Why do some Blu-rays look better than others?

[arjun1591]

Sorry, this is my first time posting a thread so if I posted this in the wrong section, please correct me...

As I was saying...why do some blu-rays look better than others? On this website only, movies such as Iron Man, Quantum of Solace, and The Dark Knight got 5/5 in picture quality. And there are movies such as Get Smart and other ones that have a lower rating in picture quality. Why is this so? Does it have anything to do with how the film was shot (i.e. camera, lenses, type of film)?

[Anthony P]

when you get to reviews it can even have personal bias, it is hard to be completely objective. What I mean is that human nature will make someone tend to give a higher score to something they enjoy over something they don't

But as for the original question "Why do some Blu-rays look better than others? " there can be many factors

1) compression: the more something is compressed the more artefacts it will have

2) filters: filters are some times used to mechanically simplify/ clean up the films, sometimes they are used very lightly other times way too heavy handily

3) age/deterioration: sometimes some studios don't put the $ and time needed to fix the film before making the digital master

4) original film+: what you said

5) personal taste: for example some people will look at a movie and say "I hate the film grain" on the other hand someone else realizes it is part of film and love it, on the other hand these same two people might look at an other film and the first will say "wow looks good, it is clear with no film grain" and the other one " what idiot was let loose on this film, they applied degraining filters way to heavily and it looks like a mess with many artefacts"

and maybe even some more.

[neos_peace]

My question is this in responce to the grain deal. I personaly hate the grain. OF course in 300 I think it would look horrible wihtout it. I also think It depends on the movie being done. Some would look good with it, others don't. My question though whats th epoint wiht the grain. Why use it, or....is it an automatic byproduct of film that we never saw on reg DVD. And now that we are used to Blu we CAN see it. Understand what I'm saying/asking.

[SPH]

Originally Posted by neos_peace

My question is this in responce to the grain deal. I personaly hate the grain. OF course in 300 I think it would look horrible wihtout it. I also think It depends on the movie being done. Some would look good with it, others don't. My question though whats th epoint wiht the grain. Why use it, or....is it an automatic byproduct of film that we never saw on reg DVD. And now that we are used to Blu we CAN see it. Understand what I'm saying/asking.

I think its part of the process of film. The only time (imo) you woldnt see it is if you had a movie that was completely digital, and there wasnt and film transfer. The grain is part of it that can be seen now because of better definition. I see more grain now upscaling a dvd than I ever used to. Digital noise bothers me more than grain, which you dont see on BD's but anything cable hd or not has some.


Every player will "clean" or change a movie differently. A system that doesnt ad anything owuld probably be best. I know this is true with tone, the less interruption to signal the better the tone. No added filters color mapping etc

[dadkins]

It is either cheap film stock or the choice of the director to use "grain" to add his "Artistic Vision" to the movie - or both.

With good film, the grain would not be noticable.
Good film costs more though and presents different requirements for capturing the images.

Digital movies usually don't suffer from film grain because there is no film involved.

No matter what anyone wants you to believe, DNR and film cleanup is used on most Blu-ray discs that you and I purchase.

Some think it is an all-or-nothing approach, but obviously, it is not.

[mustang-gt-2002]

tomb raider was "BAD" stoped it half way through. good thing it was from netflix.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by dadkins

With good film, the grain would not be noticable.
Good film costs more though and presents different requirements for capturing the images.

Wrong, many directors choose to use grain for various reasons. Even large budget films.

Originally Posted by dadkins

Digital movies usually don't suffer from film grain because there is no film involved.

No matter what anyone wants you to believe, DNR and film cleanup is used on most Blu-ray discs that you and I purchase.

Digital movies don't have film grain, but they do have a grain of there own type (digital grain). There is nothing necessarilly wrong with small amounts of DNR and film clean up (maybe the grain is more pronounced then the director wants and he/she would prefer to remove some of it), the problem is when you sacrifice the very point of the extra clarity blu provides for, and when its against the directors intent.

Originally Posted by dadkins

Some think it is an all-or-nothing approach, but obviously, it is not.

Agreed, though obvious, as if you removed all the grain, there would be no picture left.

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by neos_peace

My question is this in responce to the grain deal. I personaly hate the grain. OF course in 300 I think it would look horrible wihtout it. I also think It depends on the movie being done. Some would look good with it, others don't. My question though whats th epoint wiht the grain. Why use it, or....is it an automatic byproduct of film that we never saw on reg DVD. And now that we are used to Blu we CAN see it. Understand what I'm saying/asking.

