3. The biggest of all, the speaker. Each line of speakers is going to have a transfer function that is different from another line. They will differ at certain frequencies >1db. Even within the same line of speakers, each individual speaker is not an exact acoustical match to its brother. There will be measurable (and therefore audible since audiophiles can hear things devices cannot measure) change to the sound. Simply hearing the sound from two different sets of speakers is going to have a bigger impact on the sound actually heard that what you are asking for in the digital domain.
4. The room acoustics. Even with very careful adjustments you are going to wind up with places in a room with more and 1db difference of the same sound. Normal efforts will result in >3dB differential.
5. And finally, the original recording and mixing have to be of sufficient quality to take advantage of such high resolution codecs.

There is a point of diminishing or zero returns and we have hit that point in audio. I realize that using logic, math, and physics with an audiophile is about as pointless as on a religious zealot but this is really for the rest that haven't quite gone overboard. The fact you are trying to equate a 33% increase in resolution on a format that doesn't even come close to the limits of our vision or display devices to the differences between very high quality lossy audio and lossless shows just how far your bias has gone.

On the video side HDM hasn't even come close to reaching the limits of a $1500 TV I can go out and buy right now, let alone high quality projection systems owned by HT enthusiasts. Funny how you are completely silent on the video side of things other than complaining about excess DNR and EE, the audio equivalent of "pumping up the mix". I guess half resolution color and a greatly reduced (from what is possible) color space are just "good enough" and we should just accept it since that is what Blu-ray can do and Blu-ray is HD nirvana. Yes HD-DVD has the same limitation on video. My point is it is time to start requesting that video be on-par with audio instead of the litmus test being the last 1% of audio and saying to hell with video.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Chuck,

any HTF member who enjoys lossless audio on either format can tell you that you're assumptions about the need for esoteric gear to perceive the benefit are unfounded. Even a modest "mid fi" system can allow the average listener to hear the difference. More pronounced differences are, of course, obtained with even better systems. But plenty of folks on HTF who don't own $$$ AV systems enjoy the benefit of lossless audio on BD and HD DVD and don't have any problem hearing the difference.


Grab a hold of yourself man... where are you imagining all of this?

In fact, I'm very disappointed that the HDM specs we have don't incorporate 4:4:4 color and don't allow for contstant-height 1080p encoding so we can get full vertical resolution with 2.35:1 films. But the specs are done, so we're stuck on those points. The reason I'm advocating for lossless audio is because it is already in the spec, and therefore can be utilized. I've already discussed AV quality to a great degree. Should I keep repeating myself on those points so you won't forget?

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Perhaps they hear a marked difference on their mediocre system, but the fact is: they don't hear anything even near the perfection we're talking about (in a general sense).

BTW: the "noise" in this thread's title refers to video noise (and grain), not audio, which is a totally different problem.


Cees

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Naturally. This discussion has been about the importance of encoding the signal on the disc with as much transparency as possible within the existing HDM specs so that consumers can have the opportuntity to enjoy those benefits to whatever degree they are able to given the playback equipment and room treatment that they can afford. I never considered that point to be in question.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I don't think they are good enough (especially the limited color gamut) but it can't be changed with the current specs, (ab)use of EE and DNR can, on the other hand.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I think the resolution, 1080, is probably good enough for home viewing in most situations (unless you are getting beyond a 10 foot screen), but I agree that a 4:4:4 color space would give a better chance of avoiding color banding. But honestly I think the images that we see from Blu-ray and HD DVD are really amazing considering how much compression is going on.

Doug

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I agree completely with this. Ratatouille, Cars, and Pirates 2 all blow the lid off the PQ scale. There is so much picture detail available on a VC1/AVC encoded movie on a 50 gig disc... so much, that I don't even know how to finish this sentence.

-Reagan

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I think the new enemy of HD formats is....technical threads like this one.

Sorry, guys. I just couldn't resist. LOL

But on a related note, I remember years ago when I bought my first DLP set reading about "rainbows" I think they called it. Anyway, I never saw them but since other viewers did, I was bound and determined to find them. Sure enough I did and, boy, was I sorry I read that thread. Anyway, I guess the moral of my short story is - if your looking for something "bad,"...watch out...you just might find it!!! (sigh)

Carry on....

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Indeed.

The miracle that many of us have been dreaming of since laserdisc is finally here: an item that fits into the palm of our hand that can deliver true "cinema quality" pictures with astonishing true-to-film resolution and transparent sound.

Sigh...

it's really the culmination of what many of us have been dreaming for, and waiting for, for years.


We're just here to make sure that the studios actually deliver the goods given the miracle of HDM potential.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

This is not directly related to the EE and DNR issue, but it's somewhat relevant anyway.

