PS3 - Blu Ray playback seems grainy

HI Guys,

I just purchased a PS3, and have also bought several movies over the past couple of weeks. It seems like a lot of the movies are grainy, such as hellboy, spiderman 3, dan in real life. Golden Compass looked ok, but didnt really blow me away like i thought it might. Is it possible that they were just bad transfers?

I've never had any of these issues w/ my hd-dvd player. I'm not trying to start a debate or anything. I was just curious what others have found w/ their systems. I'm not sure if there are any settings i should be checking. Its set to full 1080p because my TV supports it, and i have a monster hdmi cable between the two.

Thanks for any help.

I remember when I first got my PS3 and threw Hellboy in - I was like, this is worse than a standard DVD. Then I went into the display settings and had to click what my TV (projector actually) could handle. When I did the setup correctly, the picture was incredible so I would start there. The one thing I can say is my projector is NOT a 1080p projector but I selected it, which it set the picture to and it was so large I only saw about 1/4 of the actual picture. Getting that back to normal was a pain in the butt. Other than that, my PS3 is doing great for me (just as good as my HD DVD player in picture but not as good in the audio departement).

Flow

Also you may wanna update to the latest firmware. I think Flows suggestion will help but you already stated your TV can handle 1080P so I'm not sure.

Let us know if you get this resolved as I'm getting a PS3 sometime this week.

Also which PS3 console do you have? 40GB? 80GB? Do you have 24 fps forced? When did you get this unit?

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[Post edited by Falcon01 on May 21, 2008]

what type of tv you have?

overall bluray uses grain for deail, sometimes it backfires but normally only with older titles. spidey 3 shoudnt have much... i used to see it worst when i had the samsung tv no matter what settings, butsince i've had the aquos grain no more.

Hi all,
I posted a few weeks back about being disappointed in my Blu experience thus far with my PS# also. I have watched Curse of the Black Pearl, Predator, T1 and T2, and Black Rain on my PS3 and all looked grainy. My TV can handle 1080p, although it is not one of the ultra high end models, but I have not been able to clear the grain so far. My A30 has not had this problem. If anyone comes up with a definitive answer/solution, please let us know.
Oh, the audio from my PS3 is far better than my A30 however. Thumbs up to Blu and PS3 for that.

This was the very first topic I brought up when i came to dvdtown and just about got torn to shreds. On my setup, which also consists of a Samsung tele. the blu-ray playback coming out of the 60g ps3 comes nowhere close to what I get from my hd-a2. But like megatron says above^, the audio on the other hand IS better. I have no idea why this is, but grain is all over blu-ray titles on my setup also.

Oh. and the set is ISF calibrated...

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[Post edited by bladerunner1 on May 21, 2008]

Your sharpness setting on your TV may be too high. Try turning that down first. 10 to 30% is a normal adjustment for most LCD tv's. That's why I still won't buy an LCD. Play around with your noise filters on the tv. settings may need adjustment too. Some HD sets are worse than others.

ReaggieP has a good point here. I prefer no sharpness processing, which unfortunately could be zero, or or above zero, or way below zero for your particular display. It's best to expore the more technical boards like AVSforum for your particular display for the setting, or experiment. Definitely, artificial sharpening will increase the appearence of grain or "edginess" in your picture.

Then again, some titles mentioned like Predator and Black Rain are known for having a lot of noise/grain. In which case it's probably not a medium or PS3 thing, but just a transfer thing. Try other movies - especially new ones rather than old releases.

Universal was quite known for applying a lot of DNR to movies in many of their HD DVD releases, and if you're used to this you may find many transfers from the Blu-ray exclusive studios higher in either digital noise or film grain.

It surprises me, now that we are in the HD realm (where the image is more NOTICEABLE than ever), that people continue to misunderstand the reality that is ORIGINAL FILM GRAIN (<educate yourself). It exists in photographic images (whether still pictures -or moving film frames).

It's not because of the PS3, or any other Blu-ray player, HD-DVD player, DVD player, LaserDisc player, VHS/Beta player... etc, rather the various levels and visuality of film grain is -intentional- from the program's director and/or director of photography.

Film is not supposed to look like 'video'. It has inherent grain, and the levels of grain are there primarily because of the way the film was shot or processed in the studio's lab. Rarely is it because the source copy was overly processed in the disc release.

