Director of Photography vs Picture Quality

Originally Posted by ckenisell

It has very little to do with the director of photography. Has more to do with the Director's vision and the color grader in post production.

Sure, the Director has his vision before anything is shot (most of the time it's done in pre-vis if that option is available) and many times the DoP is in the loop on the plan of post production (so blacks aren't crushed, etc.) But, when it comes to things like Sky Captin (which was all chroma key'd actors with visual effects) and UltraViolet, these "looks" are created in post AFTER the footage is shot.

Originally Posted by Innerloop

Someone should have sent that memo to Michael Mann before he shot Miami Vice. I've never seen so much grain on-screen since Collateral. His discs are going to give the compression artists a run for their money!

Originally Posted by Innerloop

Someone should have sent that memo to Michael Mann before he shot Miami Vice. I've never seen so much grain on-screen since Collateral. His discs are going to give the compression artists a run for their money!

Originally Posted by Chris Beveridge

You can see this kind of thing in a lot of the reviews so far. There is talk about uneven transfers where so many of the scenes look great but certain ones don't and they can't tell if it's intentional or not but chalk it up to bad authoring, the format or anything else other than intent. Similar to the early days of DVD, we're again in a situation where the armchair directors are talking about the quality of things who odds are haven't seen the film theatrically and maybe only on DVD.

And no, the irony is not lost on me, as I review myself though I do err on the side of directors intent more often than it being an authoring issue based on what I know of the folks who work on these shows. But take things like films that are supposed to be grainy, or that you get people wanting to do HD reviews who've never been exposed to HD before their Toshiba player came in, or someone whose only exposure has been HD video and not film. A lot of stuff just isn't going to look right or as expected.

Originally Posted by suprmallet

If there is grain in Miami Vice, it was added in post, because Miami Vice was shot on HD.

Originally Posted by ChrisWiggles

Nonsense. Digital cameras have noise too. It's not film grain per se, but you can certainly characterize it as "grainy" noise. It's certainly there on many shots in collateral.

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

Are you sure you are seeing noise from the digital source in Collateral and not some type of artifact from the transfer? If so, how do you tell the difference?

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

Are you sure you are seeing noise from the digital source in Collateral and not some type of artifact from the transfer? If so, how do you tell the difference?

Originally Posted by ChrisWiggles

It's a good question. I don't know for absolute sure that all of the noise in the film is necessarily from the camera itself. However my main point here was to refute the claim that digital cameras are inherently "grain-free" in the sense that there is no noise which might be characterized as "grainy noise". There is a great deal of noise in low-level lighting that a digital camera will capture. Based on basic inference that much of the noise seen in something like Collateral is in those low-level shots, its not a far stretch to attribute that to the capture device. In addition we have statements by the DP and such about just that grainy noise that is present.

I'm not here to tell anyone that the noise in Collateral is for sure from the video camera, but certainly video cameras are not immune from noise. I think an intelligent and fairly educated assumption would be that much of those night shots with noise in Collateral is very naturally from the camera. We've all seen dozens of night-time shots from television cameras that exhibit similar noise, so it's not something totally new or out of the blue, either. This being said, I have no comments at all about grain or noise in Miami Vice because while I'm itching to see it, it's not out yet where I am!

Originally Posted by ChrisWiggles

It's a good question. I don't know for absolute sure that all of the noise in the film is necessarily from the camera itself. However my main point here was to refute the claim that digital cameras are inherently "grain-free" in the sense that there is no noise which might be characterized as "grainy noise". There is a great deal of noise in low-level lighting that a digital camera will capture. Based on basic inference that much of the noise seen in something like Collateral is in those low-level shots, its not a far stretch to attribute that to the capture device. In addition we have statements by the DP and such about just that grainy noise that is present.

I'm not here to tell anyone that the noise in Collateral is for sure from the video camera, but certainly video cameras are not immune from noise. I think an intelligent and fairly educated assumption would be that much of those night shots with noise in Collateral is very naturally from the camera. We've all seen dozens of night-time shots from television cameras that exhibit similar noise, so it's not something totally new or out of the blue, either. This being said, I have no comments at all about grain or noise in Miami Vice because while I'm itching to see it, it's not out yet where I am!

Originally Posted by ChrisWiggles

I'm not here to tell anyone that the noise in Collateral is for sure from the video camera, but certainly video cameras are not immune from noise. I think an intelligent and fairly educated assumption would be that much of those night shots with noise in Collateral is very naturally from the camera.

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

...can receivers with 6 channel inputs handle the full Dolby Tru-HD spec ?

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

I have a question for those with high definition players.....are film titles anamorphically enhanced like present dvd releases and if not what impact does this have on picture quality and does this mean we have to use the zoom feature on projectors ? If they are not anamorphically enhanced is there some plausible explanation for why they aren't ?