All film has "grain" movies, slides, pictures of you when you were a kid all film.
with blu-ray the grain is more noticeable then ever on dvd the resolution was so low it was hidden more or less and with old analog tv's you never saw it but it was always there, movies do need to be cleaned of dirt scratches and so fourth but the "grain" is part of the image to "monkey" with that is so wrong on older films if you see a film in a theater, sit closer to the screen you will see the grain it's supposed to be there to remove it you also remove part of the image watch patton on blu-ray it looks like they used sandpaper on it sure the grain is gone but so is the amazing detail that blu-ray was meant to give us, looking at a fine painting would you remove the brush strokes? of course not they are part of the painting

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by arjun1591

As I was saying...why do some blu-rays look better than others? On this website only, movies such as Iron Man, Quantum of Solace, and The Dark Knight got 5/5 in picture quality. And there are movies such as Get Smart and other ones that have a lower rating in picture quality. Why is this so? Does it have anything to do with how the film was shot (i.e. camera, lenses, type of film)?

Partially. It's very hard to know what it was meant to look like (the directors intent). For example 300 is very grainy, but it was intended to be like that, hence I give the score a 4.5/5 (as there where some minor problems), however if the grain had been reduced using DRM I would give it a lower score. Get Smart is shot entirely on digital and due to how it was shoe the results don't have the digital 'pop' that many where expecting. None the less it is a very good transfer with only a few issues (at least in the video department). Put more simply the difficulty in rating video, and the result of the different percieved quality of blus comes down to many thing, the directors intent, what it was shot with (compare 16mm with 70mm film and look at the huge difference in clarity, colours etc), how well preserved the original negatives of the film are (or whatever the blu ray is source from), how much money the studio is willing to spend restoring the film. Hence it was financially sensible for Blade Runner to be giving the best transfer possible, however I wouldn't expect the same treatment to James Camerons first film Pirranah 2 (though I doubt it will ever be released on blu, due to the very small demand that exists).

Audio is another big area, however is even harder to rate imo as a result of the highly subjective nature of audio. To me it's best to see it it has a lossless track on it, if not, for a blu ray it is likely to dissapoint (eg: the original Terminator 2 blu).

I hope that helps.

[ChrisFox108]

Many have already pointed that film, being an organic material that is photochemically treated, inherently has some amount of grain. But I wanted to shed a bit more light on that fact:

Any given movie has a lot of scenes that's shot in a variety of locations over the course of weeks/months. The natural lighting conditions across and within each location can vary tremendously, and oftentimes unpredictably so. With that, different types of filmstock are practically "required" in order to compensate for that variance in lighting conditions, even if the cinematographer supplements the natural lighting with their own lighting. Particularly, filmstock with a lower ISO will have the least amount of grain but "can't" be used in low light if you want a decent looking image; so choice of filmstock is largely driven by availability of light from one setup to the next (and sometimes even from one movie to the next given the different types of locations one movie may have over another).

Bottom line, different filmstocks - from the brand to the ISO to the chemicals and chemical processing techniques used to process them - each have their own unique size and texture quality of grain, let alone other qualities. Some cinematographers are better than others at weilding this grain deliberately alongside properly lighting and exposing in various locations, while others get relatively overwhelmed by the need to constantly switch filmstocks and/or were never trying to make a particular artistic statement with the quality of the grain. Also, before the days of bluray, cinematographers weren't shooting with high res displays in mind so they're level of technical precision was a bit more forgiving - 4K is so high res that it can reveal some of the shortcuts past cinematographers took.




Also, a couple of people pointed out Compression, which is a huge factor. A movie that's just lazily scanned in then unilaterally compressed is going to look worse than one in which they bring in and adjust frame by frame then make processing/compression decisions based on the nature of each shot. There are some HD blu rays that look damn near 4K because they took their time supervising the transfer (on top of the source print being well shot) instead of rushing to make a buck. I think a proper remastering of a 4K blu ray can cost as much as $250k if they care enough to make it best.

[veritas]

Personally complaints about missing grain (noise) annoy me. If a picture is actually missing detail then that’s a fair complaint but a lot of grain can be removed without ruining detail. Basically lack of grain is a symptom of a potential problem but not a problem in itself. To much noise is a problem itself which is why people try to remove as much noise as possible while minimally impacting detail.

There’s a nuance to noise reduction that seems to be missing in a lot of peoples comments. It’s a balance you generally want as much detail as possible with as little grain as you can get away with.

[bhampton]

Some Blu Rays feature Ana De Armas.

[iainso]

My impression is some blurays are just lazy upscales from DVD, like often some DVDs would just be VHS rips like the horrendous Bounty (Mel Gibson), and we see now with 4Ks like Pirates of the Caribbean. I do wish you could filter out the 'upgrade' list of your collection on whether they are actually worth the upgrade.