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.

[Anthony P]

or....is it an automatic byproduct of film that we never saw on reg DVD.

it is an automatic by-product of film and absolutely all film has it from the cheapest to the most expensive. Also since it is a by-product of film every time you copy film you add to the "grain". In a way it is like paper. Hold a plain white sheet to a bulb and you will see the structure of it (spots that are darker and others less) in essence on the cellulose you have the light sensitive strata, that cover is never 100% even and uniform so some parts will react a bit more while others a bit less.

[Clark Kent]

Not every film has the same budget and skilled filmmakers at the helm. Many movies, including second and third-tier Hollywood movies, cut corners in production to save on expenses. Many directors go for a visually ugly look in their films. No one is going to confuse a Woody Allen film with a Kubrick film.

[starkent08]

not everyone has a samsung

[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.

[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.

[ryoohki]

Because nothing is ALL THE SAME in anything on this planet.

[SkantDragon]

The movie you see on your TV is the result at the end of a pipeline with many steps. And if any of those steps are done poorly, the result suffers.

With the old DVD discs, the DVD itself was the main bottleneck. Whether the camera work was spot on or a bit out of focus didn't really matter because everything came out blurry on DVD anyway.

The populace perceived DVDs as being sharp only because they were sharper than preceeding technologies that were even worse. And also because the sharpness across different DVDs was pretty uniformly poor.

With Blu-ray, the disc is no longer the bottleneck for quality. At least not usually. Some studios seem to play a game of seeing just how small they can compress their movies down, even though it's totally pointless to do so when delivering Blu-ray discs because it just wastes the unused capacity (I'm looking at you, Warner).

But in most cases, when one film looks much better on Blu-ray than another, it's usually because of things like film stock, lenses, camera work, film editting, etc.

In short, Blu-ray is so good that you can now readily see all the blemishes in the original movie.

It's rather like getting new glasses which let you see sharply... and then you realize there's actually all sorts of little cracks and nicks and such all over your house.

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

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

That's my whole point.
MOST Blu-ray discs have had DNR used on them and yet the picture is still great!

Many here seem to think that the transfers are straight to disc - WRONG!
They have been cleaned up to some extent.
Some more than others, and some could stand a bit more...
DNR is not a Nuke-It approach.
In the hands of someone that knows what they are doing, *WE ALL* get great Blu-ray Discs to watch.

They have been cleaned up! Sorry fellas!

[Anthony P]

That's my whole point.
MOST Blu-ray discs have had DNR used on them and yet the picture is still great!

Many here seem to think that the transfers are straight to disc - WRONG!
They have been cleaned up to some extent.
Some more than others, and some could stand a bit more...
DNR is not a Nuke-It approach.
In the hands of someone that knows what they are doing, *WE ALL* get great Blu-ray Discs to watch.

They have been cleaned up! Sorry fellas!

it is degrained not DNR, there is no digital noise to reduce on film for someone that keeps on claiming you know it all you can't even get the techs right

On the other hand, why do you think Patton, most WB films in general look so bad and have bad PQ scores?

[dadkins]

Once the "film" is scanned to digital, it is DNR-ed - then sent to the disc press, right?
Maybe you should do some research on the subject then get back to *us*.

I have never made any claims about knowing it all... how about you?

Patton? Maybe because an idiot was at the controls. No idea, don't care either!

[Anthony P]

Once the "film" is scanned to digital, it is DNR-ed - then sent to the disc press, right?

no, DNR is not used to get rid of grain. It is for digital noise, that is why it is called DNR. I t can also used many times and at any point in time. It can be used directly on a digital camera, or on a digital master scanned, on the compressed file or even on a TV. Mathematically speaking grain and DN don't look or behave the same so you would not want to use filters created for DN to get rid of grain. To someone that does not know (and sometimes even toi someone that does) DN can be misinterpreted for FG or vice versa, but it is like being sick, to most cold /flu what is the difference, but there are flu shots and not cold shots, the treatment and effects can be very different...

[dadkins]

Here, because you apparently cannot read English very well:

Originally Posted by dadkins

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

Still, as I have stated many times... DNR(Dynamic Noise Reduction) has been used on 90% of all Blu-ray Discs.
No amount of you trying to derail the facts will change that!

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_te...i=56440,00.asp

[Anthony P]

Still, as I have stated many times... DNR(Dynamic Noise Reduction) has been used on 90% of all Blu-ray Discs.
No amount of you trying to derail the facts will change that!

where have I said anything to how much DNR has been applied? I have no idea and when I don’t know I keep quiet, that way I don’t make a fool of myself. I don’t know if it is 90% or 100% or 10%, and not important, since the topic is grain. And the article you linked to neither linked the two nor does it say that it is used on 90% of BDs.