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The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

post #1 of 21
6/17/08 at 9:01am
Thread Starter 
I really enjoyed this movie!

Blu-ray.com Review
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Liebman
VIDEO:

....a fairly good 1080p, 2.35:1 framed transfer......................Grain is noticeably absent, but the somewhat dark look of the movie allows it to retain a theatrical look and feel. Fine detail isn't remarkable, but only moderate.
Why can't they leave the film alone when authoring it for HD resolution?

Especially when:

The Admiral's Corner Review
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Waters
There are some soft moments when computer-generated effects dominate the action, but this is to be expected.

I haven't viewed the blu-ray disc yet, but I noticed the softness of the computer-generated effects when I viewed the film at the cinema. It seems to me that they should have strived to keep as much of the fine detail intact as possible.

Hope someone involved with the authoring can comment here.

Paul
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post #2 of 21
6/17/08 at 9:27am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

I wouldn't get too worked up based on a couple of reviews, as I would ideally like to see a bigger 'sample size'. However, this is Paramont we're talking about afterall, and their track record with DNR pretty much puts a purchase of any of their software in the 'buyer beware' catagory.

Also, I haven't seen this move yet, but since you did theatrically was 'grain noticeably present'?
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post #3 of 21
6/17/08 at 9:30am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

One of the additional wrinkles with newer films is that they've passed through a digital intermediate stage before we ever see them. So they may already have been adjusted or filtered, and that may be the intended look of the film. Indeed, since at least the cinematographer is usually involved with the DI, any adjustments have to be presumed to be intentional (within the limits of the DI process).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Hillenbrand
but I noticed the softness of the computer-generated effects when I viewed the film at the cinema. It seems to me that they should have strived to keep as much of the fine detail intact as possible.
Some films have a soft image. That's just the way they look. Now, if the Blu-ray looked dramatically different from the film image, that would be a different story.

M.
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post #4 of 21
6/17/08 at 9:39am
Thread Starter 

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Arnette

Also, I haven't seen this move yet, but since you did theatrically was 'grain noticeably present'?
At the time I saw the movie, I wasn't keenly aware of the developing grain removal video preference for HD media, but I can say that it wasn't, for me, "noticeably absent".

Paul
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post #5 of 21
6/17/08 at 9:48am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Hillenbrand
At the time I saw the movie, I wasn't keenly aware of the developing grain removal video preference for HD media, but I can say that it wasn't, for me, "noticeably absent".

Paul

Gotcha. Unfortunately, we don't really know what the reviewer meant by saying that grain was 'noticeably absent' either. Chances are good the reviewer didn't see this film theatrically either, and it could just be a 'throw-away' line. Again, more reviews are needed to form an educated opinion, I think. I'm crossing my fingers...
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post #6 of 21
6/17/08 at 9:53am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Hillenbrand
At the time I saw the movie, I wasn't keenly aware of the developing grain removal video preference for HD media, but I can say that it wasn't, for me, "noticeably absent".

Paul
I don't remember much film grain when I watched this film on an IMAX screen.






Crawdaddy
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post #7 of 21
6/17/08 at 10:15am
Thread Starter 

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Crawford
I don't remember much film grain when I watched this film on an IMAX screen.
Just the man that can put some perspective on the "softness" issue!

Like 70mm, IMAX has less grain than native 35mm theatrical prints.

Do you remember the clarity like that in the examples from Rotten Tomatoes below?:









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post #8 of 21
6/17/08 at 3:34pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Looks to me like the A/R is 1.85:1, which leads to my next question: Grain is noticeably absent compared to what? A theatrical print? Given that most mulitplexes are constant width rather than constant height, grain would be more noticeable because a smaller portion of film real estate is blown up when compared to a scope print, so grain would be more noticeable. Given that the BD is probably mastered from the DI files, it would have less grain because it is that many generations closer to the OCN, plus the reason described above.
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post #9 of 21
6/17/08 at 3:49pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

I can't imagine DNR is as much an issue with recent releases for a variety of obvious reasons.
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post #10 of 21
6/18/08 at 5:41pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

As long as it's grain-free because the native DI is grain-free, that's not a problem. That's "early generation" clarity... not DNR texture/detail reduction.
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post #11 of 21
6/18/08 at 11:52pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zack Gibbs
I can't imagine DNR is as much an issue with recent releases for a variety of obvious reasons.

obvious reasons?
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post #12 of 21
6/19/08 at 5:54am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD
obvious reasons?
I think he means because it's a recent film that may have been shot on low-grain stock.
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post #13 of 21
6/19/08 at 6:42am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

LOw-grain stock, and that DIs are tweaked to the director/DOP's preferences, meaning that grain may be digitally removed before release prints are even made.
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post #14 of 21
6/19/08 at 8:49am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
LOw-grain stock, and that DIs are tweaked to the director/DOP's preferences, meaning that grain may be digitally removed before release prints are even made.

