The Digital Bits; "Grain is supposed to be there!"

[U4K61]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

Misleading title. Grain is not supposed to be there. It's the result of an imperfect medium. Should it be removed after the fact? No, but it should also not be added because of 'artistic vision'. Fear of progress never got anyone anywhere.

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

If people want the grain removed, then they should demand the setting on their player/TV to remove it.

The problem is that some people are demanding their personal preferance be imposed on everyone. They don't want grain, therefore grain should be removed for the disc. And the bean counters will generally handle that demand by authorizing only a quick and cheap scrub that softens the picture and removes a ton of detail.

And that isn't theoretical. We now have plenty of Warner titles (and even at least one New Line) that exhibit this.

Soft Pictures

A quote from Joe Kane on LaserDisc: "For several years LaserDisc player manufactures were putting 'Soft Picture' to get rid of high frequency information, the fine detail associated with LaserDiscs... they made LaserDisc look more like VHS tapes rather then tell you to turn down the Sharpness control... Warner Atlantic Electric... had a higher frequency detail then any other at the time... most reviewers pronounced them noisy, to a point of being unwatchable...[by] people who diden't know how to set their sharpness control". They did not know a good thing when they saw it, and the extra PQ was taken out on later discs. Complain too much about High Def film grain, and they might smooth it over so it looks more like DVD. 300 HD vs DVD.

LaserDisc Menory Lane

• LaserDisc UK Web Site
• LaserDisc Database

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