The new enemy of the HD Formats is Noise Reduction! (1 Viewer)

[OliverK]

Ed,

I was not saying you have to buy a bad transfer. But if you don't it would be nice to let studios know you don't buy because they are bad transfers not because you do not like the movie. Or do you dispute the fact that most HD player owners will indeed not buy an older title because they don't like it as a movie ?

Regarding giving them my money: I live in Germany and many of the older movies are not yet released here so I have to give them my money even for watching those movies once. Of course I can sell them afterwards and let for example Universal know that Spartacus looks really crappy and that I was embarassed to own such a bad HD representation of a great movie

The older 35mm stuff I have seen from Warner looks very nice and I have to say that both Blazing Saddles and Bullitt were two very pleasant first viewings on HDM which others might have considered average or even below standard and right now I look forward to watching The Getaway and Deliverance which I have already sampled and they both seem to look very good, too.

Oliver

 

[Michael Reuben]

I deliberately said "practical plan of action" because, by itself, that isn't one.

M.

 

[RobertR]

People were very loud and vociferous about the inferior quality of the first Fifth Element release, or the bad framing on one of the Pirates releases. It doesn't seem like Sony or Disney had any trouble getting the message about them. Why would it be any more difficult to get the message across about how bad DNR, filtering, and EE are? Or is it that not enough people in the HD-purchasing community are convinced those things are bad (the reference to philistines on AVS is very disturbing)? I get a very bad feeling when I see Internet reviews seemingly FAR more focused on the relative presence of "evil" film grain than they are on DNR, EE, etc. Maybe the "philistine" Internet reviewers should be shown the error of their ways (I hate when it when an Internet review glows about the absence of film grain, and doesn't say something like "the film's natural grain is beautifully reproduced", instead of making it sound as if film grain is a "problem" that reduces the video score).

 

[Michael Reuben]

I agree with all of this, and yet I can't help but suspect that, ironically, home theater itself is a big part of the problem.

It has become almost a matter of routine for people on HTF to declare that they prefer their home theaters to movie theaters for the usual litany of reasons (rude patrons, poor viewing conditions, etc.). I suspect that most internet reviewers do the vast majority of their "film" viewing on video, and that does tend to alter one's perception of what constitues a "good" image, particularly as digital cinema becomes more prevalent.

Especially in the early days of DVD, we worried about compression artifacts, "mosquito" noise and other digital by-products. Those should be readily distinguishable from an honest reproduction of film grain, but how is someone to know the difference if they hardly ever see film projected anymore?

We always want reviewers to list the equipment they're using. I often wish they'd list how many movies they've seen in theaters during the last three months. It might be a revealing statistic.

M.

 

[RobertR]

Great point, Michael. In addition, I would want a reviewer to state explicitly that he saw the film in a theater, projected as film (assuming that was the original format).

 

[Felix Martinez]

Just saw Sleepy Hollow. While it's a very nice improvement over the DVD, I do see some grain reduction happening.

I believe we are in the "NoNOISE"-era of HD images. Just like the digital audio years of '89-'93 focused on the removal of tape hiss so that classic recodings would sound "comparable" to full digital recordings of that era, the current state of HD seems to be "let's make everything look grain-free."

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Forums like AVS and HTF can be a great educational resource for movie-buffs who love their HT system to "learn" about things like "grain"... things that they might have previously thought were "problems" to complain about.

With time, education can make a difference. Think of how much good HTF has done helping a whole group of people learn about OAR? 10 years ago the only guys who knew about that were laserdisc collectors. We spend all our on-line time at HTF educating "newbies" who were getting into DVD in 1997-8 about OAR. That's now something we all take for granted.

Time to tackle grain.

threads like this are part of the solution.

talking to the studios is another.

Writing accurate reviews that praise 'transparent' HD presentations... grain and all, in the wake of the typical "eye candy" reviews on the web is yet another.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Also very real is that a "no hiss" policy seems to be governing audio mastering for DVD and HD titles... which can royally screw up the sound. See my archived threads here for Mary Poppins, Little Mermaid, and Hello Dolly to see how badly some studios are screwing up the sound in an effort to go "hiss free".

 

[Mark Zimmer]

It's a difficult tightrope to walk as a reviewer. When something has significant grain, I feel like I need to mention it in a review so people aren't surprised when they look at it and say, "That Zimmer fellow is nuts, he gave this a good grade." What I try to do in such situations is educate a bit and point out when appropriate that the film stock was originally grainy, or that in night scenes one would expect a higher grain level, and that it's appropriately present, etc., and then I try to make a judgement as to whether it looks filmlike, or whether it's inappropriately sparkling and annoying grain, indicating a compression issue. It ends up sounding apologetic, I suppose, though I try to keep a positive spin because I like film grain--it's what film is supposed to look like, as opposed to digital video.

