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Blu-ray Predator:Ultimate Hunter Edition – Going Against The Grain

The latest Blu-ray release of Predator has brought to head an ongoing issue since the arrival of digital media in the home. For video the tool to reduce film grain is Digital Noise Reduction(DNR).  DNR can be used to clean up a film but it does so with a trade off. The more DNR is applied to a film to remove grain, the more detail is lost. Apply too much DNR and a film becomes video like with a loss of detail and a shiny, artificial look. This is exactly what happened to the Predator:Ultimate Hunter Edition.

Predator Hunter Edition

You can read about this in more detail and see screen shots at The Digital Bits and at High Def Disc News.

A reasonable guess that the reason 20th Century Fox went this route and applied, or over applied, more DNR to this release is because of the complaints received about the first Blu-ray edition of Predator. A release that was criticized for being far too grainy. While there is validity to those complaints the root cause is the source material. The 1987 Predator film is a harsh and grainy looking film. Intentional or not that is the way the film has always been.

The advent of HD media and playback capability in the home and the differences between analog and digital media characteristics has brought a new visibility to the use of DNR. DNR application is an art that requires monitoring by skilled technicians. Down the road the tool set may become more robust and be able to remove film grain without removing detail but its application will always require the judgment of a knowledgeable party.

What follows is my quick Two EyeCrave’s worth summary of the issues surrounding film grain, digital versus analog media, and the benefits and pitfalls of DNR.

 

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Funny how some things stay the same no matter how much change there is. With the arrival of home theater in various formats from video tape to DVDs to HD formats there has been a constant battle for the home version of a movie to faithfully recreate the original, intended theatrical release.

With VHS the limitations of the format were twofold. First the media and the display units it played on were inferior to the theatrical version both in terms of video and audio. Second the playback equipment of that era ie 4:3 ration televisions could not often provide the proper viewing aspect for 16:9 films leading to the dreaded practice of panning and scanning.

Pan and scan was still an issue with DVDs but has become less so as 16:9 display units became more prevalent in the home theater market. But with the introduction of DVD and Blu-ray a new issue has arisen. Given the higher storage capacity of digitally stored optical media, finer detail of the filmed source was being brought to the attention of home viewers.

One of those details is film grain. Put plainly is the texture of the film due to the materials used to make the film. Viewed close up film appears to contain grains of sand. Different stocks of film have different levels of granularity. Some film stock has the presence of very fine particles where others have a much coarser appearance. To further aggravate this, sometimes directors deliberately choose to use or enhance the grain of a film to create a specific look or to highlight a certain tone for a movie.

The problem with film grain is that for the uneducated viewer it equates to noise or an inferior quality product. With some serious cash being laid down for a HT system, the average consumer wants the best and clearest picture and sound that DVDs and Blu-rays can offer. So naturally the appearance of film grain on a 50 inch plus HDTV is not what the average consumer expects or wants to see.

Grain becomes even more of an issue when HD digital media arrived on the same. It has NO grain. So something shot digitally, instead of being filmed, will be crystal clear. The downside to something shot digitally is that it looks harsher and less cinematic. Everyone has been wow’ed by those HD travelogue demo videos playing at your local electronics retailer, right? Or watched a live sports event in HD? They look fantastic. Sharp. Clear. Vibrant. And no grain.

Well that is what the average consumer expects everything they see in HD to look like that regardless of the source. Filmed material is not like that. It is akin to converting records to MP3s. Whatever noise is on the record in terms of hiss, static, or pops will show up on the digital file. Naturally software tools have been created to lessen or outright eliminate such unwanted noise. Both for audio and video.

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