Why is the Video quality of HD all over the place

[Frankie]

Well as a few of you may recall my introduction to Hi Def DVD left me feeling a little disappointed. Turns out Lord of War wasn’t the best choice for a Hi Def vergin?

Now that I have my own BD player and have had a chance to play some standard def titles and HD movies I’ve got to say… Wow.

Jurassic Park never looked better. In fact a lot of SD material looks great. And that’s the part that has me a little confused. I thought the BD version of MI3 for example looked less then great. I expected it to look really great given its age, but this wasn’t the case.
But then I’ll watch Phantom of the Opera and I’ll be blown away.

Why is it that some movies seem a little flat while others jump of the screen? I don’t expect a 25 year old movie to have any HD pop to it but anything made in the last 5 should. Shouldn’t it?

F

[Moonraker]

MI3 I thought was a very good transfer, and especially popped because of its Hi-Contrast look.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Frankie

Well as a few of you may recall my introduction to Hi Def DVD left me feeling a little disappointed. Turns out Lord of War wasn’t the best choice for a Hi Def vergin?

Now that I have my own BD player and have had a chance to play some standard def titles and HD movies I’ve got to say… Wow.

Jurassic Park never looked better. In fact a lot of SD material looks great. And that’s the part that has me a little confused. I thought the BD version of MI3 for example looked less then great. I expected it to look really great given its age, but this wasn’t the case.
But then I’ll watch Phantom of the Opera and I’ll be blown away.

Why is it that some movies seem a little flat while others jump of the screen? I don’t expect a 25 year old movie to have any HD pop to it but anything made in the last 5 should. Shouldn’t it?

F

Some movies are filmed differently in a way that will prevent pop - film grain can often prevent this illusion yet film grain is an important component of many movies. Some movies simply aren't made to "pop." And IMO movies should not be artificially tweaked for this.

The codec is another important part. I've found "pop" to be less common on titles with MPEG2 encoding - even the best MPEG2 encodes seem to have artifacting and blockiness at some point throughout that harms the "pop" illusion since MPEG2 has no mechanisms to hide artifacting unlike the nextgen codecs. So look for VC1 or AVC encodes of recent movies to get a better chance of "pop."

Also, if you want even more impressive SD DVD playback pick up a player or receiver with a Reon HQV chip inside - they make standard DVD look a lot more impressive than any of the other players. If you bought an Onkyo 875 and fed it 1080i from your BD player to be converted to 1080p by the 875's Reon chip you'll get a much better SD DVD picture than you are getting now and the same or better picture for BD.

[Derb]

Not every movie is processed & post-edited to make it look good for average joe football, but rather towards the stylistic choices made during the shooting of the film itself.

I think grain is acceptable but not very appealing in HD. (300) No matter how ugly the director's intentional look, there can be no argument that color & detail pop in HD. Its when fine object detail becomes masked by noise or compression that bothers me. Also rarely would a cam be used to shoot an entire length of film (Sahara comes close) with 1 zoom lens. Depending on the master & age, some films are not cleaned up & speckles of dirt highlight your HDTV or projector. (Fifth Element) The best HD-like average joe football comes from computer animation, nature docs, & music concerts where lighting is pimped full of contrast which HD handles real well.

What isn't acceptable imo, is massive layers of edge enhancement. Not much benefit at all in HD if it is excessive like 40-year-virgin or Tremors. Smearing of fine object detail is due to DNR & can also mess with color. Imo, its not tooo distracting & actually in some cases it gives the illusion of great HD.

[Ruined]

DNR is actually becoming more common now because although it does reduce fine detail & natural film grain it increases "pop." And, reviewers rate titles with "pop" better than those that do not. Film grain is often looked at as a negative even though its part of the original filming!

Its a tough choice. Do studios preserve the original (often noisy) look of the film and get slammed in the hidef reviews, or do they use DNR and/or EE in order to make the film "pop" more? On top of that, with less popular films studios are faced with the decision of spending lots of money to remaster the film or simply use an older HD transfer that might have some problems (excessive EE being the most common); with the comparatively low sales compared to DVD many studios have opted to simply release what they have even if blemished.

[rixrex]

Aside from technical considerations of the display, film cinematography techniques and art direction also contribute to a film appearing vibrant or flat or washed out.

Take time to watch several films from different periods, as often different cinematography styles can be seen in relation to period style. Some significant differences affecting the vibrance of a film will be lighting and color contrasts/complements. Oftentimes older films will have a significant visual effect of vibrance on the screen due to the techniques of lighting and photography that were thought necessary for good quality of B&W and color contrast, and to separate objects significantly.

The Parallax View is a good example of film art direction used to create the perception of space and depth, to the point where the viewer is even fooled.

I hate to say this, but many modern DP's are not adept at lighting a scene so that there's significant visual separation of objects, and often too much background overpowering the image supposedly wanting our attention.

An example, which I've seen countless times, is where the bright background or window area or wall is so bright that the person or people speaking are too dark to see, and lack definition of features. I would expect the DP or Director to say that this was the desired effect, or they were trying for a noirish feel, or such. However, the films that comprise 'Film Noir' were never like this (except perhaps the badly transfered 16mm TV releases) nor is it desirable to have pointless annoying attention grabbing background that detracts from what's of import.

I'm often dismayed when I can't see the facial expressions of the person speaking.

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by rixrex

An example, which I've seen countless times, is where the bright background or window area or wall is so bright that the person or people speaking are too dark to see, and lack definition of features. I would expect the DP or Director to say that this was the desired effect, or they were trying for a noirish feel, or such. However, the films that comprise 'Film Noir' were never like this (except perhaps the badly transfered 16mm TV releases) nor is it desirable to have pointless annoying attention grabbing background that detracts from what's of import.

I'm often dismayed when I can't see the facial expressions of the person speaking.

This may be a bit of work but I really would like to see examples of this. Can you throw out a few titles?

F

[rixrex]

Yes that will take some time, as I'll make a list while I view things the next few weeks.

But in order to get the idea of what I mean, I think you can watch almost any modern dramatic TV series (I include TV productions as well), and whenever you see a window to daylight or some sort of background light sources in an office or home setting, and you're supposed to focus on the person in the foreground, you should notice if you can see the person's facial expressions.

If you can, that's good lighting. If you cannot, that's either because there's no fill-light on the person, or not enough, or the camera is set to expose for the background or for a mid-range. The DP and director can see the expressions most likely, because film exposure is more limited in range than a person's eye. This is where many inexperienced DPs make errors, until they've had the experience to see how the film actually looks when processed, and it won't look like the video preview of the same scene.

If it's not purposely intended to be this way (and why would it be?), then it's often the result of poor attention to lighting and light meter readings, somebody lighting who's not really adept at such, and often the result of having to work quickly on a limited budget. Though in my experience, it isn't really that hard to provide some sort of fill to get a proper exposure.

[chlngr1970]

Go ahead and start a new thread, I'll sitck it for reference.

j