A Few Words About A few words about...™ Howards End -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[24fpssean]

Your posts are very helpful in solving this problem. Thanks for your valuable technical input.


And Howards End does not have an apostrophe in it.

 

[24fpssean]

Originally Posted by Man-Fai Wong

Thanks for the excellent, informative post, Adam.


I finally got around to giving this disc a brief look -- still haven't been able to give it a good sitdown yet -- but that description of "a pulsing parameceum of digital noise" comes very close to what I saw in a few scenes, especially in red areas.


I didn't see quite all the same issues that Sean and a few others saw on my Samsung LED DLP w/ Panny BD60 for playback, but did see what looks like "a pulsing parameceum of digital noise" that occasionally started to vaguely resemble the tetris-like grid that Sean mentioned w/out being quite that pronounced. I should note though that how bad it looked depended a fair bit on how close I got to the screen. From my normal viewing distance (of ~9ft from the 61" display), the problem was not as pronounced, but still quite noticeable. At maybe 6-7ft, it definitely look very bad. Also, I should note that I do not have the latest firmware update for my BD60 though it's probably not *that* old since the player itself is only ~6 months old.


Since I haven't actually tried to watch the film as I normally would (rather than look for issues), I'm not sure how much it'll actually bother me and whether it will end up being unwatchable to me. I get the feeling I'll notice the flickering/swarming characteristic of the noise/artifacts from time to time, particularly in reds (as I often do w/ OTA HD broadcasts, especially during the earlier days of OTA HD, though those tended to be much worse IIRC). Also, I think I've seen something like this before probably in some other Criterion BD, but can't remember for sure offhand. Think I'll check my other Criterion BDs to see.


_Man_

Man, I'm about ten feet from my 50" and it looks bad, especially in dark scenes. The grid (not harsh or hard but pale like frequence interference) appears mostly in the dark scene of Jacky Bast on the bed with the train passing the window behind her, and at the end of the film during the long slo mo shot of Charles entering the train carriage. It stretches out on both sides of the 2.35 image in horizonal lines. In any case the shadows are way too light on this blu ray; the dvd shadows are darker and hold up far better.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

Man, I'm about ten feet from my 50" and it looks bad, especially in dark scenes. The grid (not harsh or hard but pale like frequence interference) appears mostly in the dark scene of Jacky Bast on the bed with the train passing the window behind her, and at the end of the film during the long slo mo shot of Charles entering the train carriage. It stretches out on both sides of the 2.35 image in horizonal lines. In any case the shadows are way too light on this blu ray; the dvd shadows are darker and hold up far better.

I found the issue noticeable to varying degrees during the first ~1/2 hour of the film that I checked, but for me, it was most noticeable in the occasional large swatches of reds in some scenes. And yeah, the shadows did seem lighter than it probably should. Maybe choosing a different/lower black level (w/ a quick tweak of the "brightness" setting) might help some (at least for the shadows in my case).


I do also wonder though if I'm not more sensitive to certain kinds of digital/compression artifacts/noise in reds than many other folks. For instance, I haven't really seen/heard anyone mention the same things I regularly notice in reds (particularly in fast motion) in other more heavily compressed HD content -- that's usually when I see the most pronounced/distracting macro-blocking type artifacts so far though the reds in HE are not as bad as that (as I mentioned above).


_Man_

 

[marsnkc]

Thanks to the tech-savvy among us for the free (and fascinating) education. I wanted to pull quotes from some of the recent posts without actually reproducing the entire posts but just can't figure out how it's done (I've tried the multiple quote/quote facility at the bottom, the quotation marks above right and even copying and pasting, all to no avail.


Line 7, paragraph 3 of Adam's marvellous post 'hypothesizes' what I actually experienced regarding the capability of some players to overcome otherwise problematic transfers. Having such a player, of course, don't excuse a crippled transfer. My post on this follows Adam's.