There are gobs of movies that have higher -more deliberate- levels of grain, because the director WANTS it to look more 'grainy'. Look at the popular film 300 - its grainy no matter what format you view it in. Same with the music documentary U2-Rattle and Hum, or the film version of Miami Vice... etc, etc.

The other points (that Skyhawk etc) mentioned above relate to your home viewing settings on your TV, projector, disc player, and will perhaps augment the grain even more (make it look worse). But the original content can have a HIGHER LEVEL OF NATURAL FILM GRAIN regardless of your other viewing settings.

Get use to film 'grain', and enjoy the film!





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-JIMI McLovin (the Voodoo Child)

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[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on May 24, 2008]

yeah, what he said above. but having a cheaper set makes it alot worst. (sorry fellas)

went from Samsung to> Aquos. BIG difference.

i think lcd's look more grainy than plasma's, i had a 40 inch samsung and thought the pic was to grainy toke it back for a plasma and was blown away with the difference, and i didnt buy a top of the line plasma either, i got a 42 inch phillips plasma for 450 lol but it was normaly 1400. the ps3 setting are a little tricky at first, i had to adjust them at first to to get the right picture.

Well, i've given up. I've tried tweaking settings on my tv, and tried different hd resolutions on the PS3, and Im still seeing a lot of grain. I guess, i will have to deal with it.

I know some of you have said that the grain is there for a reason, but of the 45 hd dvd movies i have, they seem to show much clearer. I'm not bashing blu ray, but perhaps, i will try to sell off the PS3, and grab a stand-alone, since i now have a little over a 12 movies on blu.

Thanks for all your help guys.

It's not the ps3. It is the discs themselves....Buying a standalone won't help. And hogwash about the Sammy bashing. Hd/dvd titles look fantastic on mine. And so do some Blu-rays.

what movies would any of you recommend to view on the PS3 to see if i can get a clearer picture. I just purchased underworld from amazon, so i should be in next week.

What movies seem to have the best picture on blu ray?

Some great looking Blu-ray titles...

(in alphabetical order)

2001: A Space Odyssey
Apocalypto
Alexander Revisted
Beowulf (UK import)
Black Snake Moan
Blade Runner
Cars
Casanova
Celine Dion: Live in Vegas
The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch...
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Con Air
The Condemned
Corpse Bride
Crank
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City
Deja Vu
The Departed
The Descent
Destiny's Child: Live in Atlanta
Dreamgirls
Enemy of the State
Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer
The Fifth Element (remastered edition)
Flyboys
Galapagos
Good Night, and Good Luck
Hairspray
Happy Feet
Harry Potters movies
Hellboy
Hollow Man
I am Legend
I, Robot
Ice Age (both movies)
Kingdom of Heaven
The Last Samurai
Live Free or Die Hard
LOST: The Complete Third Season
Meet the Robinsons
Mission: Impossible 3
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates/Carribbean series
Planet Earth
RV
Rambo (latest)
Ratatouille
Rush Hour 3
The Searchers
Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour
Shoot 'Em Up
The Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Stealth
Sweeney Todd (UK import)
Tears of the Sun
Troy (Director's Cut)
Ultraviolet
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
Wild Hogs
World Trade Center

...and many others

_____________
-JIMI McLovin (the Voodoo Child)

who_ate_the_cat... you don't indicate -what- brand/size of HDTV is being viewed, and whether you have some of the set's artificial 'enhanced' picture setting modes engaged.

Turn OFF any special 'viewing' modes on your TV, such as...

Samsung - DNIe
Sony - DRC (Digital Reality Creation)
...etc

And make sure that if you have a "Film mode" (or similar) to turn it ON, so as to properly deinterlace 480i and 1080i film-based signals (from your discs). Progressive signals (480p, 720p, 1080p) are done by the player and your TV won't need the film mode set to "on" (and usually it prevents you from changing anyway, whenever progressive signals are received).

_____________
-JIMI McLovin (the Voodoo Child)

That is quite a list you put together^^^^Hendrix! Btw...."Rambo"?...you gotta buddy or something??? I thought it came out THIS tuesday.??? And the Spiderman trilogy could be better. There is quite a bit of grain in 1...and 3 for that matter...."Underworld" has ALOT of grain too. (sorry bud)...if you already own the Standard Def. keep it and send the BR. back. It was an early release title, that somehow just doesnt work. Yes...I am saying the upconverted SD disc is better!!! O!