Originally Posted by ckenisell

Perhaps he was referring to the different ascpect ratios. 2.35:1, 1.85:1 etc.

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

I haven't noticed any edge enhancement on The Insider and i'm viewing on a 106 inch projection screen indeed Bjoern Rays excellent website stated it was one of those rare transfers which didn't have any edge enhancement....are you sure its not your equipment ? I have saw myself that if i turn the sharpness up on my projector it merely adds edge enhancement effects.....not saying i'm right and i would have to check again as it's been around about a year since i watched it so maybe it does but i can't recall ever seeing it.

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

My comments on the anamorphic enhancement on high definition dvd was misguided....I don't understand why they couldn't provide an 21:9 enhancement so the format would be future proof but i guess five or six years from now we will start to hear about the next high definition format ( which probably does everything this one should do but they pushed this one onto consumers a year too early )

Originally Posted by suprmallet

If there is grain in Miami Vice, it was added in post, because Miami Vice was shot on HD.

Originally Posted by ChrisWiggles

Nonsense. Digital cameras have noise too. It's not film grain per se, but you can certainly characterize it as "grainy" noise. It's certainly there on many shots in collateral.

Originally Posted by trbarry

I predict that DOP's will start showing less "artistic intent" and start making more movies that compress and sell well on electronic media.

Originally Posted by trbarry

Hint: Electronic softening, strange lighting, and coloring can give the same looks of unreality but still compress much better than excess grain.

Originally Posted by captaincelluloid

Another popular misconception is that HD is inherently grain free and that
film is inherently grainy.

Nope.


Nope.
HD is not noise free.
Noise in MIAMI VICE was from production HD cameras.

Good point.
Digital noise / compression artifacts can look like film grain.
COLLATERAL has some digital noise shots . . . more so in MIAMI VICE.
PLUS, in addition to the noise there is a temporal shift that caused motion artifacts in some shots in both films to really look like video.

Most of the time what manifests itself as "film grain" on a movie transfer
is compression artifacts growing around the grain. This can come from
a bad film print and/or poor IE bit starved compression.

Spoken like a true computer person; you make "artistic intent" sound like a bad thing, Tom.

I certainly accept that any new medium, or component of any new medium,
wants to be acknowledged and accommodated . . . TO SOME DEGREE.

That said, the tail does not have the right to wag the dog.

As our good friend VC-1 compression guru "amirm" has said in the Industry Insiders Thread,

it is the job of the encoder to reproduce the source not to change the source.
If the encode isn't working you change and/or vary the encoder . . . you
don't change the source. . . . and you certainly don't accept the encoder changing the source.

In a word; no.

All those effects [ I assume you are referring to HD origination ] can be as difficult if not MORE difficult to encode than film grain.

I don't think that's the point.

The point is that any reasonably competent film or video cameraman can make
a clean image that is "easy to compress" . . . . altho I do think the term "EASY to
compress" is a bit of an oxymoron. Ask our friend compressionist "Cjplay"
also in the Industry Insiders Thread.

The trick is to make an artistic image that works on film AND on digital . . .
and it seems that the better directors and DOP's are doing just that.



Circling back to my lead sentence; the misconception that HD is grain free and
film is grainy.

Most of the time what manifests itself as "film grain" on a movie transfer
is compression artifacts growing around the grain. This can come from
a bad film print and/or poor IE bit starved compression.

CAPN's TIP for TELLING FILM GRAIN FROM DIGITAL NOISE / COMPRESSION ARTIFACTS

-- film grain is of uniform size and position within a given frame. It does MOVE
between frames but it is still the same size and position.

-- digital noise / compression artifacts can be of varying size and positional
density with in a given frame.

-- digital noise / compression artifacts can tend to "cluster and grow" around
different areas in the frame . . . and the "growth" can be of different sizes.

CAVEAT; like all tips there are exceptions.

This is all changing pretty quickly.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Tony Scott and Paul Cameron are doing with
Genesis HD on DEJA VU and what David Fincher is doing with UNCOMPRESSED Viper HD on ZODIAC. The little I've seen looks very impressive

NOTE; not to suggest that Michael Mann and Dion Bebee are not terrific
filmmakers . . . . MIAMI VICE was simply not to my particular taste. . . and it WAS noisy here and there.

Respectfully submitted,

CAPTAIN CELLULOID; DGA: IGC, IATSE
Film Guy Using Digital To Make Film

Originally Posted by captaincelluloid

Spoken like a true computer person; you make "artistic intent" sound like a bad thing, Tom.

That said, the tail does not have the right to wag the dog.

The trick is to make an artistic image that works on film AND on digital . . .
and it seems that the better directors and DOP's are doing just that.

Originally Posted by Rob Tomlin

Very nice post.

I especially appreciate the "CAPN's TIP for TELLING FILM GRAIN FROM DIGITAL NOISE / COMPRESSION ARTIFACTS".

Thanks.