Get Back visual grain/noise removal*

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by ognirats, Oct 19, 2021.

  1. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Like it or not, raw footage is not the same thing as a final film.
     
  2. Reading comprehension.
     
    Strat-Mangler likes this.
  3. Dinstun

    Dinstun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle Tennessee
    We are discussing two different things because there are two different things.

    Presumably there were some 60 hours of raw 16mm footage that were restored for this project. But that was not done with any intent of being released as is, at least not for the Get Back project. If we ever see that then we can judge the restoration efforts.

    But restoration of the raw film was just an ancillary first phase of the project, which was to create a new "documentary about a documentary" for the modern audience. It was purposefully intended to not supplant the original 1970 film. The director had complete artistic license with the video, audio and editing. It is his work. One can disagree with the artistic choices, but claiming that the documentary was somehow inherently restricted to faithfully reproducing video from the original raw footage is incorrect.
     
  4. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    Peter Jackson is the kind of guy to have his TV set up to "vivid" mode
     
    tug_of_war, supermd, SamS and 5 others like this.
  5. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie need to have a chat with PJ! :D

     
    jdicarlo and ognirats like this.
  6. CraigBic

    CraigBic Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    I suppose we can consider ourselves fortunate that PJ didn't attempt to interpolate the film up to 48fps or higher. He was a fan of high frame rates when he made The Hobbit and his work on They Shall Not Grow Old would have shown it's possible.
     
    ognirats likes this.
  7. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    That's one very low bar
     
    Smash likes this.
  8. Cast Iron Shore

    Cast Iron Shore Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    Agreed. The Let It Be footage from the Anthology series looked beautiful, much better than the prints I have previously seen, and I saw no signs of grain removal on that.
     
    supermd, BeatleJWOL and lukpac like this.
  9. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    1+ was even better as it was in HD
     
    supermd and BeatleJWOL like this.
  10. tug_of_war

    tug_of_war Unable to tolerate bass solos

    I like me some grain but the old "Let It Be" movie had too much of it. Peter Jackson did a great job indeed.
     
    Chris DeVoe likes this.
  11. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Let It Be was blown up from 16mm to 35mm.

    The 16mm negatives as used on Anthology and 1+ look great.
     
  12. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    Comparing 35mm blowup with DNRed negative is like comparing apples to oranges
     
  13. tug_of_war

    tug_of_war Unable to tolerate bass solos

    What is a 35mm? What is a DNR negative? I don't have a clue what those things are. I just said I think the thing looks better now.
     
  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I dunno. Peter owns the largest digital post-production company in New Zealand, Park Road Post (and sold his VFX company Weta Digital, for over a billion dollars last year). I think he has staff engineers who are extremely well-aware of how to calibrate monitors. I'd guarantee you for sure he has a state-of-the-art projection room in his home as well as very good monitors.

    35mm = 35mm motion picture film.

    DNR = a term fans throw around for digital (picture) noise reduction, usually grain reduction (but not always). I think they're using the wacky term "DNR negative" to "an image that's been noise-reduced."

    What I always say is that we have the ability to use Temporal Noise Reduction (TNR) and Spatial Noise Reduction (SNR) separately, apply it to just the B&W parts of the picture (luma only) or just to the color parts (chroma only) or just to specific colors, or just to highlights only, or just to shadows only, or just to specific parts of the image -- like only at the top and not at the bottom. It's not an all-in-one button. And there's always a knob to turn it down if we want.

    The key is: you gotta have good taste and experience during the mastering process, and know when too much is too much, and also when it's not enough. Having now seen the Blu-ray, I can say they went about 50% too far with the grain reduction and enhancement. If it were me, I'd cut it back and let more of the grain go. But I don't think you can just release it with zero NR, because that much grain would fry your eyes.

    Although... it's just standard def. I've been flummoxed for almost 20 years that Apple never went back and redid Anthology in HD. They could do it, and they still have access to all the materials, and they've got the money... all they have to do is want to do it.

    Note to my eye they did use some grain reduction on the Anthology materials, but only a skosh.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2022
  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Apple has been silent on whether they would ever just do a straight HD reissue of Let It Be as it was, or even an expanded version (like Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original cut). I guarantee you, it exists in the vault as digital files.
     
  16. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    It's a film negative with digital noise reduction

    Also 35mm blowup print is a film print on 35mm reel that had been blown up from 16mm
     
  17. vivresavie

    vivresavie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    I would absolutely love a UHD release with zero grain reduction. That'd be so beautiful:love: I strongly dislike the use of DNR, even when used lightly, but I absolutely love the look of 16mm. A skilled person, such as the people at Fidelity in Motion or WAC, could make all that grain look lovely in h265 compression.
     
    Oatsdad and ognirats like this.
  18. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    You are aware that I do digital film restoration for a living? Is it possible you have no idea what you're talking about?
     
    JoeRockhead and numer9 like this.
  19. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    You've literally said "But I don't think you can just release it with zero NR, because that much grain would fry your eyes." and in the earlier days of this thread you used to defend the absolute tomfoolery that was the Get Back restoration job, I am pretty darn sure you don't know what you are talking about.

    Also, DNR (digital noise reduction) ain't a wacky term
     
  20. budwhite

    budwhite Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

    Location:
    Götaland, Sverige
    Has any movie been released in the blu-ray era with no grain managament what so ever?
    I have no idea but I would guess very few.
     
  21. CraigBic

    CraigBic Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Probably a lot more than you think, some films are released without cleaning up the dust and scratches let alone the film grain. I've got Army of Darkness on Blu-ray and the "International cut" done from a 4k scan of the interpositive has some pretty heavy grain. Road to Perdition isn't exactly light on grain either. The early Ghostbusters Blu-ray is another one that is not likely to have any DNR.
     
  22. ognirats

    ognirats haruhist Thread Starter

    Location:
    Serbia
    I am certain that all of Criterion's releases only feature dust removal. The amount of grain is caused by the negative used, as well as the source used. Film print has more grain than a film negative. Various negatives have different amounts of grain.

    All grain removal techniques are very easy to spot, as they either tend to make the grain less sharp, make the grain "freeze" (so it barely changes for a few frames), or give the stupid unnatural smoothing that is very painful to look at. Trust me, I've used many grain removal pieces of software
     
  23. vivresavie

    vivresavie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    If you want concrete example there's Criterion's Bluray of Mikey and Nicky where director Elaine May requested that no grain management was to be made.
    You can read the quote from the booklet in this review: Mikey and Nicky Blu-ray

    There's also Criterion's Last Year at Marienbad where director Alain Resnais requested the inclusion of an unrestored audio track.

    I'm pretty sure 99% of all Criterion Blurays has some form of grain management. The company who does the encoding, Pixelogic, usually applies some filtering during compression, unfortunately. Criterion is not a good example because Pixelogic are not good at their job. People at blu-ray.com often refers to their work as LEGO-grain.
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2022
    Vidiot and Shawn like this.
  24. Dinstun

    Dinstun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle Tennessee
    Encoders struggle with film grain and can cope by applying smoothing, depending on the level of compression. Wouldn't compression itself be considered a form of "grain management"?
     
  25. vivresavie

    vivresavie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    Yes I guess so. The trick is to find the right balance to make the compression look transparent, something which Pixelogic are unable to do (their UHDs are better though). I wish Criterion would switch authoring partners from Pixelogic to Fidelity in Motion but it appears as if they don't care about encoding quality. I also wish they would stop their aggressive tape hiss removal. Criterion are the Bob Norberg of home video (I'm referring to audio only).
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2022
    Vidiot likes this.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine