Noisy whites? - Blu-ray Forum

St.ylo · 08-23-2014, 09:39 PM

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this. If it is, a mod can certainly move it elsewhere.

This is pretty much a really beginner-ish question... now, I know that darkness is harder to film. You need proper lighting, proper film stock for it, and a lot of dark scenes tend to be pretty grainy. (This isn't a grain complaint thread; I hate DNR like most here.)

Is extreme lightness/white similarly hard for a camera to capture? I suppose the excessively noisy whites I've seen are mostly on DVD (as opposed to Blu-ray); I assume that would contribute? Why would they be worse at a lower resolution?

Again, this Blu-ray forum may be the wrong place because I've noticed this mostly with standard def content. The worst example by far would be The X-Files. In both season 8 and 9 (on my 51" 1080p Samsung plasma), virtually anywhere that light hits will be swarming with noise. Darkness doesn't suffer the same problem. If someone is half in shadow, half in light (something that often occurs in this series), the side of their face that is lit will be covered in noise. Same with the light coming from flashlights, headlights, etc. Even white paper will be swarming. It's pretty awful.

Is this a fault of filming? Of the mastering? When X-Files comes to Blu-ray, this'll be fixed, I assume?

08-23-2014, 09:39 PM	#1
St.ylo Active Member Member since:Oct 2013 Location:Canada Blu-ray collection:60 Trading Score:2	Noisy whites? Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this. If it is, a mod can certainly move it elsewhere. This is pretty much a really beginner-ish question... now, I know that darkness is harder to film. You need proper lighting, proper film stock for it, and a lot of dark scenes tend to be pretty grainy. (This isn't a grain complaint thread; I hate DNR like most here.) Is extreme lightness/white similarly hard for a camera to capture? I suppose the excessively noisy whites I've seen are mostly on DVD (as opposed to Blu-ray); I assume that would contribute? Why would they be worse at a lower resolution? Again, this Blu-ray forum may be the wrong place because I've noticed this mostly with standard def content. The worst example by far would be The X-Files. In both season 8 and 9 (on my 51" 1080p Samsung plasma), virtually anywhere that light hits will be swarming with noise. Darkness doesn't suffer the same problem. If someone is half in shadow, half in light (something that often occurs in this series), the side of their face that is lit will be covered in noise. Same with the light coming from flashlights, headlights, etc. Even white paper will be swarming. It's pretty awful. Is this a fault of filming? Of the mastering? When X-Files comes to Blu-ray, this'll be fixed, I assume?

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