Man says that when he got as close as 6-7 feet from his monitor the problems appeared much worse than from his normal viewing distance, but that his firmware has not been updated since (presumably) he got his player 6-7 months ago. In an earlier post I described checking out HE through a second player, the Samsung BD-UP5000, to see if it looked as 'good' as it did on the Oppo BDP-83 (both to the same monitor). It looked every bit as 'good' (to my untrained eye), even though the Samsung hasn't had a firmware update for almost 2 years. Also, Man describes some issues different to those seen by Sean, which could be explained by different monitors doing their own thing and adding to the mix.


Finally, RAH's last paragraph should be reprinted on the front pages of every trade magazine (and copies sent to the BD Association's oversight committee) with the emphasis on this: 'Performed properly, by people who know what the final result should look like, is no longer a smoke and mirror situation, and is now routine -- as long as the hardware, software and human interface are all of sufficient quality".

The 'smoke and mirror' part reminds me of the poster, on another thread, who argued that standards were a purely 'arbitrary' (his word) thing. Nothing arbitrary about the standards that the aspirations and decades of hard work of the Robert Harrises, Joe Kanes, George Lucases, Tom Holmans and the engineering geniuses of the world, who relentlessy fought for and have finally brought us to the present (what should be) happy state of affairs in home theater. We've come a long way, baby!





Originally Posted by Adam_S

Sean, I'm also in post, as an assistant editor though, so I understand where you're coming from at being dissatisfied with a mediocre/terrible digital image that others think looks terrific.

I was at the academy last summer for their 'film formats through the ages' night which showed a ton of clips from a variety of films, mostly in large format. Some were digitally restored presentations of 70mm films, most were 70mm film. One in particular looked horrid blown up on that wonderful Samuel Goldwyn screen (and I've seen it in 70mm and know what its grain looks like, it wasn't grainy it was noisy and digital). There were a handful of DPs as part of a panel afterwards, and one made an aside comment that one clip looked particularly atrocious tonight, and shouldn't because the people who were so proud of their image hadn't properly harvested it to begin with, they had got an image that they thought represented film grain but was actually like a pulsing parameceum of digital noise. He went on that so many people today don't know what film grain looks like (I think this was John Bailey, but I'm not certain it was a year ago!) His first job had been printing and running dailies before sending the dailies back to the set and he watched film dailies 12 hours a day for a year and or two, he knows what film grain looks like. And he then said there were certain image harvest machines he simply wouldn't use because they'd produce an image that looked to most people like a beautiful 2k harvest, but when he looked at it all he saw was a "digital floor," not film grain at all, a digital floor.


I think that's either his own term, or the in house term he's familiar with. I've never run across it before or since. But I'm going to hypothesize that a digital floor would describe what you're seeing. This was the result of an inadequate image harvest. The image was pulled, they looked at it, thought they were seeing film grain and didn't look closer, they didn't get that though and since their harvest was calibrated to the digital noise rather than to the grain of the film, everything after that would be off in small but to some people significant ways. So since film grain is already hard to encode think how much harder it is to encode unfocused film grain that looks like a watery layer of digital noise interfering with the grain. The codec has issues with such a complex random structure, and compensates by introducing additional artifacting. I'd hypothesize again that the playback stage introduces another layer of potential problems perhaps some players hardware simply smooth complex transfers out before sending the video output signal to the monitor. And other hardware might more faithfully represent the image encoded or the tape master the encode was produced from. It's not hard for me to imagine that this could be the source of what you and others are seeing. Particularly telling--to me--is that it becomes more clear when you blow up the image.

This isn't an issue of monitor sensitivity, though it partially has an element here, it's more an issue of eye-sensitivity/knowledge. And sometimes even experts will not notice things they're trained to look for (I watched down a show today five times during various outputs and it wasn't until the last output that we noticed a cameraman on the edge of picture. Then we had the joy of insert editing on the other masters.)

I also think this could explain why the DVD looks acceptable, because of the different way it is encoded, much lower bitrate, and the way it resolves detail differently the DVD simply doesn't have the resolution to be bothered by an image harvest whose flaws are only exposed in high definition. A 2k harvest that looks great on DVD could very well be exposed to be as bad as you describe on DVD particularly if people mistook digital noise in the harvest for film grain and passed the harvest through QC.

