Got "300" today

[discipline]

Finally got the movie 300 today Anyone else got it? Seen no reviews so far. I will watch it after breakfast and post back about the quality etc.. Hope it exceeds my high expectations!

[Zaphod]

Great, I look forward to it. Please post about the AQ as well.

[ReduxInflux]

ohhhh sick. that's super early. im jealous. post your rating/review here as well:

blu-ray.com: 300

[gamer4eva]

does it look better than trailer or same cause i thought the trailer on playstation store looked pretty sweet

[discipline]

Watched the first 20 minutes now and I have got to say that what really stands out is the Dolby TrueHD! Sounds amazing. The VC-1 video encoding looks good on my 1080p Sony TV with PS3 as blu-ray player. The video stream lies around 20 Mbps. The movie is a bit grainy and I am not sure if it is intentional or not (since I did not see the movie at cinemas). I miss the vibrant colors from other blu releases but for a movie being all "brownish" it looks really good. It is also real crisp due to the extensive CGI use.

Will continue watching now and get back with more thoughts after I watched the whole movie.

[HDJK]

The grain is intentional. HD encodes don't add grain. It's either there or not. Noise is another issue...

But there were many reports that 300 was grainy in the theaters.

[Ralph P.]

Greetings,

I have the two disc SE DVD for review and the grain is present throughout. Looks and sounds very good......

[BRayMania]

I can't wait ! I really wanna learn about its sound quality !

[The Don]

how did you get it already when it drops 2 weeks from now

[BRayMania]

Originally Posted by The Don

how did you get it already when it drops 2 weeks from now

Yeah , I agree with you

[discipline]

Originally Posted by The Don

how did you get it already when it drops 2 weeks from now

I live in Sweden and the place I order from send the discs as soon as they are received from the distributor I always get them a week or two before the US release They only ship to Scandinavian countries though..

BTW: Have watched another 40 minutes and the sound and pic quality is amazing. Sounds stream (Dolby TrueHD) varies between 1.4 and 2.5 Mbps so far and the pic between 14 and 25 Mbps. Have to go downtown for now but will watch the rest and report back when I watched the whole thing. Don't you just hate when you are interrupted in movies?

[Josh]

Originally Posted by discipline

The movie is a bit grainy and I am not sure if it is intentional or not (since I did not see the movie at cinemas).

'300' was shot on Super 35 which is inherently grainy. It was a directorial choice.

[jdsanko]

BTW: Have watched another 40 minutes and the sound and pic quality is amazing. Sounds stream (Dolby TrueHD) varies between 1.4 and 2.5 Mbps so far and the pic between 14 and 25 Mbps. Have to go downtown for now but will watch the rest and report back when I watched the whole thing. Don't you just hate when you are interrupted in movies?[/QUOTE]


What reciever are you using and how are you connected for audio ( I assume HDMI)? I continue to be confused with Dolby TrueHD and how is passed / where it is decoded.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by jdsanko

What reciever are you using and how are you connected for audio ( I assume HDMI)? I continue to be confused with Dolby TrueHD and how is passed / where it is decoded.

Until now there is no player that sends Dolby THD bitstream to the receiver. So it is always decoded in the player. No DTS HD-MA so far.

[baccusboy]

Originally Posted by HDJK

The grain is intentional. HD encodes don't add grain. It's either there or not. Noise is another issue...

But there were many reports that 300 was grainy in the theaters.

As a former encoder of video (and some film) footage, I can categorically state that digital "grain" effects are often added to enhance the look of some footage. Did it in Adobe After Effects and Film Look a hundred times.

Whether you choose to call it noise or grain, it can be made to look the same.

After owning/viewing several blu-rays, I can also state that I see such noise/grain added, sometimes likely intentional and sometimes not. It can also be added as a result of the compression process and codecs used, as certain picture elements are sometimes over-enhanced or emphasized in ways not originally intended by the makers of the film.

