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

[Douglas Monce]

I thought I was already pretty specific. First of all I haven't been talking about compression at all. I'm talking strictly about the film transfer process. Grading is simply color and density correction.

There are times in the telecine process even on the best of equipment, and its actually fairly rare, where the grain of the film will interact with the scan lines of the video system. It's actually more pronounced in HD and it can cause strange patterns to show up as the grain slips in between the scan lines. Patterns that don't look anything like normal film grain. In this case a little judicious use of DNR can help the film look more natural.

I'm not talking about using a sledge hammer to make the film look super slick with no grain. I happen to like the look of film grain, but only if it looks the way it is supposed to.

To say that DNR and EE are bad is kind of like saying morphine is bad. Yeah if your addicted to it, but if you are going in for an operation, you might want a little.

Now the other thing is, has anyone ever thought that some of these films might have had extensive use of DNR on the home video version, because the director didn't like the way the video looked and asked for it? Frankly most directors are not very technical and just say "I don't like that, get rid of it." So the technicians do their best to give him or her what they want. This is one of the reasons that so many films lately, for example the Pirates films, don't look much like film at all. Though in that case the processing seems to have been done in the DI.

Doug

 

[Gary Murrell]

I think a director will release his film how he wants it to look, for example Swordfish has processing to remove film grain and boost colors, BlackHawk Down has severe grain, it was the same way in the theater for both, bumped colors and shiny as plastic for Swordfish and grainy as heck for BHD, thankfully they look the same way on BD/HD

is the transfer of film to digital that unreliable of a process, I mean really? that is way you make it sound Doug, like it barely works and is in need of all this help, thats the first I have heard of such struggles in this process, you make it sound like it is a total struggle for a film to even resemble how it looked on the original film showings, that ties into the first comment, how often is a director needed for the stage of transferring the film to digital

again someone needs to explain to me how a DNR filter that doesn't remove high frequency info works?

-Gary

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Gary (and others),

There are always compromises involved w/ these kinds of things. The idea should be to go for the best set of compromises to yield the best presentation possible -- and such can often be worked out on a case-by-case basis. It should not be hard to accept that techniques like EE and DNR (and others) are used to some degree towards that end. As long as they are not excessive and do not produce more/worse problems than they solve, that's what matters most. And really, I'm sure progress w/ various techniques along w/ the technologies involved will change things over time as well.


So yeah, DNR *will* generally remove some HF details. However, that's a gross oversimplification of what it really means in practice -- as Doug tried to explain. The goal should be to apply DNR so that the result is better than not applying DNR at all. Why would anyone want to apply whatever technique/processing (be it EE, DNR, color adjustment, etc) just for the sake of doing it or to yield something worse than not doing so anyway???

Having said all that, really, IMHO, we're not all here seeking to become telecine gurus. We shouldn't need to understand every little detail before we can accept that certain techniques are needed in the process. Yes, it's nice to know more, but at some point, it can all get in the way of our real goal as cinephiles, etc. If you're really all that interested in all the nitty gritty stuff behind the process, perhaps, there are better resources/forums toward that end. Not saying this stuff shouldn't be discussed here of course, but just saying that if you want more definitive answers, etc., I don't know you'll get them here.

For myself, I'm just speaking from what I know from the digital still photography domain as an amateur photog. And having spent some time processing photos and learning from others in that domain, not much surprises me about all this stuff. If you're really interested, but don't want to dive into filmmaking/telecine work -- and I don't suppose it's easy to do as an amateur -- perhaps you might want to consider amateur (still) photography as a serious hobby both to help inform this HT/cinephile hobby and for something else rewarding on the creative side of the equation. Personally, I do find amateur photography, especially w/ all the transition to the digital realm, to be a very nice complement to my interests in the cinema in many ways. And FWIW, that's actually part of what my sig refers to too in case anyone's wondering.

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

OK. Having said all of the above, let me also add that it sounds like our goal in this discussion is to become informed enough so that the HT/cinephile community can effectively voice our concerns to the studios about the quality of their HDM releases. If we see nasty EE and DNR effects in certain releases, then of course, we should let them know we want better.

