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

[RobertR]

You're comparing apples and oranges. That example is not the typical "I don't like the look irrespective of how closely it matches the original film". The skepticism has to do with whether it does match the original film. You can say "Yes it does, because certain people said so", but that's a different contention than saying "I don't care if it matches what I saw in the theater, I don't like the looks of it".

 

[Dave Mack]

Actually paidgeek said "a representative from Zoetrope relayed Coppola's wishes to the transfer people at Sony" (paraphrased)
I think Coppola has been pretty busy lately.

And, "Hearts Of Darkness" is finally out on DVD!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Sorry if I was mistaken about that issue. I could have sworn it was more definitive than that... but it's been a while since I've read that thread (or been to AVS in general) and I had remembered his comments about the director's approval of the look to be more declarative.

 

[Dave Mack]

To actually contribute to this topic though, (as I do tend to ramble!)
I would rather see a grainy image anyday then a smoothed over and then artificially sharpened transfer. Ironic that while so many people want to remove all hints of grain, we have filmmakers shooting digitally, (300) or CGI films like Moster House where they ADD artificial grain!

 

[Douglas Monce]

I acutally had a few projects that I shot digitally, where I added specs of dirt and dust (very subtlety, if you didn't know to look for it you probably wouldn't see it) to give people the subconscious idea that they were looking at film and not video.

Doug

 

[Vincent_P]

Wasn't 300 shot on film?

Vincent

 

[Stephen_J_H]

300 was shot on film (Super 35, to be precise), but entirely against green screen and composited digitally with digitally rendered backgrounds.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Is it possible that the majority of people complaining about grain just have miscalibrated sets?

Haven't seen 300, but a brief glance at the HD Trailers makes me wonder why people are so anti-grain.

 

[RobertR]

It's not a big mystery. Those people equate "HD" with "looks like Discovery HD theater". Film doesn't look like that, so it's labeled "bad".

 

[DaViD Boulet]

300 looks a little soft to me, despite the "grain". I didn't see it theatrically, so I don't know how sharp/detailed it was intended to appear. But when I saw the Blu-ray Disc (HD DVD equivilent VC-1 encode) I remember thinking "hmmm. not as sharp/detailed as other titles). I'm assuming that it either looks the way it should or that WB filtered it to ease compression... they've been known to filter HF detail on other transfers to ease compression demands so it wouldn't be unusual.

 

[Edwin-S]

I saw 300 in the theater and also on Blu-ray, via PS3, at a co-worker's house. To my eye, the theatrical presentation and the home presentation looked just about the same. The high frequency filtering that occurs with my HX81 TV annoys the hell out of me most times, but on 300 I actually preferred the filtered picture over the "original". All of that artificial grain just looked like so much noise, both theatrically and home video-wise.

 

[Matt Leigh]

Sorry, why are video games being blamed for this?

 

[JeremyErwin]

There's an psychological effect known as the uncanny valley: the more "photorealistic" the simulation, the more onlookers become aware that it's just a simulation. Perhaps gamers compensate for this, unconsciously training their eyes to appreciate grain free "perfect" images, devoid of the imperfections and spark of real human actors.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Latest DNR victim: US BD/HD-DVD Pan's Labyrinth.
Pans Labyrinth Pics & Impressions - AVS Forum
The European version does not have it. As always you can vote with your wallet.

 

[Dave H]

Without mentioning names, there was an ISF calibrator on another forum claiming film grain can not be seen with 1920X1080 resolutions; he stated the grain in most cases it too small to be seen (excluding some titles like "300"). He claims people thinking they see film grain are seeing video noise. I think he's completely wrong. To my eyes, film grain has a finer, distinct, pattern look to it where as video noise (mosquite noise, artifacting, etc.) looks otherwise.

Anyone else's thoughts on this issue?

 

[Steve Schaffer]

I could easily see film grain on my old 480p setup, to say it's not visible in 1080p is ridiculous.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Leaving specs and theory aside, if it looks like a duck it's a duck.

From a 1-screen-width distance, "film grain" in 1920 x 1080 HD looks like the film-grain in a 35mm release print, not video noise.

Now, if he's talking about the fine-film-grain in a 70mm camera negative... he might have a point. But that's not really what we're talking about for the most part when we say "film grain".

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Zodiac is a new offender. Heavy DNR, heavy, heavy, heavy EE. Very disappointing.

 

[Nick Graham]

D'OOOOH! Between this and the lack of lossless, I'm hoping they do a new encode for Blu. Upsetting as it is, it gives me a little more resolve in waiting to buy it.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I think I read that one though I don't recall that poster offering a good alternative explanation for the "grain" visible in certain samples posted there, eg. one capture of the Alcatraz battle scene in X-Men 3.

I don't really know myself, but I'd submit that his logic might be a bit faulty in practice. For instance, if I took a noisy, ISO1600, 10MP digital SLR photo and resize it a good deal down to say 2MP or even 1MP, the noise would still be quite visible even though that should not be the case if you follow his logic regarding the sampling of film grain.

_Man_