Damn X-Men 3 is Grainy. most scenes looks stunning but the grainy scenes damn

[aggienader08]

Is anyone else sick and tired of discussions on grain!? Why can't you people just leave it alone! There will never be a winning argument. I am sick of our threads being flooded with this nonsense garbage. Just leave it be.

If your movie has too much grain, then I'm sorry you're disappointed.

[Cinema Squid]

Originally Posted by mredman

also here is a pic i found. if this is not grainy i don't know what is. And there is also many reviewers saying it is really grainy so either some people doesn't mind the grain or a going a little blind
[...]

Those shots are from the UK X-Men Trilogy boxset edition and the UK X-Men 3 has a different encode than the US version (UK: AVC @ ~30Mbps vs. US: AVC @ ~20Mbps). Not that this necessarily effects any aspect of perceived visual quality between the two, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by aggienader08

Is anyone else sick and tired of discussions on grain!? Why can't you people just leave it alone! There will never be a winning argument. I am sick of our threads being flooded with this nonsense garbage. Just leave it be.

If your movie has too much grain, then I'm sorry you're disappointed.

there are 3 things that should never be discussed with people--

religion, politics, and grain on blu-rays!

[statikcat]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

Something I rarely see mentioned in any of the grain threads, but is there any chance you have your sharpness set too high? Use one of those THX calibration tools found on any Star Wars or Indiana Jones DVD, or on any of the Pixar Blu-rays to adjust all the settings on your TV including the sharpness.

You know I never thought about that being some peoples problem. A lot of people complain about grain in a movie that I never had a problem with or even cross my mind while watching. I always turn sharpness down .. maybe 20% at the most. Its been so long since I have messed with sharpness I almost forgot how it kind of creates a grain appearance on anything.

[mredman]

FOX is FOX no matter if its US or UK they use the same transfer all over the world

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by mredman

FOX is FOX no matter if its US or UK they use the same transfer all over the world

But not the same encode... (like it was said, it doesn't really make too much of a difference though)

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by statikcat

You know I never thought about that being some peoples problem. A lot of people complain about grain in a movie that I never had a problem with or even cross my mind while watching. I always turn sharpness down .. maybe 20% at the most. Its been so long since I have messed with sharpness I almost forgot how it kind of creates a grain appearance on anything.

Yeah, I think it's something that gets overlooked a lot. Whenever I see complaints about "too much grain," I'm always a little baffled because that particular disc being discussed looked great to me.

I only just recently realized that there are a lot of people, and not just on this board, that have no idea that they should calibrate their TVs. I think the argument for and against grain is played out. It exists in film and it's not going away, so the best we can do is remind everyone - Don't Hate. Calibrate!

[CMM]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

If Ghostbusters is Grainbusters... then that would mean there's no grain in Ghostbusters because it's been busted...

Haha

[Grim Reaper]

Originally Posted by mredman

The worst grainy scene is where we first meet the boy that can cure mutants. He is in that white room. That scene was just to grainy for a HD transfer and this movie is not even old. X2 had a better transfer

The directors choice to make X3 so grainy was not a good call i think

What do you guys think of this and wasn't it a little bit of a distraction?

movie wasnt that good anyway.

[greatfoxmusic]

Originally Posted by Travis

"Film grain
The grain of photographic film is a signal-dependent noise, related to shot noise.[11] That is, if film grains are uniformly distributed (equal number per area), and if each grain has an equal and independent probability of developing to a dark silver grain after absorbing photons, then the number of such dark grains in an area will be random with a binomial distribution; in areas where the probability is low, this distribution will be close to the classic Poisson distribution of shot noise; nevertheless a simple Gaussian distribution is often used as an accurate enough model.[7]

Film grain is usually regarded as a nearly isotropic (non-oriented) noise source, and is made worse by the distribution of silver halide grains in the film also being random." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_noise

I know wikipedia is not a definitive source, but I believe many people feel grain is noise that is part of film. Grain has been discussed to death, it is up their with religion and politics now. Everyone seems to have very different views, like grain, hate grain, or don't care about graion, like believers, atheists, agnostics. Heavy Metal is noise to some people too, it's music to others. Can't account for taste.

Telling someone to educate themselves on what the find visually appealing or appalling is getting a little rude. I can take grain but I don't like it, I know what is it, but I still don't like it.

Yeah well, you know what? You guys are using "noise" to be a negative thing (pun intended). Noise is usually unwanted. Like, in a signal-to-noise ratio in audio. You want that ratio to be very low, so that the intended signal comes through clearly.

With film grain, the "noise" as you define in the above article is intended, and frankly, impossible to totally take away. Film does not look like film without grain. Digital video might look very sharp, but movies made in digital do not look like films. They look like long television shows.

Some people will be happy when there is no company making photographic stock, and everything is in digital. Kodachrome is already now a part of history, and no doubt, film will be also. Then, you can no longer call movies "films". You can call them flat, artificial, soul-less abominations. Eat your heart out, George Lucas.

[greatfoxmusic]

Originally Posted by BaronVH

I certainly don't intend to be snobbish, elitist, or anything. If somebody dislikes grain, OK, that is their issue. The fact is that if the director intended it to be there: Transformers, Master and Commander, Assassination of Jesse James, etc., then it should not be removed unless the director does it. Period. Second, many people do not have really large displays, so they cannot see what DNR does to a scene. For those that dislike it, I politely ask that you consider the issue with DVDs and letterbox vs. fullscreen. It is similar here. You can read up on what grain is and what it isn't. Meanwhile, if you still don't like it, many HDTVs have a DNR filter in the menu options. Mine has no DNR (which is where it will stay), moderate DNR, or high DNR. Messing with those options can show you why removing grain is problematic. The thing is if the studio uses excessive DNR, it can ruin the film, especially on large displays.