FWIW, before I upgraded to a 53" HD RPTV 5 years ago, I hardly noticed any nasty EE artifacts from DVDs on my 32" 4x3 CRT (at too far a viewing distance) even though I had read somethings about them in reviews and such. I guess the studios figured strong doses of EE work well for smaller displays (and for the masses who wouldn't notice such things, especially on smaller displays, anyway). But as soon as I upgraded, I was like what the heck is that?? I still remember wondering if something was wrong w/ my new RPTV when I saw the nasty EE effects on DVDs like Lilo & Stitch and Men in Black 2, especially around sharp objects like credits. Took me a couple days to realize that's probably what it was. And yeah, I don't want that on my DVDs and HDM, but I also don't need to understand all the nitty gritty stuff behind the process to dislike the nasty effects and want the studios to do better than that. Of course, after spending some time in amateur photography over the last few years, I've also become a bit more picky about certain kinds of artifacts too.

_Man_

 

[Michel_Hafner]

(Do you have any evidence that there was DNR used on the Pirate films?)
Of course that always makes one wonder if the same director objects to the look of the answer print too concerning grain (non DI case) and why something is ok on print(s) but not on HD. Double standards?
No doubt some of the bad stuff that is going on is approved by the film makers themselves. Which kind of leaves no other option but to vote with one's wallet. They are obviously entitled to make their work look any way they want.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Several layers here. First different people have vastly different ideas of what is good and bad and different sensibilities in these matters. Second it's a business like any other. Meaning there are pressures of all kinds that can affect profit and survival. Jobs need to be finished in time. Vendors want to sell fancy equipment that needs to be depreciated and used, with all the modern bells and whistles, whether they are any good or not, mature or just the latest fad. End customers have their own ideas, how naive or inappropriate they may be (I want no noise ever/I watch only color films/I want no black bars/I hate mono and accept only multi channel sound/I want lights on when I watch stuff and it must look good/I want crisp images even on small screens and when sitting far away...). And they can impose their views with their purchasing behaviour.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Gary don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that every single shot will need some kind of patch work. It really doesn't happen all that often. But when it doesn't these are some tools that can help the situation. And I never said that DNR didn't remove SOME high frequency, but when you have a problem shot that is the compromise. You have to decide if the noise is more objectionable than the fix for it.

Doug

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Doug: I, for one, appreciate your posts. They give us great insight into the perils of converting film into the digital realm. I have seen some really shoddy transfers and had often wondered, "What on earth were they thinking doing this?"

Again, thanks.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Yes that is one solution to a potential telecine problem. And again I'm not an expert telecine operator. I only know what has happened when I supervised the transfer of some films that I was the DP on. I'm not at all saying that DNR isn't being abused. I am saying that to dismiss it as a useful tool is wrong.

No frankly I don't have any idea what was done to the pirates films, just that they don't look very film like to me. It didn't look very film like in the theater to me either, and I saw them as a film print not digital projection. It looks to me to be very processed.

I think one of the best High Def releases this last year was Bullitt. Beautiful photography by William Fraker, and beautifully translated to HD. It looks like film. I know its apples and oranges being a film from 68, but to me Bullitt is what film is supposed to look like.

Doug

 

[Gabriel.H]

I know every one is entitled to their opinion and I feel weird going against the grain here...but I actually like NR as long as it only removes the grain and doesn't affect any other aspect of the picture. If the NR makes the picture softer or has any other similar effect on it then I totally agree with you that NR shouldn't be used.

I like the fact that I can watch some movies without it looking like I am seeing it through an hourglass with the sand falling....if I want grainy sand I'll go to the beach.

What if movies in the near future become naturally grain-free? Will you want the grain added digitally just so you can experience that old-school film grain look?

I'll take the movie as-is, film-grain or not. I'm usually against any alteration made to a movie, be it aspect ratio or EE....but if an alteration actually improves the PQ then I wouldn't be as opposed to it.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Grain free movies will be the result of more and more films being shot digitally. Personally I would and have added grain to digitally produced images. I've even go so far as to add very fine specs of dirt to give it that vintage look (the project was supposed to be a film that was made in the 70s)

Personally I'm not a fan of removing grain just to produce a smooth image. If the film has grain I think we should see it.

