some phrases/words I don't understand

[samdaman94]

I'm often hearing things like "THERE IS ALOT OF NOISE" and that something is "REFERENCE MATERIAL". Can you please explain what these things are?

Thanks so much

[Deciazulado]

Film images are made up of grain particles, and since humanity has gotten used to watching down-scaled movies on DVD or shows/sports shot on HDTV/digital cameras, sometimes they get a shock when they see actual film grain in movies, on high definition Blu-ray Discs and usually say the following expletive: My God it's full of noise!


Reference material means the disc can be used as an example of great quality you can reference to.

Since I like my made-on- film movies to look like a very razor sharp projection in a theater, and digital-shot movies to look their way too, to me reference quality would be Black Book or X-Men: The Last Stand single disc and Speed Racer or Cars and anything in between those two extremes

[samdaman94]

Cheers

[Suntory_Times]

Noise can also refer to artifacts that aren't meant to be there like mosquito noise. Grain is not noise, it is what makes up the image.

[samdaman94]

Thanks alot. Also, what does it mean by a 'LOSSLESS' audio track?

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by samdaman94

Thanks alot. Also, what does it mean by a 'LOSSLESS' audio track?

It means the audio is uncompressed and as good as it well ever be (it's identical to the source). This is a big jump up from dvd's, which have significantly compressed audio.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by samdaman94

I'm often hearing things like "THERE IS ALOT OF NOISE" and that something is "REFERENCE MATERIAL". Can you please explain what these things are?

Thanks so much

In essence noise is anything small (usualy pixel level or a bit bigger) that should not be there, grain is noise, but so is mosquito noise, compression noise,snow (in the old OTA alnalogue days), hisses (in audio).... even scratches and burns could be considered noise.

reference material just means that the person consideres it of high quality (i.e. something that is a reference for how good it is)

what does it mean by a 'LOSSLESS' audio track?

audio on BD and DVD is digital, that means that a digital master is created. That digital master tends to be compressed afterwards. Dolby digital and DTS (you might have heard these terms before) or MP3 (maybe this one) tend to compress and "destroy" some of the information (in order to simplify it), DTS now has DTS-HD MA and Dolby has DTHD, these are considered lossless compressions since, in theory, once decoded (de compressed) you should get the same values (with an asterisk, since they have other features that could influence playback) as the original digital master (i.e. LPCM)

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

In essence noise is anything small (usualy pixel level or a bit bigger) that should not be there, grain is noise, but so is mosquito noise, compression noise,snow (in the old OTA alnalogue days), hisses (in audio).... even scratches and burns could be considered noise.

Once again, grain is meant to be there, so it is not noise.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

Once again, grain is meant to be there, so it is not noise.

you an repeat it as many times as you want but grain is noise, it is random and part of the fabric of film. A director can pick more grainy film or less grainy and sometimes on digital image they add fake grain, but if you film on film then there will be grain wanted or not.

[GGX]

I don't see how anyone could actually think film grain is noise...

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by GGX

I don't see how anyone could actually think film grain is noise...

because it is. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying it should be removed. But it is noise by definition. What do you think noise is?

[Deciazulado]

Do you think pixels are noise?

As pixels and grain form images...

You may think of grain as noise that intrudes on the original image - the image in reality in front of the camera. But once the image is formed in the emulsion, grain is part of it as pores and cells are part of our skin and make it up.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Do you think pixels are noise?

As pixels and grain form images...

You may think of grain as noise that intrudes on the original image - the image in reality in front of the camera. But once the image is formed in the emulsion, grain is part of it as pores and cells are part of our skin and make it up.

then please tell me what is noise? because if I have a record and I p[lay it the hissing and crackling are part of the sounds that are on the record and if I watch an old analogue station with bad reception then the snow is part of the image received by my TV. Noise always becomes an integral part of the content at some point, if it was not then it would not be there and would not be noise. Obviously someone could add filters to try and "correct" all those other noise and ruin other stuff as well in the process, but they can also remove FG by DNRing it to death as well.

If I use a digital camera (no film) and the image recorded by the CMOS has issues in the dark areas and the pixels are not correct, will you then decide it is not noise because that noise happened when the image was captured?

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

then please tell me what is noise? because if I have a record and I p[lay it the hissing and crackling are part of the sounds that are on the record and if I watch an old analogue station with bad reception then the snow is part of the image received by my TV. Noise always becomes an integral part of the content at some point, if it was not then it would not be there and would not be noise. Obviously someone could add filters to try and "correct" all those other noise and ruin other stuff as well in the process, but they can also remove FG by DNRing it to death as well.

If I use a digital camera (no film) and the image recorded by the CMOS has issues in the dark areas and the pixels are not correct, will you then decide it is not noise because that noise happened when the image was captured?

noise is an unwanted artifact created by transferring an image from one medium to another. grain is inherent in the physical structure original medium (film, celluloid, call it what you will). noise is something that is introduced, grain is something that is already present. they are not the same thing

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

because it is. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying it should be removed. But it is noise by definition. What do you think noise is?

