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

[binarymelon]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

Life is an imperfect medium. Fear of art never got anyone anywhere, either.

Actually real life is the one perfect medium. Infinite precision. You can't beat it.

[binarymelon]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Rubbish, grain is part of movie making, if you don't like it stick to video.

I prefer to think no tech is that static. Quite depressing if it is.

[CptGreedle]

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.

Well you, sir, are an idiot.
Sure film is "imperfect", but that is not because of grain. Paint is imperfect, charcoal, pencil, CG... but it is what the artist does with the medium using its weaknesses and its strengths that really shows off the medium and the art.
Film grain IS part of the image. Any artificial manipulation of that image is faking it, and lowering the quality of the image. I for one was not terribly impressed by Pan's Labyrinth when i got it, I never realized that it was because of Digital Noise Reduction, but it just didn't look as sharp or clear as other Blu-rays did.
I think it is time studios stopped f***ing with the artist's vision of their film and just release them as close to the final product as they can! There is no good reason to remove grain, since it is what makes up the image!
It would be like taking a National Geographic image, and manipulating the crap out of it before it is printed in the magazine... it would upset people and NGS would look bad for it. NGS does not manipulate any of the images, but all other edits keep all the elements of a picture (digital or analog) when it is presented, grain and all (although the size in the magazine probably is too small to see the grain).
Film should not be touched beyond the artist's/director's vision. If they choose to use a more grainy film, it is their choice; if they choose to use a digital 4k camera, it is their decision; if they choose to add artificial grain, it is their artistic vision.
We should start a crusade to keep film grain in tact! Educated the average consumer, spread the word! Keep the films as grainy as they were meant to be, and no more or less.

[saprano]

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.

you sir, just got...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrkgBVNuFcQ

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by Grubert

And I agree with Bill Hunt - this is going to be a long, thankless fight to educate people to make them prefer a picture with less eye-candy.

Nooooooo, we want pictures with MORE eye candy not less. DNR makes pictures look terrible, not eye candy at all. I want a completely unfiltered rendition of the master at as high a bitrate as possible. To my eyes, that is what candy is.

I actually prefer a decent DVD in some ways to a DNR-ridden high def transfer. Blu-ray will never take off if they smooth it out so much that it actually looks worse than a DVD. I've already seen Blu-rays that looked to me to have worse DNR artifacting than any DVD I ever watched, but as these are typically Warner encodes, I just gritted my teeth and put up with it, hoping that we'll get better encodes once HD DVD is out of the way.

[werewuf]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

But digital is the easiest and most accurate way to reproduce the stored information.

Most accurate? I disagree, and there are still many in the music industry that will tell you that analog sound still blows digital away. There is a current resurgence in interest in vinyl for this reason (which is a subject in these forums) And after sitting in many, many recording studios over the years, until we get higher resolution than we have now I will continue to dispute this assertion.

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

Actually real life is the one perfect medium. Infinite precision. You can't beat it.

Except with death. A perfect medium should be non-degrading.

[binarymelon]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Well you, sir, are an idiot.
Sure film is "imperfect", but that is not because of grain. Paint is imperfect, charcoal, pencil, CG... but it is what the artist does with the medium using its weaknesses and its strengths that really shows off the medium and the art.
Film grain IS part of the image. Any artificial manipulation of that image is faking it, and lowering the quality of the image. I for one was not terribly impressed by Pan's Labyrinth when i got it, I never realized that it was because of Digital Noise Reduction, but it just didn't look as sharp or clear as other Blu-rays did.
I think it is time studios stopped f***ing with the artist's vision of their film and just release them as close to the final product as they can! There is no good reason to remove grain, since it is what makes up the image!
It would be like taking a National Geographic image, and manipulating the crap out of it before it is printed in the magazine... it would upset people and NGS would look bad for it. NGS does not manipulate any of the images, but all other edits keep all the elements of a picture (digital or analog) when it is presented, grain and all (although the size in the magazine probably is too small to see the grain).
Film should not be touched beyond the artist's/director's vision. If they choose to use a more grainy film, it is their choice; if they choose to use a digital 4k camera, it is their decision; if they choose to add artificial grain, it is their artistic vision.
We should start a crusade to keep film grain in tact! Educated the average consumer, spread the word! Keep the films as grainy as they were meant to be, and no more or less.

You missed my point. Once the grain is there it should not be removed, that would degrade the image even further. I'm not arguing for DNR. If it weren't for the imperfect film process grain would never be in our mind as a part of movies.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

I prefer to think no tech is that static. Quite depressing if it is.

Film-making is art. Not just a peice of tech that you discard after a single use.

This is the root cause of the worlds problem!

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

You missed my point. Once the grain is there it should not be removed, that would degrade the image even further. I'm not arguing for DNR. If it weren't for the imperfect film process grain would never be in our mind as a part of movies.