Doug

 

[Gary Murrell]

film used to make movies has a natural grain in the image, if you don't like that then you don't like films

-Gary

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I suspect the film look and digital camera look is converging due to finer grain stock and the DI process (dust busting). More and more films look like they were shot with clean data cameras. They have little to no grain but are not full of DNR problems. They are superclean like video but have otherwise the film look.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I guess they are now in some sense following the lead of still photography, which could indeed be a bad thing unfortunately. Seems like almost everyone in the world of still photography are clamoring for cleaner and cleaner images w/ very few folks wanting anything that remotely looks like film grain. Everyone wants noise-free ISO6400 images and pixel peep any minor differences to death between cameras (and brands) even at the consumer/entry level. And so many regularly employ DNR software as a routine nowadays -- though that's admittedly better than most any in-camera DNR. Not saying the noise in digital cameras are quite the same as film grain (and I don't mean aliasing/moire type noise), but most folks look at them the same way anyhow. I must admit though that I do lust after the new Nikon D3 a fair bit myself, but I'm not in a hurry to do what many do to get cleaner images, ie. change brands *and* spend a good deal more for a lower feature, but cleaner, camera body...

_Man_

 

[Douglas Monce]

I agree there is way too much temptation to "play" with the images, both with color and noise reduction. Frankly I'm getting pretty tired of films that have a "color wash" over whole scenes or in some cases the whole movie. There are parts of say Lord of the Rings where they seem to have almost pulled all the color out but a steel blue. I realise they are trying to create a mood, but it was a bit over the top in my opinion. Personally I like to see mixed light. Blue is fine if its mixed with white light somewhere in the frame. But when the whole image is digitally color graded that way...yuck. It seemed for a while there after the Matrix that everyone had to tint their film green. What the hell was that all about? Fortunately that now seems to be a passing fad.

With pirates, for me anyway, it wasn't just that it looked super clean, but rather the color saturation seemed unnatural to me. Not quite over saturated, but some how not natural. Maybe it is that the newer film stocks are being formulated to look more like a digital image I don't know. I do know that the look doesn't thrill me. Compared to a film like Black Book that is also very clean and super sharp, but the colors look very natural in my opinion.

Doug

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Still frames are different from moving pictures. Removing noise from still frames is strictly a local affair. You don't do temporal filtering because there is no temporal dimension. Many kind of artifacts you will not have on still frames because of that. You can still create a waxy or oversmoothed look, but there will be no smearing or flickering or strange noise patterns in time as on moving pictures. With films the whole issue is far more complicated and potentially destructive to the fabric and foundation of the images.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I didn't mean the techniques will be quite the same, but more that their mentality (and thus, the results) might be following what's going on in the still photography world. Still, plenty of digital cameras produce what look like digital paintings rather than photos due to in-camera DNR -- in some cases, even base ISO stills can have that nasty look on occasion -- and many folks seem to love it though most enthusiasts do want better than that...

_Man_

 

[Chuck Anstey]

You were too involved in the movie to see the glaringly obvious video shortcomings of HDM because there is more to a movie than pixel perfection. However on the audio side, if the box doesn't say "lossless" then it must suck no matter how good it is. Listening to the soundtrack that is on the disc as part of the overall movie experience isn't as important as bitching about how the box says it isn't lossless and conjecturing on how much better it would have been had they used lossless audio (but not TrueHD because DN screws it all up). Remember the bad old days when 1.5 Mb DTS used to be considered great? What a bunch of fools those people were.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Chuck,

There have always been folks who said we should be happy with what we get. And there have always been folks who said we should ask the studios to deliver the very best that thay can and not settle for "good enough".

The same point of view you express here was behind the criticism aimed at many on this forum in the late 1990's when enthusiasts were demanding that the studios adopt 16x9 anamorphic encoding even though most viewers only had 4x3 televisions and others in the "be happy" crowd were calling us extreemists, elitists, and snobs were and suggesting that since 4x3 letterboxed DVD looked great, we should just be happy like they were.

We were told that by not wanting to settle for 4x3 lbxed DVDs we cared more about technology than we did about movies.

:rolleyes

Seems silly today. About as silly as suggesting that lossless audio isn't worth pushing for will seem about 5 years from now.

Those of you who are happy to enjoy what you get and don't feel the need for anything better, by all means, be happy! But rather than criticize those on this forum who do push for greater transparency, just sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor, because the discs that you're happy with will look and sound better as time goes by because of their effort.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Early computer DVD software could take advantage of the 16*9 feature.