If the director didn't want grain, then it may be considered noise. But if it was intended, it is not noise. Hence if something is intended, it is not noise.

Originally Posted by Sussudio

noise is an unwanted artifact created by transferring an image from one medium to another. grain is inherent in the physical structure original medium (film, celluloid, call it what you will). noise is something that is introduced, grain is something that is already present. they are not the same thing

Very well said/

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

then please tell me what is noise? because if I have a record and I p[lay it the hissing and crackling are part of the sounds that are on the record and if I watch an old analogue station with bad reception then the snow is part of the image received by my TV. Noise always becomes an integral part of the content at some point, if it was not then it would not be there and would not be noise. Obviously someone could add filters to try and "correct" all those other noise and ruin other stuff as well in the process, but they can also remove FG by DNRing it to death as well.

If I use a digital camera (no film) and the image recorded by the CMOS has issues in the dark areas and the pixels are not correct, will you then decide it is not noise because that noise happened when the image was captured?

Hissing and crackling noise you hear on an LP is added noise not on the master tape. Snow is interference added to the signal on your way home, it's not on the master tape or the negative.

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Noise is something that's not part of the original signal (Therefore that's why there's an specification for it: S/N ratio, how much noise is there below the signal)



Film grain is the picture making elements in film that are exposed to light and darken from it, therefore creating the image, like pixels make up an image:




Film grains are microscopic and it's their irregularity in the form of grain clumps that makes them mostly visible and what people call a grainy appearance.



It is the opinion of some that since the scene filmed in front of the camera has no grain, therefore grain is noise. If you see it that way (real life has no grain), grain is noise, but since the image that if exposed on film is formed by the grains, it is not, as grain is the building structure of the film image so it is a basic part of it.




Now, the added grain from subsequent copying (interpositives/intenegatives/prints/dupes) is another thing and that could be considered noise added to the original signal (which as I said above is: the image formed by grain on the negative).

But of course you know that as I replied the same thing 3 months ago with that post.

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

This is the finest grained and probably sharpest, scientific b/w film Kodak had. TP25. described as virtually grainless. And to develop it as a pictorial film you had to use special development. As you can see the finest grained film has grain.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

If the director didn't want grain, then it may be considered noise. But if it was intended, it is not noise. Hence if something is intended, it is not noise.

how often do you think FG is intended? also even if intended, there is no control over it, look at what PM said about 300, the director picked a grainier film to make it more gritty but then it was too grany and applied some DNR to smooth it out. Also if the same movie is shown from two different reels the FG will be different even though it came from the same master because each film has grain and so the FG from the master and each presentation would be different. That is why on some older catalogue films there can be inconsistencies, sometimes they need to re-splice different films so some parts could be from the original footage while other from a master and others from some theatrical copies.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

But of course you know that as I replied the same thing 3 months ago with that post.

Maybe I read it 3 months ago but I can’t remember every post by everyone. But then again, do you have anything other then an opinion on a forum to back it up? Since there are so many sources that say FG is noise you would assume if it was debatable that there would be some credible sources that would say it was not.

plus, can you tell me what the N and R in DNR stands for and why it is used to remove grain?

Therefore that's why there's an specification for it: S/N ratio, how much noise is there below the signal

S/N ratio has to do with broadcasting where there is an original (signal) and the thing you see/hear (which has noise added to it). For film the original is real life (i.e what is in front of the camera) the noise (FG) is added due to film. Let me ask you this. Let's forget a second film, let’s say a digital camera is taping the scene, and the camera adds chroma noise, luma noise (as well as others) and the original file has this stuff in it. Would you say these are not noise as well because there was no previous signal?


Don't get me wrong, in most cases noise that is there should never be removed, let's take recordings (easier example) the way to remove the hissing and other noises (which can be on the original master tapes) is to raise the sound floor. This removes the hissing, but it also removes the last few audio reverbs that add to the richness of the sound, for me that is a price that is way to high to pay. And the same is true for FG, the loss in detail from DNR is way to high, further more with FG it is even more tricky, like you said the issue with FG is not that there photosensitive chemicals/inks, but that they tend to clump up and so some micro areas have more and others less, that means that some will be darker or lighter (in their respective colours), who's to say/know which area is right? Everything (almost) is either under or over exposed.

Also FG is not the building block, the building block is photosensitive chemicals, FG is the visual representation of the none evenly distribution of these chemicals on the celluloid.

[syncguy]

Film grain is not noise - this is a fact. A picture on film is made out of the grain particles. If these grain particles are completely removed there is no picture. If grain particles are partially removed, the details of the picture are reduced. Hence grain is not noise, rather the picture is made out of grain.

In contrast other electronic and coding anomalies as discussed in above posts can be called noise since these anomalies are not part of the picture and if those could be removed or avoided the picture details would not be affected.