Underworld 2 looks pretty good on the other hand.....

bladerunner.... I mentioned RAMBO, because of the quality of the trailers I've seen online, and would expect this latest version to be of great quality (don't have my copy yet).

And there you are again, a misunderstanding about FILM GRAIN. Many discs (of all types) have degrees of grain and STILL LOOK GREAT, such as the Spider-Man movies you mentioned. If -you- don't like the grain, then that's too bad, as the films were PHOTOGRAPHED that way, so there's nothing you can do about it.

Why not just learn to accept grain, and realize it's NATURAL, and doesn't detract from the quality of the presentation. I'm much more concerned when watching movies about the disc preserving the 'color accuracy' of the original content, as it's often not done correctly from release to release. DVDBEAVER.com has gobs of screen image captures between various disc editions, and you can easily see the differences between color accuracy... (has NOTHING to do with film grain, resolution, PS3, etc).

For example, Dean Cundey, the director of photography for John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN has stated that most releases of the film (except for the older Criterion LaserDisc, etc) have never presented it with the true color accuracy (from his approved settings), as noted on the internet, and the HighDefDigest review (<read the section under, Video: Sizing up the Picture).

EXCERPT - Unfortunately, that DiviMax version (2003 DVD) caused quite an uproar with fans when word quickly leaked out on the eve of its release that neither John Carpenter nor cinematographer Dean Cundey had approved the new master, and without their input, great liberties were taken with the film's color timing. Originally, to compensate for the film's low budget (and the fact that the movie was shot in the summer in California, not in Illinois in the fall), Cundey and Carpenter used filters and other tricks to create an appropriately spooky feel. Sadly, that's long gone on the DiviMax edition -- the deep midnight blues of the night scenes were turned star white, and the intentionally stylized orange cast of the daylight exteriors were "corrected" to blandness. Sure, image detail and clarity were improved, but it came at the expense of the mood originally intended by the filmmakers. Sadly, this 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 BD sports most of the same color timing problems as the DiviMax DVD edition (<read more about the transfer's color accuracy on above link).

Again, film grain is natural, is presented in various degrees (director's decision), and should be the least thing you worry about concerning whether to buy a disc... how about the extras, audio codecs, horrible over-use of 'edge enhancement', color accuracy, etc - ?

______________
-JIMI McLovin (the Voodoo Child)

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[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on May 25, 2008]

Then please explain to me how a title like "I Know Who Killed" me can have excellent black levels, while a title that I own on dvd and br..."Underworld" has great blacks on the sd. but terrible grainy blue/blacks on the br? I think it is "mastering" Jimmy...kinda like the first version of "The Fith Element." the one that got killed for being crap....until they remastered it.

I speak what I see with my own eyes. And Underworld on br sucks. And "Spiderman" is not reference picture either...And "Close Encounters"??? Are you serious? Sure the movie looks the best it is going to look...but reference??? Nah, I don't think so.

Quote:
Then please explain to me how a title like "I Know Who Killed" me can have excellent black levels

You must mean narrow dynamic range. It's easy for a compressionist to avoid shadow noise by clipping the dark end. Helps save space too.

I was particularly disappointed with the presentation of "National Treasure 2". You might love it though, since there isn't a speck of grain or shadow noise anywhere - err... no shadows either. I bet if I drew a histogram of any frame in this movie, it would look like the graph of a tech stock during the bubble. The clipping was so bad I thought someone had played with my projector settings. Not sure if this was intended and exists in the theatrical presentation, but the first National Treasure that we watched just before the second didn't have this problem.

I hope you aren't serious about comparing grain and/or noise of a standard DVD to its high-def counterpart. This would be like the guy complaining that his new $3,000 D-SLR RAW photos are noisier than his old $99 point-and-shoot camera that took 40K JPEGs. If you think about it for a second, the obvious will become obvious.

There are a lot of trade-offs in the entire transfer process. Should we clip the blacks to avoid noise and keep ISO levels down? Or should be crank it up just before the whites bloom and risk high noise levels? Then should we or shouldn't we add some extreme DNR processing to get rid of the noise levels? Then how much artificial digital sharpening should we add after NDRing the transfer?

Then there's the complication of technological progress. Sensor technology has improved so much over the last few years (higher sensitivity @ lower noise levels), masters made during that time for standard DVD should be redone from scratch for HD instead of being recycled. Unfortunately, this is rarely done for catelog titles where the investment may not be easily recouped.