Yep. In which case the DI is the "approved director vision" for both theatrical picture and home-video picture: the closer the final result looks to the DI the more "true to original" the result will be.

Sadly, like the early days of digital audio mastering with sub-par 16/44.1 processing, the "digital intermediate" isn't always a very high-resolution master, even if it does happen to be director-approved. Watching the Resident Evil trilogy on BD it's apparent just how much resolution/clarity was missing in the older DI transfers compared to the last film in the series... you can actually see each successive film get clearer and sharper as the transfer and DI processing technology improved. It's a shame that so much resolution captured in the original film negatives and digital special effects files was lost in the DI masters for older fils that used this process.

Hopefully going forward with 4K transfers and digital mastering, the DI step won't inherently mean a reduction in resolution/clarity from the original negatives. Then we can start to expect some really stunning 1080p reductions for Blu-ray.
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post #15 of 21
6/19/08 at 10:20am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet
Yep. In which case the DI is the "approved director vision" for both theatrical picture and home-video picture: the closer the final result looks to the DI the more "true to original" the result will be.

Sadly, like the early days of digital audio mastering with sub-par 16/44.1 processing, the "digital intermediate" isn't always a very high-resolution master, even if it does happen to be director-approved. Watching the Resident Evil trilogy on BD it's apparent just how much resolution/clarity was missing in the older DI transfers compared to the last film in the series... you can actually see each successive film get clearer and sharper as the transfer and DI processing technology improved. It's a shame that so much resolution captured in the original film negatives and digital special effects files was lost in the DI masters for older fils that used this process.

Hopefully going forward with 4K transfers and digital mastering, the DI step won't inherently mean a reduction in resolution/clarity from the original negatives. Then we can start to expect some really stunning 1080p reductions for Blu-ray.

I would put Resident Evil 2 dead last. It has a much less detailed image than the other 2 films. I still think the first film looks remarkable for a film shot flat. I question the mastering of RE2, but perhaps it was supposed to look bluish and low in detail.
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post #16 of 21
6/19/08 at 12:23pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Loss of detail on RE2 also results from the fact that it was shot in Super35 and once again we have less film real estate and therefore less detail.
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post #17 of 21
6/21/08 at 7:34pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

watching right now.
i see something that could either be film grain or just electronic noise.
i dont know if i know the difference.
nothing close to the way Patton looks.

either way at least in the first 20 moinutes or so this is not a grain free movie.
it doesnt look like 300 , but there is something there.

also not 1.85:1 looks more around 2.35 ish.
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post #18 of 21
6/21/08 at 9:04pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

i should also add that the movie was spectacular.

beautifully filmed and scored and acted.
i dont know if there is one bad mark i can give to the movie.
there is also a beautiful sequence right at the end of the movie just before the credits that needs to be seen too.
mot really part of the movie just a montage just before the actual credits role with the names of the actors superimposed.
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post #19 of 21
6/24/08 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

* After viewing the Blu-ray Disc, I have to disagree with Both Reviews in the first post.

Viewed the Blu-ray "The Spiderwick Chronicles" projected on a 110" screen in the native 1080P resolution that is on the disc.

1).The film "grain" is present and much as I remember it in the movie theater.
2). Fine detail is absolutely present, clear & very satisfying, even for the computer graphics - A wonderful HD authoring job by Paramount!
3). CG effects are sharper than I remember when viewing the film in the theater. (The pictures in Post #7 are very good representations for what was projected and viewed on a 110" screen.)

Exception - There is one short segment when Jared is talking to his Great-Uncle (a live scene with no CG present), where a noticeable softness is around the two facial images, only for that one short segment -- that segment could have been photographed that way.

And for the second time, I really enjoyed this movie! . It really has captured some emotions beautifully!

Paul
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post #20 of 21
6/24/08 at 8:46pm

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

My copy will be here 2moro via amazon and I can't wait to spin this.
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post #21 of 21
6/25/08 at 9:37am

Re: The Spiderwick Chronicles Blu-ray "Grain noticeably absent"?!

Saw the trailer more times than I can ount in the theater, including twice in Imax and I remember thinking how the image looked nice and had a very fine level of grain that would likely not be seen on DVD, but would be visible in High Def.

Never saw the film itself, despite my love for these sorts of flicks. Will have to rent asap.
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