Originally Posted by marsnkc




Adam,


Great post!


Which sounds wholly accurate to occasional problems which plague the industry today. The information that I received re: HE was that the harvest was performed on the equipment (a C-Reality) available at the location in the UK. And yes, something is there other than the film grain in certain scenes, which appears to be digital noise.


This appears to be a similar situation that occurred with Spartacus in which the entire image harvest was invested with digital noise.


A top facility generally has no problem with a harvest, which needs to be viewed on a very large screen as a test before the entire production goes through the system. Performed properly, by people who know what the final result should look like, is no longer a smoke and mirror situation, and is now routine -- as long as both the hardware, software and human interface all are of sufficient quality.


RAH

 

[marsnkc]

Forgot to say, and the reason why I quote Man's closer viewing of HE as exacerbating the problems he sees: When I viewed HE through my second player I paused at the places Sean described as having the most egregious problems and stood inches away from the screen and still could see no artifacts (or any that, again, my untrained eye could perceive).

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by marsnkc

Forgot to say, and the reason why I quote Man's closer viewing of HE as exacerbating the problems he sees: When I viewed HE through my second player I paused at the places Sean described as having the most egregious problems and stood inches away from the screen and still could see no artifacts (or any that, again, my untrained eye could perceive).

Actually, the main issue(s) I noticed probably would not be particularly noticeable/distracting in stills -- and I did not actually try to freeze frame to find the issues. It's the decoded frames in motion that yielded the kind of "pulsing parameceum of digital noise" that I noticed. Without the motion, I would probably just assume they were natural film grain (at least for my normal viewing distance/angle). But again, for me anyway, it was quite a bit more noticeable in reds than elsewhere. I should also add that it tended to show up mainly in the softer/less-detailed (and often darker) backgrounds, not in the highly detailed (and usually well-lit) areas -- I didn't notice any such problems on faces for instance.


Also, it sounds like I haven't actually seen the parts of the BD where Sean and some others saw the most egregious problems -- I'll check those later (maybe tonight?).


_Man_

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by marsnkc /forum/thread/294720/a-few-words-about-howards-end-in-blu-ray/90#post_3701184

 

[marsnkc]

Originally Posted by Mike Frezon /forum/thread/294720/a-few-words-about-howards-end-in-blu-ray/90#post_3701204

 

[24fpssean]

All right! Everybody's invited to my house to see what I'm seeing!!!

 

[Vincent_P]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

All right! Everybody's invited to my house to see what I'm seeing!!!

AWESOME!!! Do you have Tito's Handmade Vodka?


Vincent

 

[marsnkc]

A few glasses of that and we'll all be seeing artifacts (like double or triple images...) that no player can mask or smooth over!

 

[24fpssean]

In that case, I'll bring some 3D glasses from work. Imagine, the excitement of Leonard Bast getting killed by a bookcase in 3D!

 

[24fpssean]

This is what I'm seeing. Keep in mind, though, that this is a digital photo taken from a paused frame directly on the monitor, hence the blown out quality. But that pale white grid and the noisy picture are exactly what I'm seeing in darker scenes. AGAIN: this is the only blu ray I've got that does this. Even Lionsgate's mediocre release of RAN is superior to this fragile image.

 

[PattyFraser]

*Laughs*. That looks familiar. And that horrible bit where Mrs. Wilcox is walking around her house (at the very beginning of the movie--piano solo still playing). It's been some time ago since I netflixed the disc, but I remember thinking that maybe the blu-ray producers had decided to give this an old look and the picture would resolve into its correct resolution after that part was over. I knew the version of the movie that I was familiar with had not done that but hey, I'd never seen a blu-ray disc look that horrid before, soo bad that I thought it had to be intentional.


Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a picture that isn't up to par, say for example, like the Alliance release of Gosford Park. That was a disappointment because I have the dvd and the Blu didn't look much better. I'm talking about an unwatchable picture, with the lines Sean captured, moving in pattern.