I rented the SD version of National Treasure 2 last night and the PQ was ok. The Disney into squence looked great, but the movie lacked in some shots. Some footage was excellent, but other involving any dark or low lighting issues were grainy, but understandable due to the nature of the sequence. Entertaining movie though. Sound wasn't overally exciting though.

For those who don't understand SD DVD vs. Blu-ray comparisons, in HD you will always have more visible grain due to the higher resolution of the image and and extra added detail. Because SD is so much lower in resolution and has an overall blurrier image, grain is not as visible/noticeable. It's as simple as that.
Also, as many have stated it before, correctly calibrating your TV's settings is essential to achieving a great image. I myself use a DLP projector and always keep the sharpness to 0. BTW, Hellboy (Blu-ray) looks phenomenal of my 106" screen.

yes. i know why grain is there/visible.^^^but do i have to like it? did i buy into blu-ray for grainy images? did you? great tech. talk skyhawk...very imformative....i expect as we move along and as hd catches on...filmakers will adapt (just like they did with ws. tv...noticed the difference in how movies are framed compared to 15 or so years ago? alot more closeups...) and will cut back on the ol' grain.

Gvortex. The point I was making is that I rented the SD version using my XA2, with my HT Projo(105.8 inches). My sharpness is also at 0 (ratio is -20 to +20). The XA2 for the most part does a better job on SD discs versus my BD drive. The SD version is pretty close to the sharpness of the same BD version. For users, who have say the A20, A30, A2, and the A3, there is dramatic differences for SD material. I watched the same SD version on the A3 and could see more noticable defects, but the PQ was still very good. The A35 did a worse job than the A3. When it all boils down to it if it looks good, stick with it. On my XA2, just for reference sakes, I have all of my machines especially the XA2 set to 1080i. The more you press out of your hardware does reflect more defects on your screen.

Now that I have a PS3 I don't understand why people buy the bluray remote. The wireless controller that comes with the system has all the functionality you need for movie playback. I used it last night for a movie and it worked like a charm.

"i expect as we move along and as hd catches on...filmakers will adapt (just like they did with ws. tv...noticed the difference in how movies are framed compared to 15 or so years ago? alot more closeups...) and will cut back on the ol' grain."
--bladerunner1

Geez, I hope not. Do you go to the movies much--in a theater? Look at all the grain present in the picture. Actually look for it. It's there in almost every movie as a natural part of the texture of a film. About the only time you won't see grain in a theater is if it's a digitally shot movie (and then it will probably look soft or flat) or if you're sitting in the back third of the auditorium and can't see the detail very well.

When films are transferred to high definition or even to standard definition, the transfer engineers will sometimes filter out grain, unfortunately also filtering out inner detail as well. Not good.

I'd prefer the studios just leave the film print in its original state (restored and remastered, if possible, in the case of older films that might need it, of course). If viewers at home want to apply DNR or any other kind of filtering, it's up to them. Let the rest of us enjoy the original print, please.

John

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[Post edited by John J. Puccio on May 26, 2008]

Falcon,
Yeah. It works fine. But the remote is way cooler.

John,
I'm just going to say it...."I think Hd/dvd blows Blu-ray away." (on MY system)

- and that is my opinion on this thread. which is titled..."ps3-blu-ray playback seems grainy)

Hey Bladerunner1 I agree with you as well. HD DVD looks superior on my system as well. The only thing I haven't tried is a PS3. I do want to try the Panasonic 50, in comparison to my HTPC. The PC is very very good, but something is missing?

Quote:
About the only time you won't see grain in a theater is if it's a digitally shot movie (and then it will probably look soft or flat)

John, just realize it's not a lack of "grain" that often causes this flatness. On a resolution-to-resolution basis, digital video has way more "grain" than film - but we call it digital noise. I chose a 3 CCD digital cam because of its lower noise (grain). But I soon realized that in lower light levels, attempting to capture the detail in shadows was a lost cause - the noise levels were unbearable. 1200 ISO specialty 35mm film has 10X less "grain"!

Then I eventually learned to use my manual AV features, and lock the ISO gain to clip shadows. It really helped with the noise, but at the expense of course of lowering the dynamic contrast range. Film is still better at this and why its still used today. Narrow dynamic range = flat. That's where your "flat" comes from. It's a limitation that I predict will be overcome (compared to film) in the next few years. Yes, film has a very limited life-span given the progress of CMOS and CCD sensors over just the last 2 years.

