Downsampling grain?

[CJS234]

I noticed when I played my first Blu-ray movie that I could see noticeable amounts of grain in certain scenes. I get grain even on my 32" Sharp Aquos that goes up to 1080i and I was wondering if that was the way the movie was encoded or if its my tv. Do i need to have a 1080p HDTV so that the grain goes away. I think its the stupid downsampling. Am I right on this one? Help out...

Thanks,
Captain Jack Sparrow

P.S. I notice I wrote downscaling in the thread title, sorry it was a typo.

[Deciazulado]

First: grain is what makes the film image. 1080p transfers can be made very sharp and you can see every grain on the film image clearly (along with the sharper image detail of course)
Second: recheck your sharpness setting just in case. Turn it all the way down and then slowly turn it up looking at a great transfer from your sitting distance until the images gets in focus.
Third: read lots of threads and posts on grain (You can use the Search function)
Fourth: fixed pixel displays like Direct View LCDs are very sharp so you see everthing sharp and clear (see Second), more than any display that passes the image thru a lens.
Fifth: if your deinterlacer is taking the 1080i fields and making it two 540 x 1920 frames -> 1080 x 1920 frames, not only you have half the vertical resolution at any one moment, but every grain or noisy pixel on each 540 line is now twice as big (tall). So could theoretically give you the impression of more graininess or noise. (If it's deinterlacing correctly this is not happening.)
Sixth: watching 24fps material at 60p might make grain motion a little more apparent but very little.


Is this what you're seeing? Hard to tell w/o being there. Read the 6-step program and come back to the grain clinic if you need more medicine

[Chad Varnadore]

Originally Posted by CJS234

I noticed when I played my first Blu-ray movie that I could see noticeable amounts of grain in certain scenes. I get grain even on my 32" Sharp Aquos that goes up to 1080i and I was wondering if that was the way the movie was encoded or if its my tv. Do i need to have a 1080p HDTV so that the grain goes away. I think its the stupid downsampling. Am I right on this one? Help out...

Thanks,
Captain Jack Sparrow

P.S. I notice I wrote downscaling in the thread title, sorry it was a typo.

As stated by others already, grain varies from film to film and encoding to encoding. It's not at all uncommon to see grain from a film based source, or similar artifacts from some digital sources, if it hasn't been removed to make the video easier to compress at low bitrates or to satisfy a perspective that I think studios have adopted - some more than others - that consumers don't like seeing grain because of a lack of understanding of or a lack of appreciation for film. Of course anytime you filter video to remove grain, you're going to adversely affect detail in the process, as well as potentially alter the fidelity of the film in other areas. While some films are intentionally designed to elicit an aggravated grainy effect, there are many film-based movies where even if perfectly preserved, you may not notice grain unless you're looking for it or something is aggravating it in the video chain - like unnecessary, inferior, or low bandwidth video processing or even a loose cable. While the Rocky example above offers an interesting comparison of film to HD video, it shouldn't be interpretted that the level of film in Rocky is anything more than consistent with what the filmmakers likely intended for that particular movie. Something else could be less or more grainy depending on everything from budget to the intentions of the DP or director. The TV series, The Shield is a good example of how some movies are intended to look excessively noisy. It's shot on 16mm that gives it an especially hard-core, gritty feel.

What disc are you concerned about?

[CJS234]

well thank you all I ave followed the 6-step program and still nothing. I went on a couple of other forums and websites and found that the PS3 does indeed down sample Blu-ray movies and this could be what is causing the grain to appear, but then that would mean that it should look perfect with no grain on a 1080p HDTV. Can anyone confirm or disprove this? Also, I am concerned about all my Blu-ray movies lol, but specifically Casino Royale is where I notice it the most. I know that the washroom scene at the beginning is supposed to look a bit grainy cuz its in black and white. Throughout the rest of the movie, however, I can still see it. Specifically on the mirror when Vesper is getting ready.

Thanks for all your help guys,
CJS

P.S. Guess I'll have to buy Rocky Balboa to see if its the PS3, my tv, or what? :-)

[movies3]

Originally Posted by CJS234

well thank you all I ave followed the 6-step program and still nothing. I went on a couple of other forums and websites and found that the PS3 does indeed down sample Blu-ray movies and this could be what is causing the grain to appear, but then that would mean that it should look perfect with no grain on a 1080p HDTV. Can anyone confirm or disprove this? Also, I am concerned about all my Blu-ray movies lol, but specifically Casino Royale is where I notice it the most. I know that the washroom scene at the beginning is supposed to look a bit grainy cuz its in black and white. Throughout the rest of the movie, however, I can still see it. Specifically on the mirror when Vesper is getting ready.

Thanks for all your help guys,
CJS

P.S. Guess I'll have to buy Rocky Balboa to see if its the PS3, my tv, or what? :-)

i just watched casino royale a couple days ago and i thought it looked amazing. do you have HDMI cable?
the only movies that i thought had grain to them were the older ones.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by CJS234

well thank you all I ave followed the 6-step program and still nothing. I went on a couple of other forums and websites and found that the PS3 does indeed down sample Blu-ray movies and this could be what is causing the grain to appear, but then that would mean that it should look perfect with no grain on a 1080p HDTV. Can anyone confirm or disprove this? Also, I am concerned about all my Blu-ray movies lol, but specifically Casino Royale is where I notice it the most. I know that the washroom scene at the beginning is supposed to look a bit grainy cuz its in black and white. Throughout the rest of the movie, however, I can still see it. Specifically on the mirror when Vesper is getting ready.

Thanks for all your help guys,
CJS

P.S. Guess I'll have to buy Rocky Balboa to see if its the PS3, my tv, or what? :-)

When you say the PS3 downsamples the movie, what do you mean? if your display accepts 1080i your PS3 should be set to 1080i, and that's not downsampling films, that's interlacing the 1080 x 1920 24 film frames per second into 1080 x 1920 60 fields per second, (or just passing straight the 1080 x 1920 60 fields for things shot on 1080i like live concerts) so your 60i TV can display them. The resolution stays the same in the output. Now, if YOUR display is less than 1080 x 1920, or its deinterlacer bobs 1080i to 540 for easy deinterlacing to 1080p, then it's the display that "downsamples".

Casino Royale has very fine grain thoughout most of the movie and looks like chrome slide film

Unless you think film should have NO grain like a Computer Generated Image..

Well that's not film...

[Chad Varnadore]

Aside from the opening, like Deci says, CR has very fine grain. I wouldn't expect it to be too pronounced on a 32" display unless being aggravated by something, in fact I wouldn't even expect it to be visible at all, except in key places.

I'm not sure what bitrate the PS3 samples at. But, know from experience that 8bit video processing, which is probably still the most common, will enhance video noise, almost dramatically as well. RGB or DVI signals are often limited to 8 bit processing. Of course if you're using a component connection, the analog conversion will amp noise too.

[CJS234]

Ok by downsampling I mean that since my TV is only 1366 x 768 (yet can still take 1080i), the PS3 does this downsampling to make the 1080p picture fit into the 1366 x 768 limitations and thus makes the grain more visible. Thats what I think. There are rumors (hope its true) that Sony is going to fix the downsampling problem for 1080i tv's on a future PS3 update along with adding 1080p upscaling for regular dvd's. Keep your fingers crossed

Thanks for all your help again,
CJS234