Thanks, Adam, for your post, which was both informative and understandable to a non-techy like me.

 

[24fpssean]

I didn't even bother with Gosford Park because of the wretched reviews. Somehow I knew that Universal would only supply the lousy master they used for the lousy DVD and wanted nothing to do with it.


Also, this just occurred to me: Howards End was the title that won the Amazon.com contest last year as the next blu ray to be released from Criterion. The blu ray was then released a mere five months or so from its announcement as the winner, so when I first saw the terrible image I thought they must have rushed it into release because of the contest. Feeble, I know, but still...


And to think I voted for HE on that Amazon contest. As I clicked the button I remember thinking, "God I hope they do this right..." It's a good thing I didn't chose Picnic at Hanging Rock!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I ended up rewatching the whole film last night. I didn't experience those ghastly looking noise streaks -- and doublechecked that scene a couple times for good measure -- but yeah, the shadows in that scene did have a bit more of the "pulsing parameceum" noise than most others, except maybe the red drapes/curtains in the warmly lit Bast home (particularly the first time we see them).


Also, I remember thinking something didn't look right (the first time I checked a few days back) from the opening scene of Mrs Wilcox strolling the grounds of HE, which Patty mentioned above. That scene looked rather noisy (in a digital/compression artifact sort of way) and pale/lacking in contrast. Since I'm not so familiar w/ the look of the film as others, I just thought maybe it had something to do w/ a bit of mist/fog at dusk(?) (and maybe the quality of light) and maybe the BD transfer/encode had some trouble w/ that (as mist/fog tends to be problematic in that way). I also wondered if maybe all the movement of the grass/flowers/etc (along w/ the movement of the camera) added to any compression problems there. Basically, there are lots of high frequency detail moving about in that scene, and there does not seem to be much tonal range to help resolve the constantly shifting details.


But as Sean noted before (both here and privately), the whole film seems a bit pale and lacking in color/contrast on this BD -- although that seems to vary some for me. And I wonder if Criterion didn't somehow mess up in that regard (and may have exascerbated the noise issue as a result). Is it possible they did not apply a needed gamma correction (or similar) for this BD? I certainly don't recall any particularly well saturated colors on this BD. And there are certainly some known cases where Criterion uses a flatter transfer that needs significant adjustment for the final output (as noted in somewhat recent discussions about some comparisons w/ the Masters of Cinema series BDs in the UK, eg. M).


I would add though that I found the noise issue less noticeable/distracting/problematic this time around, particularly after the first ~1/2 hour of it. It was mostly the messy look of the opening scene and the red drapes/curtains in the Bast home that bothered me, particularly from my normal viewing distance. The overall pale look (and occasional swarming noise in places) does also remind me more of watching a mediocre DVD than a quality BD although there is certainly more detail and sharpness here (and some finer gradations in color) than possible on DVD.


So while this BD will not be unwatchable for me (like it is for Sean and Patty), the PQ is also far from stunning near as I can tell -- then again, some of what I'm seeing (like the color/contrast) may have been intended for all I know since I'm not nearly so familiar w/ HE as many others here...


_Man_

 

[John Hodson]

My copy arrived today, popped it into the Oppo with a little trepidation, but having skimmed through it, I see nothing to complain of (on a 52" LCD); certainly nothing like post #113 which looks horrendous.

 

[PattyFraser]

I'm beginning to wonder if my next Blu-ray player shouldn't be an Oppo. I have an Oppo DVD player and it upconverts beautifully as well as plays region 2 discs. Does this Oppo BD player play region 2? I'd be curious to know if anyone with this player has witnessed the Howards End bug, or if it is just better at helping us avoid it.

 

[Worth]

You can find a modified Oppo player for sale on the internet that is region free for both DVD and blu-ray, and can convert PAL-NTSC and play 1080i/50 content.

 

[24fpssean]

Not ready to throw out my HE blu ray disc yet!