On a side note -- I have noticed that my 1080p LCD TV resolved a lot more grain than my 1080i/downscaled to 768p set does, due to both resolution and differences in LCD vs. PDP technology (I think LCD pops contrasts a bit too much). I hate too much grain myself, in most cases except movies like 300, where it's awesome and intentional, so I'm actually glad my TV is not a 1080p set sometimes.

Where the heck did you get 300 this early???

[Shu76]

Originally Posted by discipline

Finally got the movie 300 today Anyone else got it? Seen no reviews so far. I will watch it after breakfast and post back about the quality etc.. Hope it exceeds my high expectations!

I love it when people make threads saying they got a movie early then say they haven't watched it yet.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by baccusboy

As a former encoder of video (and some film) footage, I can categorically state that digital "grain" effects are often added to enhance the look of some footage. Did it in Adobe After Effects and Film Look a hundred times.

Whether you choose to call it noise or grain, it can be made to look the same.

After owning/viewing several blu-rays, I can also state that I see such noise/grain added, sometimes likely intentional and sometimes not. It can also be added as a result of the compression process and codecs used, as certain picture elements are sometimes over-enhanced or emphasized in ways not originally intended by the makers of the film.

On a side note -- I have noticed that my 1080p LCD TV resolved a lot more grain than my 1080i/downscaled to 768p set does, due to both resolution and differences in LCD vs. PDP technology (I think LCD pops contrasts a bit too much). I hate too much grain myself, in most cases except movies like 300, where it's awesome and intentional, so I'm actually glad my TV is not a 1080p set sometimes.

Where the heck did you get 300 this early???

Interesting. I am well aware of the possibility to add grain/noise in post processing wether it's done Adobe AE or Combustion or Shake. But with the many DVDs we have authored for the Swiss Market we have NEVER added any grain. We get the Masters (as intended by the producers) and encode the video as good as it gets.

So you can really tell the difference between intentional grain and film stock grain? That's pretty impressive as the imitations I have seen so far are pretty realistic.

[Smackos]

Originally Posted by BRayMania

Yeah , I agree with you

Checked mine yesterday and it's in the post on it's way to me. Ordered mine from Movietyme, also they're "processing" both Shooter and Disturbia as well so they should get here early next week I should imagine..

Thank god for imports and Blu-ray, 300 is'nt released over here in the UK till 17th September and as for Disturbia god only knows cause it's only showing on the major sites as "available to pre-order soon".. happy days..

[baccusboy]

Originally Posted by HDJK

Interesting. I am well aware of the possibility to add grain/noise in post processing wether it's done Adobe AE or Combustion or Shake. But with the many DVDs we have authored for the Swiss Market we have NEVER added any grain. We get the Masters (as intended by the producers) and encode the video as good as it gets.

So you can really tell the difference between intentional grain and film stock grain? That's pretty impressive as the imitations I have seen so far are pretty realistic.

You don't have to add it. Depending on codecs used, grain can be enhanced (contrast issues) due to effects brought on by compression of the source material. I suspect this is what's going on most of the time.

By nature of compression, the original image information is reduced/modified, sometimes causing slight differences in contrast, etc., which makes the grain pop a bit more. As you likely know, there are multiple settings which can have positive or negative effects on final product output.

I'm curious... when you do your encodes, are you choosing a random sampling of scenes and giving it an overall parameter of like settings to follow for the whole movie, or are you adjusting and tweaking on a scene-by-scene basis when you encode?

Some earlier blu-ray movie encodes seemed to be completed using a "one setting fits the whole movie" approach, and it showed. I like to think that these days, they are taking a lot more time with the encodes.

Overall, I feel that a lot of the grain issues people experience are due to the 1080p LCD effect. As I mentioned, LCD's seem to make grain "pop" a lot more than other technologies. 1080p also seems to highlight this LCD effect more.

By the way, your job sounds like a lot of fun!

[HDJK]

Well it is, but the encoding is not my job here.

We do a lot things: video editing, DVD authoring and I work in the graphics departement doing 2D and 3D graphics. I will have to get back to you with the information you were asking about. All I know is that our encoder never intentionally added grain by means of post processing. Maybe there was a 'one setting for the whole movie' case where grain comes out more? I'll have to ask.