So I take it you prefer an electronic printout of the Mona Lisa rather than the real thing, brush-strokes and all.

[dialog_gvf]

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.

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.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

Actually real life is the one perfect medium. Infinite precision. You can't beat it.

Life, perfect?

If life is so perfect then why have thousands of people just died in Burma, why are millions still dying in Darfur?

No, Life is far from perfect and art, like movies, gives us an escape from the imperfections in life.

[Pelican170]

I don't agree fully with this article, I have movies where i know the grain shouldnt be there, but it is. The Descent comes to mind. some areas where it is supposed to represent "pitch black" does so well, when other scenes, there is grain where it is supposed to be black, that is not intended.

[CptGreedle]

If there was no grain in dark scenes, you would loose all detail and all kinds of information. In fact one reason grain is still use (sometimes called "dither"), is to prevent a medium from dropping the information there cause it can not detect it. Without the grain, pitch black would be completely pitch black and there would be no shadows or shadow details. Dark shadows on faces would turn black and you would only see a part of their face and the rest would be gone.
No. Grain is suppose to be there in those movies. Removing it is a bad idea.
I understand that people want more clean and smooth movies, but that is up to the director. I assure you movies like Speed Racer will most likely be smooth and have less (if any) grain. Other films, like Indy 4, will have grain cause it works best for that kind of film.
Film is not real life, and people should understand that. I fear that the low resolution of DVD has spoiled people into thinking that grain is bad or should not be there.

Take it from a professional imaging technician for National Geographic Society, film grain is beautiful and essential to film. You should be elated that Blu-ray has the resolution and quality to show you the true face of film.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Rubbish, grain is part of movie making, if you don't like it stick to video.

Why do you think "Planet Earth" was such a big
seller in HiDef? Probably because there were
more buyers that stuck to video methinks. I imagine
the BBC made a nice return on their investment to say
nothing of the CE's that sold BR players and televisions
because of it. This demographic probably is in the
millions.

Now just how many movie purists in the world touting
grain is a part of movie making are there. A demographic
of tens of thousands? I doubt "A Passage To India"
in Blu-ray made much of a return on investment or
sold any HiDef players or HiDef televisions.

Art is in the eye of the beholder or in the pocket of the
beholder to paraphase, and I daresay there are more video pockets with
dollars than there are movie grain pockets. Rubbish indeed.

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by binarymelon

I prefer to think no tech is that static. Quite depressing if it is.

Wow. The history of film has been anything but static.

Film is only an imperfect process if you want the end result to look like something other than film; film does what it does pretty well, I think, and I think it's something of a minor miracle---or at least a testament to human observation & ingenuity---that we ever figured out how to record images this way in the first place.

It's a shame B&W photography & printmaking isn't considered a viable hobby in the face of cheap digital cameras; having a personal relationship with grain makes all the difference.

[jon s]

All the people who don't like "grain" are probably the same ones who don't like the "black bars" on the top and the bottom of the screen...

[Pelican170]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

If there was no grain in dark scenes, you would loose all detail and all kinds of information. In fact one reason grain is still use (sometimes called "dither"), is to prevent a medium from dropping the information there cause it can not detect it. Without the grain, pitch black would be completely pitch black and there would be no shadows or shadow details. Dark shadows on faces would turn black and you would only see a part of their face and the rest would be gone.
No. Grain is suppose to be there in those movies. Removing it is a bad idea.
I understand that people want more clean and smooth movies, but that is up to the director. I assure you movies like Speed Racer will most likely be smooth and have less (if any) grain. Other films, like Indy 4, will have grain cause it works best for that kind of film.
Film is not real life, and people should understand that. I fear that the low resolution of DVD has spoiled people into thinking that grain is bad or should not be there.

Take it from a professional imaging technician for National Geographic Society, film grain is beautiful and essential to film. You should be elated that Blu-ray has the resolution and quality to show you the true face of film.

Go rent the movie. The scenes I am talking about, are supposed to be completely black, no shadows no nothing. but now, because the grain is there, you lose that sense of being trapped in a cave because of the shitty grain. I think its all an excuse to excuse the grain from blurays. Granted some movies are expected to have grain, but others not so much.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Without the grain, pitch black would be completely pitch black and there would be no shadows or shadow details.

In the opening scene of Twister, starting at about 1' 10" there is a dark shot of clouds, with lightning flashes.

When the lightning is occuring, there is slight motion in the clouds. But the dark frames look like a static photo. It looks like the DNR has suppressed EVERYTHING.

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Take it from a professional imaging technician for National Geographic Society, film grain is beautiful and essential to film. You should be elated that Blu-ray has the resolution and quality to show you the true face of film.

Gary

[saprano]

I wish they still alowed quote sigs, that last quote is were that would be going.