night at the museum grainy?

[krapow skater1]

dose anyone have it?
the backround looks graniy
im useing a 1080i tv displau

[shadowmoon]

Originally Posted by krapow skater1

dose anyone have it?
the backround looks graniy
im useing a 1080i tv displau

I have it and its perfect on my 1080p.

[krapow skater1]

but you have 1080p
i have 1080i and the backround seems kinda graniy

[BTBuck1]

The movie is grainy in some spots, thats low light,Thats how it was theatrically, thats film...it's transparent to the master.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by krapow skater1

but you have 1080p
i have 1080i and the backround seems kinda graniy

I sure hope that is not the case, I should be getting my copy in the mail any day (courtesy of GC and Buy.com)

[krapow skater1]

for me its jsut seems like the backround is graniy.
plus the HD trailers form the ps store are graniy but jsut the backround or ground

[coolmilo]

I just got through watching Night at the Museum and I thought it was reference quality (picture and sound). I had a great time watching it. Are you sure that you are not mistaking depth of field for grainy? In some scenes the camera was focused on the subject and the background was a little blurry but that is normal.

[krapow skater1]

i know what i mean
because it happens with the 300 tralier from the psn

[jbuttler007]

might just be his tv.

[NutsAboutPS3]

If it has grain it's because it was in the original movie and that's how it's meant to look. Blu-ray is the best format and can capture all the grain that was in the original movie, along with all the other fine details in the picture that make it look so great.

[pbnbcr]

Just curious, what player are you using? I've noticed that some players are really grainy compared to others. I played NATM on Samsung's 61" LED DLP and the picture was superb. The only little amount of graininess was when the filmed area was dark, but that is natural on all movies.

[pbnbcr]

Forget last question... I noticed you mentioned PS Store....so you're using a PS3...

[JTK]

I'm using a PS3 on an KD34XBR960 and I just happened to watch this movie last night: Near flawless.

[Greenmatiz2]

Yeah, and there was dust and some scratches on the image in the theater as well. Do I want that? Hell no.

First thing to check is your sharpness setting on the TV.

Sometimes the grain isn't cleaned up. It comes from either a desire to "show what was originally intended" or pure laziness on the studio's part. Most of the people who don't have a problem with it are watching on large home projectors. Bring it down to a TV that's 50" or below, and the grain is very close together, and looks very annoying/distracting. Kind of more like dirt or dust dancing everywhere. I hate it, too.

Studios have known this for years, and cleaned up grain for regular DVDs (watched on home TVs), knowing that consumers prefer it removed. For some reason, however, they are opting to "show what was originally intended" by keeping the grain in on a lot of HD disks (both BR and HD-DVD). These new HD formats have resolutions so high, and our new home TVs are so sharp, the grainy really pops a lot more than was intended when the film stock was chosen for the big-screen.

In my opinion, if the movie is very grainy, it's not wise to release it without some tweaking. I hate that Blu-ray sometimes rushes these transfers (HD-DVDs can look the same), then falls behind the "oh, but it looks like that in the theater" excuses. Judging by the number of complaints, and the fact that studios have learned to take the time to polish DVDs in the past, I hope studios learn that it WILL hurt sales not to release pristine transfers. It should be evidence enough that this issue pops up FREQUENTLY.

The 300 trailer is damn grainy, but I know that one is on purpose. It's the way it was shot. It's artistic. The average joe probably wants a bit cleaner image at home, though.

Have you seen CLICK? The preview I downloaded at the same time as 300 was absolutely stunning. Very clean image. Maybe 300 will be better when we get the final disk, but hard to know.

As I said early, most of us are watching on screens smaller than 100" in size. THE IMAGES SHOULD BE CLEANED BETTER! I'm sure that, in time, the studios will figure out that the average consumer prefers a bit less grain, and they will adjust for this.

When you get a standard DVD release, it's usually polished a lot. Too much of this polishing can smooth it out so much that you lose depth and detail in the image. Get it right, and it looks great. Perfecting this takes time/money however.

I don't order a Blu-ray disk until I've read about the picture quality FIRST. I learned my lesson when I saw some really crappy movies like xXx and 50 First Dates, for example. Sometimes they don't even use a good print to begin with. Pure laziness, and outright stupidity.

Hearing these complaints like this about films like Night at the Museum turns me off from pre-ordering.

No thanks. I'll wait for the reviewers to tell me what they think of the transfer first.


Crap like this is what adds up with other things to piss people off into buying another format.

[Shin-Ra]

Unless a whole movie or scene is trying to achieve a certain effect - like the extra grainy black and white intro to Casino Royale or the grainy fog of Silent Hill, I think Casino Royale again is the transfer to try and emulate. The level of grain was spot on for me.

