Re: PS3 - Blu Ray playback seems grainy

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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?

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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]