But I do think the problem is the studios' habit of using the same master for DVD and HDM. That's really not appropriate, because a level of DNR that will make a DVD look satisfactory to Joe Public's eyes is WAY too much DNR for a high-def format. Unless/until HDM is more mainstream, and it's cost-effective to have two different masters for the same material, that's a problem we're going to keep dealing with. And even then it's going to take some working with the studios to keep the HD masters free of DNR and EE, since they're so used to slapping it haphazardly onto everything they release.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Probably the easiest way to deal with the grain issue is to use a phrase like, "...which is consistent with the film's original theatrical presentation." I realise that unless reviewers get out to the movies regularly, they may not be able to claim this.

Ah, the perils of being a HT enthusiast!

 

[TravisR]

Would you really trust someone's memories of what something looked like in the theater though? Not that a reviewer would be deceptive but I'd find it very hard to trust someone's memory on film grain for a movie that came out over the summer let alone a catalog title that came out years ago.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

And I deliberately said: "no".
(I did not have a "practical" plan)
As well as added a "wink".
(sorry, you missed that)

Not buying inferior transfers:
It is, by itself, "practical" too me & works quite well.
Well, to be perfectly honest, it works perfectly well! ;-)
(for me at least)

I in know way minded if people were to post they hoped these issues that have appeared, would not have. I was troubled by their posting it was a non-issue because HD Disc was a new format.

Unfortunately, we all must bear the burden of old problems with our beloved new formats. And, with no good reason for it, whatsoever!

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Man, I wish something could/should have been done B4 these new formats were released.

How long am I going to have to wait, for 'clean' copies of these affected titles on HD Disc?
How long am I going to have to wait, for a corrected transfer of "EtD" on HD Disc?

I think 'Nemo' will be a telling disc. If the Mouse releases it with a filtered transfer on HD, well, this new format needs a enema!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Since the only other option is to build a 35mm screening room, rent prints and compare them with the HD transfers, you tell me.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

That's exactly what the mastering engineers should be doing at the studio... comparing the digital projection of their master against the projected 35mm print. That's the whole idea of "transparency" with HD media... to match that director-approved experience in artistic intent.


It's not as hard as you think with some titles. Most folks who've seen 70mm projections of Ben-Hur or LOA, for instance, can tell you that they saw a crystal-clear image that astounded the viewer with an overload of detail and color depth. It's not hard, even years later, to determine that the DVDs of both of these titles in no-way reflect that experience.

Even some 35mm experiences are easy to remember. I remember seeing an indepdent film 'Kilometer zero' at a film festival and being "wowwed" by the brilliant/saturated colors and crystal-clear print... it was breathtaking. The DVD is muted, soft, and grainy. I looked nothing like the print, and the years between those two experiences didn't make it any harder to determine.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Even if a reviewer doesn't have a detailed recall of the appearance on film of the movie being reviewed, a reviewer who regularly sees films projected is less likely to have an allergic reaction at the first appearance of grain in a hi-def video presentation. Hopefully he'll evaluate it along the lines that Mark Zimmer outlined above. It's more a question of general expectation than specific recall.

But of course, the ideal situation would be for the telecine colorist and the compressionist to have an answer print available for comparison, as Robert A. Harris taught us in the Dracula thread.

M.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Agreed.

Since no one needs credentials to review a DVD, HD DVD, or BD for a website or publication, it's the excption rather than the rule to find reviewers who are familiar with the projected film medium (I merely say "familiar", as fewer still have any degree of expertise with film media, certainly I do not). I'm still amazed at the reviews I read about classic films where reviewers cite "grain" and "hiss" as serious problems... when the digital medium is merely being faithful to the proper look of the original film.

Having idea of what film, as a medium, can look like, is a first step to avoiding knee-jerk recation that a lot of reviewers seem to have to grain and audio hiss. A diet of video-game CGI images isn't the basis on which to evaluate films tranfered to digital, and yet that seems to be precisely the expertiese afforded to many "reviewers" in both web and print publication.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I thought the "wink" was relevant to help you understand I was joking/winking.
Wish you would have considered it relevant. Maybe we wouldn't be going back & forth like this right now.

Thanks again.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Case in point.

 

[Michael Reuben]

The reason we're going back and forth, I suspect, is that our respective approaches to this kind of issue are very different, both rhetorically and otherwise.

M.