What do y'all think about the transfer for the 1st Harry Potter film? I never saw it in the theaters so have no idea how it's supposed to look -- well, not that my local multiplex would be the best guide anyhow -- but the BD has toned down the strong orange color cast that the SD DVD had while also seemingly opening/brightening up the midtones and shadows some -- the SD DVD always seemed kinda murky/muddy to me. Which one is more faithful to the original source (and intended vision of the filmmakers)? Is there a current trend where studios are applying this kind of changes (besides EE and DNR) to appeal to consumers at the expense of being faithful to the source?

Of course, it could just be my display settings being the culprit too I guess -- might be a little bit of each. I really need a new HD calibration disc -- one for Blu-ray.

Hmmm... Maybe I should hunt down the old review thread and post the question there instead...

_Man_

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

It's truly sad how accurate your closing statement is. In the realm of psychology, this is how "backward masking" and subliminal messages were debunked. Because the individuals claiming that these phenomena "worked" were bound and determined to prove it, they would tell people what to listen for and, lo and behold, they would hear it.

When I was getting my psych degree, one of the professors under whom I studied was Dr. John Vokey, who ran an experiment where he and another prof got mildly drunk and made a recording of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. On playing it backwards, they looked for sounds that could be construed as "backward masking". In tests, which were later reproduced in class, they played the recording and asked the subjects to look for anything that sounded like backward masking. No one could detect anything until after the professors made suggestions of phrases, including "saw a girl with a weasel in her mouth," and "snatched her nips." In research prior to conducting the test, he played Gary Greenwald's "backward masking" recordings forwards, and discovered that they were cover versions, recorded with specific emphasis on certain syllables to make the "backward masking" clearer.

He also conducted an experiment with subliminal suggestion, with the results being that there was no appreciable influence of images flashed @ 1/24th and 1/30th of a second, even if the subjects were told what to look for. Dr. Vokey later used these results in the infamous Judas Priest case, where two teenagers killed themselves and the parents sought to lay blame on alleged subliminal messages in the music.

What does all this mean? Suggestion is a powerful thing, even when evaluating video transfers. People may see things that aren't actually "there", if told what to look for. Make sure your path between player and display is clean before you accuse studios of using EE or DNR.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

But he really *did* see rainbows on his DLP. It's not a figment of his imagination brought on by the power of suggestion. The problem he's stating is once he went looking for it, he noticed it and now it's impossible to ignore.

I can't tell you how many times back in the old NTSC "big screen" days I'd be talking with someone who was bragging about their new big-screen. They'd be watching basketball or hockey and the aliasing (480i) on the court lines was so bad it hurt your eyes... yet they were blissfully unaware. "huh?" they'd say when I mentioned that their NTSC image wasn't the end all and be-all of fidelity blown up so big. When I pointed out the scan-line aliasing to them, then suddenly they "saw" past their mental image of their picture quality and saw the artifact... and then it was impossible *not* to see and that blown-up NTSC image wasn't as exciting as it first seemed.

Ignorance is bliss. And if anyone just wants to enjoy movies then they shouldn't become an AV enthuisast and they shouldn't talk to videophiles. Because once you start to "see" the picture as it really is (and not as your mind wants it to be), movie watching can have an unpleasant... and expensive... downside in comparison to the days of ignorant bliss.

Of course, being a videophile has its up-side too, and can *increase* your enjoyment of good HDM which is why we all bother.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I know he saw the "rainbows". I see them all the time, which is why I'm waiting for a reliable 3-element DLP projector. What I was saying is that before anyone comes on here and says "such-and-such a film is riddled with bad DVNR and EE", make sure the path between software and output device is clean and properly calibrated; it reduces the chance of false "claims".

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Agreed.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

As another proviso, before claiming that a film has had its grain "digitally removed", make sure it wasn't shot digitally in the first place.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I wouldn't need to conduct such research for 99.99+% of films ever made, and 100% of films made prior to around 1998.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Hence the winkie.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Replace grain with noise and it still can happen. Digital cameras can be noisy too. And their output can be noise removed like film's. With the same kind of artifacts added doing so.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Hehheh. That is soooo true though some will argue film grain is preferable to digital camera/sensor noise -- well, at least we're more used to seeing that than sensor noise. And due to the nature of the sensors used, there's a greater variety to the noise too some of which are definitely more objectionable than others...

_Man_

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Of course one can also add noise to clean images. I'm currently watching "Battestar Galactica" in HD and every space shot has simply noisy blacks. Looks weird. Can't say I like that esthetic choice much. The others shots from HD camera have noise added too. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I have a denon 3806 and a sweet set of Paradigm speakers, and I find the differences between lossy and lossless audio to be trivial.

