2001, Close Encounters, Pirates - Film Grain

[Mayor Quimby]

Actually, you're not seeing the original film grain at all in any disc but digital noise. Film has a resolution of well over 7000 pixels (grains) per inch. BD's are showing only 1080 of that. You can't represent 7 grains of silver with one pixel. The people doing the transfers can add more digital noise (grain) or leave it clean if it that effect is so desired. My personal opinion is that they should do what serves the film best. It's a judgment call in the end.

[Gremal]

It's not accurate to compare grain to pixels.

[richteer]

Originally Posted by Gremal

And as for the wisecrack about those who "enjoy cracks and pops" in their vinyl records, that isn't the reason audiophiles prefer vinyl. It has to do with the fact that the signal was never digitized and converted back to analog.

+1 I have vinyl records 25+ years old, and their surface is as silent as the day I bought them. Why? Because I look after them (anti static sleeves, I never touch the playing surface, use the correct tracking weight, etc.).

[Thunderchildga]

I too felt the 2001 Blu-Ray was an incredible Experience. I've lived with this film almost since it came out in 1968. I'm noticing all sorts of nuances in color, shade, and tone I've never seen before, even on 35mm film prints.

One thing to also take into consideration, some directors perfer to have some form of grain to set a certain tone. On the new Battlestr Galactica, the entire show is filmed in HD video and in post-production they insert a graining effect to make the image look like it was done on film instead of being a pristine HD image.

Hal

[Mayor Quimby]

I agree with almost all of the above. I wouldn't want to see Saving Private Ryan without grain but for 2001, a clean image seems to suit the film really well.

[vinray89]

My friend recently got into HD DVD and after viewing the "King Kong" disc that was included with his Xbox 360 drive, we were both completely blown away! That is how HD movies should look! Now, that being said, his next purchase of "Superman Returns" was nothing but a complete disappointment! For a movie that was filmed in HD, it looks like CRAP! I recently read a Sound and Vision magazine article where executives from Warner Bros. mastering department told about how they frequently add in film grain to try and replicate the look of the original film print as closely as possible. That of course only applies to movies filmed on actual film, however since "Superman Returns" was filmed digitally, why on God's green earth would they want to add in artificial film grain?
After all, isn't the whole point of having an advanced format to have picture and sound quality better than any previous format? You don't hear about studios adding in pops and crackles to the sound do you? Of course not silly! I sometimes think that there are stupid rays being beamed out into people's brains and that although certain people seem to be unaffected, the majority are getting dumber by the day! I mean, if I wanted to see film grain, I would either watch a VHS tape, go to a theater that was still using a film projector, or watch my movies through a dirty screen door for God's sake!
Hey all you studios on both sides of the format war, take a hint from "King Kong" and try to make your movies look as good as it does, or at least as sharp, colorful, clear and clean as you possibly can! Why else should we as consumers want to fork over big bucks for something that isn't going to live up to all the hype you have put out to us about it? Get a clue guys, the days of artistic cinematography are going out with the film camera, so just face it!

[Gremal]

Well, terms like "better" are subjective, and some feel that digital takes a bit of life out of the picture. I bet if you asked Martin Scorsese whether he prefers the look of film vs shooting digitally, he'll say film. Just because a newer, more elegant digital technology comes along with clear advantages in many areas doesn't mean the older analog technology is worse, per se. Hopefully, studios can use the strengths of each to deliver the best picture on BD.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Mayor Quimby

Actually, you're not seeing the original film grain at all in any disc but digital noise. Film has a resolution of well over 7000 pixels (grains) per inch. BD's are showing only 1080 of that. You can't represent 7 grains of silver with one pixel. The people doing the transfers can add more digital noise (grain) or leave it clean if it that effect is so desired. My personal opinion is that they should do what serves the film best. It's a judgment call in the end.

You're partialty right but you're partially wrong.