Thank you. And I can tell you that DNR looks like crap at a 126" projection.
I might as well be watching a DVD. And DVDs look really bad that big.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Valkyr47

I have a sony bravia, which came shipped with the sharpness setting on 15 out of 20

i have it on 12 right now

ive noticed that if i drop it down to 0, it DOES blur out the fine details like pores, stubble, etc

so i would have to agree with the person who asked what the point of buying an hdtv/blu-ray player is if your going to blur out all the fine details

It sounds like your setting turns from an edge enhancement setting to a soften setting when pushed too low. My BD player I believe goes from -6 to +6 and my TV goes from 0 to like 20. The player's neutral setting is right in the middle, but the TV's is all the way to the left.

You just have to find the position wherein your picture is not artificially altered with edge enhancement and is also not softened. I guess a disc with a test pattern on it would be the best thing to check this against.

Originally Posted by O_V_N

Comes across as very snobbish, doesn't it? They forget that, at one time, they were just like others here: they weren't "educated" about grain, either. No one comes out of the womb knowing everything about film.

well

I've always had an understanding that grain is inherent to a filmed picture for as long as I can remember. A lot of people seem to believe grain gets introduced to a picture during a bad transfer. Or they believe that grain is introduced with age. Or they believe that grain amount is reliant on when the film was made rather than the choice of film stock.

Originally Posted by tvine2000

the thing is i never hear grain haters that saw a movie in the local movie house complain about grain,what up with that?

Theatres are often out of focus.

When I saw Spider-man 3 in IMAX I was blown away by the detail (seeing pores during close shots) and I thought it was because it was IMAX. Nope, Spider-man 3 was not filmed on IMAX at all. The reason I was so blown away by the detail was the fact that I was so used to seeing movies in soft focus at the local theatre; I was simply not used to seeing a movie in focus.

Originally Posted by Kor-ray

I really could care less about grain, but what is it used for? what's the reason for a director to put it in?

Aesthetic appeal. For example, look at Benjamin Button. I haven't seen it myself yet, but I hear they artificially added a ton of grain for flashback sequences. Other cases are just because the director feels like the film having that texture, that they want it to look that way. Other cases are because of budgetary constraints, and the choices made for film stock because of that inform the aesthetic look of the film. And even if a film stock choice is made for budgetary reasons, that aesthetic look is generally embraced regardless. For example, 28 Days Later was shot mostly on low resolution digital. But the aesthetic look this gives to the majority of the picture is embraced despite the fact that it is that way because of budgetary choices. For another example, look at Clerks, the Kevin Smith film. Shot on low quality stock and black and white, just because that was all he could afford. But that budgetary choice made the film look what it was, it'd've been a totally different film if shot on high quality 35mm in color.

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by BLUCanadian

The grain can be added to a digitally filmed movie. It is added before the theatrical presentation, not only for the blu-ray

Not just digitally *captured* movies.

Many(most) film movies are scanned to digital and edited digitally.
Grain and whatever else can be added there and then the final production can be mastered.

[kabukijoe]

Holy tap dancing Christ, has every discussion on here turned into a film grain war lately?

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by kabukijoe

Holy tap dancing Christ, has every discussion on here turned into a film grain war lately?

Not quite, but it seems like it from the size of these threads. I'm hoping it blows over because it wasn't this bad before.

[greatfoxmusic]

Originally Posted by kabukijoe

Holy tap dancing Christ, has every discussion on here turned into a film grain war lately?

Have you seen Christ tap dance? Is he better than Gregory Hines?

[Jack Burton]

Actually out of the box set this one still looks the sharpest and overall the best in my view.People have said the X2 looks best ,but i think it looks soft compared to The Last Stand.If this means a bit more grain will show because of how sharp it looks, then i would take this every time compared to a softer image of X2 because it has less grain.
Not saying X2 is bad just saying that i find X3 far more detailed and sharp and in some scenes more grainy but the overall viewing puts the the other two films to shame in the PQ depatment in my view.

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by killowertz

Not quite, but it seems like it from the size of these threads. I'm hoping it blows over because it wasn't this bad before.

More people are getting Blu-ray players and the more people who join the more discussions we have about complaints to grain

[bajor27]

Originally Posted by Travis

I never want detail removed and never turn on any feature on my TV that will soften the picture. I can totally accept grain, and don't wish it removed to ruin the picture. But I don't see why I have to like it, there are grain lovers, and 2 kinds of grain haters, the ones that hate it and can tolerate it and the ones who wish it all removed. I'm the first one. Grain is like the weather. There is the humidity in Taiwan, it's here, it's never gonna leave and I can complain about it. Just because the humidity is here I don't need to embrace it or like it.

This has been a wonderful read and I thank you for posting it. It's pretty much exactly how I feel, although I don't complain about grain. I will complain about it's removable though because I know it can't be removed without consequence (and yes, I understand that most titles have at least a little DNR applied). I definitely don't think anyone needs to like grain though.

Speaking of X3 and grain though, anyone know anything about Brett Ratner? Does he like to film a certain way that inherently leads to grainer films? Is it just X3? I ask mainly because I was a bit disappointed in the PQ of Rush Hour 3, another Ratner film. It had too much DNR applied to it for my tastes. If it was a bit 'extra grainy' than that could explain why New Line went a bit overboard.

[RiseDarthVader]

Shooting on Super35 is easier to do by less skillful directors then shooting Anamorphic. And perhaps he likes the texture of the stock he uses.