I'd MUCH rather money be spent on quality extras, packaging and video performance that the VAST majority of consumers will appreciate than the minor bump in audio quality that only a very small subset of enthusiasts will even know about, let alone perceive. But that's just me.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Some even seem to perceive a difference that's not there in their system, e.g. between 20-bits and 24-bits sampled audio.
Of course, in "mediocre" systems and less-than-optimal sound rooms, even the difference between 16-bit and 20-bit would be hard to detect.


Cees

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

The beauty with Blu-ray Disc is that you can have BOTH lossless sound *and* extras. It's not an either/or. You don't need to worry about having to choose between those options with the bandwidth on BD.

Win-win.


Not if the 20-bit resolution decoding of HDCD is an indication. The smoothness of the midrange is easily discernable over 16-bit standard CD on even mid-fi systems.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Sam,
I have the Denon 4308 matched with Paradigm studio speakers troughout my 7.1 setup and the differences between the lossy and lossless audio is more than trivial to me and I'm not usually that observant in audio differences.




Crawdaddy

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

For myself, I know I'm much less picky about sound quality for movies vs music. There's sooooo much more going on w/ the movie viewing experience afterall plus there really are far fewer real life references for us to detect/hear whether the sound is faithful/realistic or not in most movies. Even if you can easily hear a difference between 2 versions of a soundtrack, there's not always an easy way to tell which one is more faithful to the source. It's really nowhere near the same as the regular music listening experience.


True that. I've actually added noise to photos on occasion to get a certain look. And sometimes, I've also done it selectively because I needed a more consistent look after some editing work. Not sure why anyone would want BG to have a grainy/noisy look though. Are they trying to go for the nostalgia thing back to the original series (or are we actually talking about the original series on HDM)?

_Man_

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

The better the sound, the more that the movie-experience is improved in my case. And that doesn't mean I'm focussing on the sound... it just means that the realism and nuance in a good soundtrack (the two things I find lossless really helps with) really make the movie a more powerful experience.

Much like how HD makes actors look more like what they really are (people) and less like "video" which improves the impact of the film, the same is true for audio, which is assisted by the improved timbre from lossless encoding.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

Crawdaddy, I'm not saying I can't hear the differences, I'm saying they are trivial and not worth throwing a hissy fit over. Is it better to have them? Sure! Is that the format I listen to them on when available? Of course! Would I rebuy a movie if the ONLY difference was a move from lossy to lossless? Not in a million years.

You know, it occurs to me that the people calling for all of these lossy formats completely lost sight of the lesson of the SACD/DVD-A war: Nobody cares but you. And by you I mean the tech heads, not the movie lovers. Nobdy is a bigger geek than me and I can barely get excited about this stuff, you are never in a million years get the general public excited about this, it's already how hard for them to understand i vs p, resolution, 5.1 and the damn black bars? And guess what? iTunes and Netflix are gonna go with DD (not even plus!) 5.1 for their SD and HD rentals and downloads, so its already game over for that format before it even launches. =)

Theres an awful lot of noise about these sound formats and most of it is the zealots PROJECTING their hopes onto an audience that they think exists but doesnt really. It just gets tiring to see it rehashed on every release.

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

What you would or wouldn't do in a million years is your business. There are others of us here would most certainly WOULD purchase a HDM title on the basis of lossless audio as much as we would for 1080p picture.


Who's projecting? I don't ever remember saying that the average soccer mom who puts on a movie to baby sit the kids is interested in lossless sound.

But she probably isn't interested in 1080p, artifact-free picture, or OAR either.

It's enthusiasts who care about optimal picture and sound. And within the enthusiast crowd there are always some who care more than others.


then what are you complaining about? That some of us care a little more than you do, even though you say you also like to listen to lossless when it's available?

Why not just sit back and be thankful that there are folks pushing the studios to do their very best? Since there's nothing to lose by lossless sound, what's the problem you apparently are so bothered by?

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

I can't speak for Sam, but for myself it's not your support of lossless audio that is a problem, it's your constant drum beat that is tiresome. You've taken a thread that was about DNR for video and turned it into yet another debate about lossless audio. You are getting to be a one hit wonder, and it seem impossible to have a conversation with out you nudging it on to that subject.

Don't get me wrong David I admire your enthusiasm even if I don't share it, but please, every now and then, can't we talk about something else?

Doug

Re: The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction!

My post was one of *many* steering the conversation that way. I usually try to wait until I see several "you can't hear the difference" posts before I jump in. Maybe I'll try bumping that up a few more before I make an appearance to go easy on those of you who already know the drill. However, I admit that the "lossless audio is ok but why bother since extras are more important" tends to be a rationale that gets my fingers typing.

Of course, for those of us who do care about high-quality AV presentations, I can assure you that reading those posts is even more tiresome than reading my coutner-argument.