We don't see individual silver grains, which are too small to be resolved by the eye watching film on screen or a photograph. What we call "grain" are actually grain clumps which are larger than the individual grains (look at the image on my link on the other post to picture it better) and the irregularity of these clumps is what gives us the perception of "graininess".

Look at these other pics of sharpness/resolving power/grain:



vs





(btw color films don't have silver grains, they have color dye clouds that clump around the silver grains and remain forming the image after the silver is removed)




Also, most people quote the raw resolution of 35mm film across its width (i.e. "7000 pixels per inch" ) vs the height (i.e. "1080")

I've posted this before: the image formed in the film is less than the raw film recoding ability because it's a function of the sum of the film emulsion + the len's image forming ability. The lights of rays focused as the smallest posible dot (NOT a point) on the film emulsion traverse the thickness of the layers of the emulsion and the photons spread out through it as they hit and "activate" the silver grains. So a film might have a raw resolution of 100 line/pairs per mm or 200 line pairs, and a lens the same, in laboratory tests, but the actual image formed on it when shooting might be just 70 line/pairs per mm.
So you take a 1.85 35mm movie whose image meaures 11.33 mm x 21 mm and you might get to record 70 x 2 x 11.33 x 21 = 1600 x 2900 on the 35mm camera negative (not 4000 x 7000). Then you have to look at that enlarged through another lens, etc, etc.

[mhafner]

Originally Posted by Mayor Quimby

Actually, you're not seeing the original film grain at all in any disc but digital noise. Film has a resolution of well over 7000 pixels (grains) per inch. BD's are showing only 1080 of that. You can't represent 7 grains of silver with one pixel. The people doing the transfers can add more digital noise (grain) or leave it clean if it that effect is so desired. My personal opinion is that they should do what serves the film best. It's a judgment call in the end.

Where do you get these numbers from? Fact is 35mm motion picture film of the last decades upto now have no detail beyond 4K. Usually you get all you need between 2K and 3.5K. So on HD there is some loss from going from 3.5 to 1.9. But 1.9 is still enough to give a quite accurate rendition of the grain. More of a problem is the compression applied on HD media. And nobody adds digital noise to clean material from film unless they want to avoid banding or unify the look from shot to shot. Noise/grain is bad enough as is for compression.

[Mayor Quimby]

Originally Posted by mhafner

Where do you get these numbers from? Fact is 35mm motion picture film of the last decades upto now have no detail beyond 4K. Usually you get all you need between 2K and 3.5K. So on HD there is some loss from going from 3.5 to 1.9. But 1.9 is still enough to give a quite accurate rendition of the grain. More of a problem is the compression applied on HD media. And nobody adds digital noise to clean material from film unless they want to avoid banding or unify the look from shot to shot. Noise/grain is bad enough as is for compression.

Experience. I'm a professional photographer and while it is true that there is no real true picture detail beyond 4K, there is more info there actually. Still, it's a moot point because 4K realistically is enough. BD is not 4K. It's 1K. All I'm saying is that you're not seeing film grain itself at all when you watch a bd, hd or whatever. If you scanned a frame of film at even 2400dpi, you would see what looks like grain but isn't. You'd know once you had the film drum-scanned at 8000dpi. And yes, many transfers do add some level of digital noise to film transfers because the transfers start out looking too clean and sterile. I would think that greater compression (ie HD-DVD) would counteract grain and noise.

[WaRe]

I picked up the last copy of Sunshine at my local BB.

[Minimejer05]

I barely notice any grain in them. Great quality

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Mayor Quimby

BD is not 4K. It's 1K. All I'm saying is that you're not seeing film grain itself at all when you watch a bd, hd or whatever. If you scanned a frame of film at even 2400dpi, you would see what looks like grain but isn't. You'd know once you had the film drum-scanned at 8000dpi.

There you go again Didn't you read my post?

35mm STILL PHOTO film size is 24 mm x 36mm, BUT movie film 35mm has an image shot across the 24 mm horizontally, so it goes from a minimum of 11.33 mm x 21 mm to a max of 17.5 mm x 21 mm on regular sound 35, and from a minimum of 10 mm x 24 mm to a maximum of 18 mm x 24 mm on silent/Super-35.