We have to make a distinction between film grain, and digital noise. There is no digital video or still camera that doesn't employ built-in noise reduction. And there is no telecine system that doesn't either. The "primative" sensors used in old telecine setups 4 years ago were incredibly noisy even at 2k, and it shows when they use a master intended for standard DVD to make a HD version. So instead of making a whole new master just for the HD version, they can either give us lots of noise mixed in with detail, or give it excessive DNR post-processing like Universal did so often for their HD DVDs and give up the detail.

But new telecined material doesn't have to be this way. Bladerunner for example! But the studio elected to make an entirely new digital master from scratch for this one, using more modern sensor technology when it was re-telecined.

In all honesty, film grain is generally so small you should notice it the MOST in the theater. 1080p just doesn't have the resolution to reproduce 35mm film grain to a noticeable degree, even with relatively fast film (ISO 400). It takes at least 4k to accurately reproduce all the detail in a 35mm film stock, and 1080p is far from that!

OK, let me illustrate and show why a standard DVD might look "better" to some.

So here is a normal down-sized pic I took of the wifey yesterday - the original a little over 2K, now 480p lines:

And here is a full-frame crop:

And here is chroma noise added - more severe than what a normal telecine would do (hopfully!):

And here is the full noisy pic, just resized to 480p:


See? Gosh standard DVD looks good compared to HD!

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[Post edited by Skyhawk on May 26, 2008]

Quote:
John,
I'm just going to say it...."I think Hd/dvd blows Blu-ray away."

I don't think you've watched enough Blu-ray movies. Either that, or you prefer the plastic Universal DNR kind of transfers that sacrifice detail for noise reduction. Many people do however opt for the trade-off between less detail for less noise or film grain. But that is a studio choice and has nothing to do with the actual format.

Hey Skyhawk... I agree with your boast on that Megan Fox thread - YES, in my opinion you're wife is hotter-looking than Ms Fox! Nice sexy pic. (and I just know she loves Blu-ray too - )

EDIT - an no tattoos too (noticeable) in that pic

_____________
-JIMI McLovin (the Voodoo Child)

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[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on May 26, 2008]

Hendrix,
You perv....but I gotta come clean here too.....Skyhawk!!! shouldnt you be (ahem) doing something else with your time???

And yes. I will sacrifice minimal detail for a percieved cleaner picture...even though that less detailed picture looks pretty damn detailed to me.

Sky,

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was a lack of grain that caused many digitally shot movies to look flat--it's a combination of things.

As for digital photography having more grain than print sources, we may be talking about two different things. I'm referring to motion pictures shot digitally under ideal lighting conditions on professional-grade equipment like the Panavision Genesis HD camera, not a consumer-grade video camera.

Now, about digital grain and noise, here's a nice summary of the subject from Wikipedia:

"Film has a characteristic grain structure, which many people view positively, either for aesthetic reasons or because it has become associated with the look of 'real' movies. Different film stocks have different grain, and cinematographers may use this for artistic effect.

Digitally acquired footage lacks this grain structure. Electronic noise is sometimes visible in digitally acquired footage, particularly in dark areas of an image or when footage was shot in low lighting conditions and gain was used. Some people believe such noise is a workable aesthetic substitute for film grain, while others believe it has a harsher look that detracts from the image. Well shot, well lit images from high-end digital cinematography cameras can look almost eerily clean. Some people believe this makes them look "plasticky" or computer generated, while others find it to be an interesting new look, and argue that film grain can be emulated in post-production if desired.

Since most theatrical exhibition still occurs via film prints, the super-clean look of digital acquisition is often lost before moviegoers get to see it, because of the grain in the film stock of the release print."

John

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[Post edited by John J. Puccio on May 27, 2008]

John: It was the comparable "badly" lit situations I was referring to when talking about digital video clipping dynamic range in the shadows to keep noise at respectable levels. I wont get into a digital versus film debate - we all know that film's lifespan is numbered. My point was that in HD movies, the noise seen is not necessarily film grain, and fine grain can be eliminated by downsizing (as I demonstrated).

Hendrix: Tatoos aren't really acceptable in Asian culture - unless you're a Korean gang member! But times are changing, even there. I don't think my wife and I will be getting tatoos anytime soon - we're kind of past that age (wife is turning 40, and I'm already planning the party!).