[Chad Varnadore]

First grain is not more prevalent on smaller screen sizes than larger ones. That assumption couldn't be further from the truth. Nor should 1080i vs 1080p impact the appearance of grain. The removal of grain is never a good thing. If you personally don't want film to look like it's supposed to and are using a small enough display that the loss of detail associated with grain reduction isn't perceptible then DVD is for you or you should try lowering sharpness, adding noise reduction (available in many players), defocusing the lens, or other techniques that have the same affect of filtering. Odds are if your sharpness setting is higher than 0, you're aggravating grain on your own. But, any grain reduction is perceptible at larger screen sizes in a loss of detail and sometimes other side-effects of the filtering itself. If you think you might ever have a desire to upgrade to a larger display, you may find yourself seeing things in a much clearer light. That said, if you think a title is excessively grainy at 50". Any title. Odds are there is something in the chain that is aggravating it. Many display manufacturers over-enhance edge contrast to a degree that can't be alleviated by the user sharpness control. You have to go into the service menus to effectively turn it off. Analog conversion will compound video based artifacts. Lower bit video processing, like 8 bit video processing will also add to what is in the source. Any display more than a year old most likely falls back to 8 bit video processing and many newer ones probably still do. Inefficient deinterlacing, compounded by scaling to lower resolutions like 720p can aggravate source born artifacts as well. Of course player design and how they are setup can have as much of an impact as the displays.

Grain isn't "cleaned up" on DVD out of some preference. High definition offers, for the first time, a more complete appreciation of the look of film. DVD is just such a lossy technology that grain, like detail, is lost in the necessary filtering processes. With BD studios are opting to "show what was originally intended" because that's the whole point of higher fidelity. If you don't like something you see, a better understanding of film is in order or tweaking the video until it suits your personal taste. Unlike DVD, in many cases you're not criticizing disc authoring, you're criticizing the film itself. So if you don't like something, it's the film you don't like, not the technology.

It's not lazy of a studio not to filter grain, it's commendable. The only reason to use filters for high definition is in the case of older films where the source print has degraded over years in storage or during the films run. It could be said that it's lazy of consumers who expect everything to be plug and play. None of us have perfect display devices, whether it cost 1k or 20k. Most probably have done little, if anything to properly calibrate their displays, which even if they did, isn't a guarantee of anything. If you want to get the most out of your components you have to understand them better. To the same extent, better education of the consumer may be in order, not compromising the video to compensate for ignorance or a lack of appreciation for the dynamics of film.

I understand that some prefer the look of HD video to film. But grain is to film like brush strokes are to a painting. Naturally preserved grain shouldn't be associated with the likes of compression. If you don't understand it well enough to develop some level of appreciation, you're not going to like a lot of movies in high def, unless you learn how to remove it yourself, via better setup or the compromising methods described above. Speilberg is a huge proponent of film grain. You can expect SPR, JP, Minority Report, and many other films of his to look grainy if preserved to his satisfaction.

You can't judge a film by its trailer either. Trailers are often created aside from any tweaking done during post. And as they're less important than the film itself, they are more likely to be compromised on the discs (ie filtered or overly compressed). Trailers for Click may look less grainy. But you can be assured that the film recieved better care than the trailers. So, odds are in favor of the film being truer to what the director and DP intented.

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

You can't judge a film by its trailer either. Trailers are often created aside from any tweaking done during post. And as they're less important than the film itself, they are more likely to be compromised on the discs (ie filtered or overly compressed). Trailers for Click may look less grainy. But you can be assured that the film recieved better care than the trailers. So, odds are in favor of the film being truer to what the director and DP intented.

so funny you mention this, when I read the first sentance I immediately thought of Click...lol, and How a friend of mine called me up and said
"Hey man...how come Click looks better on the trailer than the movie"
I said...wtf are you talking about? you are nuts!

Next time I go over there, he shows me the trailer vs the BD on the same spots, I prefered the BD, I could see all the detail (and flaws) the Trailer appeared unrealistic & filtered to me. Like the difference between a solid Mpeg2 transfer or AVC vs. the average low bit VC-1 encode.

Some are just so conditioned toward soft, that they lean toward it.
I prefer sharper grittier more natural images, which is probably why I prefer DLP to SXRD in this latest generation.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by krapow skater1

dose anyone have it?
the backround looks graniy
im useing a 1080i tv displau

I have it. I have a PS3 and a 1080p 1:1 display.

Watched this with the girlfriend on IMAX in January. We re-watched it last night on Blu-ray disc. It's both our opinion that the clarity was better than the IMAX presentation. Like a veil was lifted from it. Digital to digital is gooood.

1080i if deinterlaced correctly shouldn't give more grain. I imagine in the case if it's deiterlaced by bobbing, as the scanning horizontal lines end twice as thick (tall), grain occupying one pixel in height, becomes twice as tall and could be twice as much more apparent that in a correctly deinterlaced (weaved) image..

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by Greenmatiz2

Yeah, and there was dust and some scratches on the image in the theater as well. Do I want that? Hell no.

There is a difference between dust and scratches and grain. Grain is part of the movie as originally filmed. Dust and scratches are defects that have been acquired later on, they are not part of the original creation.

Also, dust and scratches are much more limited in their impact on the material and can be largely eliminated when scanning film using ICE type technology, without degrading the overall picture as happens with attempts to remove grain.

[krapow skater1]

its probally justt my tv
its a no name brand (insignia form bestbuy)
its a great tv dont get my wrong but not the best
it only happens when watchin Bul-ray though