So 24 mm would be the maximun width (for S-35 shot film) (or 21 mm for regular sound 35mm)

So MOVIE 35mm is not 1k, and BD is not 1K

Movie 35mm is:

4K: 4096 pixels across the 35mm's gauge area between the sprockets: which is about 25 mm, and the Projected image from it is about 24 mm in Silent/Super-35 shot movies; and 21 mm for regular 35mm sound movies, be them anamorphic, flat widescreen, or Academy.

The Cineon scanner had a pitch of 166.66 pixels per mm (4233 dpi) in 4k, so:

4k Super-35: 24 mm x 166.66 = 4000 pixels width
4k regular 35: 21 mm x 166.66 =3492 pixels width

2k Super-35: 24 mm x 83.33 = 2000 pixels width
2k regular 35: 21 mm x 83.33 = 1746 pixels width

BD has 1920 pixels width so it's not 1k. It's 2k.
1920/2000 = 96%. Within SMPTE recomended practice of projection error. (I've seen theaters that crop up to 20% of one dimension!)

2400 dpi would be more or less 2.3k in movie terms but "3.4k" for the 35mm still photo's dimensions equivalent, 8000 dpi would be like 7.6k in movie terms but "11.3k" for the 35mm still photo's dimensions equivalent.

A projected film release print is normally about 1.5k on screen, and the eye sees about 4k at a viewing distance of 2PH/1 diagonal and about 2k at viewing distance of 4PH/2 diagonal(Thats why we see an improvement with 70mm projection)

[sean10mm]

So what does 8k work out to on 70mm? I know they did 8k scans of 70mm for the Blade Runner Final Cut effects shots.

[Sandman416]

I'm going to have to wait until my copy of 2001 arrives so I can judge for myself.

However I found all this information on file most informative. Thank you.

[TheTenth]

doesn't grain depend on your TV : with my Techwood 500:1 contrast, Dracula (I know F. COPPOLA insisted on keeping some grain) seemed bad, with my new Samsung 8000:1 contrast it's really clean ; same for Species and Wild Things

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Mayor Quimby

Still, it's a moot point because 4K realistically is enough. BD is not 4K. It's 1K.

4K = 4000 pixels wide
2K = 2000 pixels wide

BD is approximately 2K.

[reginaroadie]

I have to admit that while CLOSE ENCOUNTERS looked fantastic at 1080p, there were a few instances where the grain and digital clarity did get in the way of my enjoyment. The shot early on the movie when Roy was driving in his truck and it's completely pitch black, there was no grain on it and thought it was a fantastic shot. But then you get some other night shots that are a bit grainy, and then during the last act, when the doors of the mothership open and the people come out, you can see this black blob that separates what's obviously model of the mothership and the plywood box that opens up. You never saw that in the previous editions, but you can see it with 1080p resolution. And it kinda robs you of the "suspension of disbelief" factor. If Spielberg had pulled a George Lucas and fixed that, then I don't think anyone would have noticed or cared.

It's still a great transfer. It just has to do with which kind of shot it was. In the making of section, Doug Trumbull talked about how you have to do FX shots in 70mm so that when you add it to the original shot, the downgrade isn't too obvious.

I'm not completely against filmmakers going back and touching up their masterpieces, if it has to do with fixing gaffs and errors. Like getting rid of the plexiglass between Indy and the cobra in RAIDERS, or the black lines in the cockpit of the Rebel snowships in EMPIRE, or that shot of the woman in BLADE RUNNER running through the glass.

[sowecrazy]

yeah i thought 2001 looked awsum for the age of the movie, along with shinning.

[KT26102]

So true you are about the closeness to the Flat Panel you may own ... there may also be a problem.. what type are you watching these awesome BD's on? is it a true 1080p or a 720p and is your size correct for the room?
all important items to great and very enjoyable viewing.

have a great evening viewing your BD's