Video Compression Kills Grain :(

[Mokara]

8 hours ago, Axel said:

@BenEricson

Sigh. That's analog to having wine served from bottles with cork instead of Tetra Paks.

I told one story already. We had a very worn print of Time Of The Gypsies in the cinema where I was projectionist. A thick layer of scratches, rumble in the (analog) audio, hundreds of splices. It was a morning performance for two school classes, kids of fourteen, fifteen. I was certain, they wouldn't stand it. Much to my surprise, they were deeply immersed. Their faces were red, their eyes shone when they gathered in the foyer afterwards. Sure, it's an unbelievably good film, but I think the presence of he medium added, well, something. 

Did you read Flicker? 

No, it added nothing. They were reacting to the story, not the medium.

[webrunner5]

49 minutes ago, Mokara said:

No, it added nothing. They were reacting to the story, not the medium.

Nah I think you are wrong. That movie would be way less dramatic if it was shot on some razor sharp Digital Camera. That is one reason Canon Cine cameras are so good. They are soft for a reason. Same with the Arri Alexa., the original one. Not really true 4K. Not soft but, sure as heck more film looking than any other digital camera I know. That was the reason Arri dragged their heals on not raising the resolution on it for years.

But yeah that film is a Classic, it's true the story carries it no matter what. That film Needed a grungy look to it. It was not a everyone is happy type film that needed Cartoon colors and 20 stops of DR.

[andrgl]

1 hour ago, Mokara said:

Real life does not have grain, so why would high quality imaging have it? Grain is an artifact of inadequate technology, both now and in days gone by. Eventually it will be gone. The presence of grain does not make footage "superior".

And cinema ain't real life.

FPN, chroma noise and rolling shutter make film grain look far superior.

[BenEricson]

23 minutes ago, andrgl said:

And cinema ain't real life.

FPN, chroma noise and rolling shutter make film grain look far superior.

And on the topic of web compression, banding. No banding when there's grain.

[kye]

3 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

I'm not saying it looks like film grain, but digital noise seems fine to me before compression.

I find the noise from my 700D with ML RAW at high ISOs (3200 / 6400) quite nice, but only when I do chroma NR.  Luma noise is a different beast than chroma noise.

3 hours ago, Mokara said:

Real life does not have grain, so why would high quality imaging have it? Grain is an artifact of inadequate technology, both now and in days gone by. Eventually it will be gone. The presence of grain does not make footage "superior".

I think I've been able to see grain from my eyes in extremely dark situations, but maybe I'm wrong?  If someone knows about human sight it would be great to get a more informed perspective.

Of course, that's only at something like ISO 1,000,000 or above, so ISO 3200 noise isn't a real-life thing.

This is probably one of those things where comparing film to digital is comparing two complex sets of things - we can't truly separate out the variables.

[webrunner5]

2 hours ago, kye said:

I think I've been able to see grain from my eyes in extremely dark situations, but maybe I'm wrong?  If someone knows about human sight it would be great to get a more informed perspective.

 

According to Ken Rockwell we Do see grain in our eyes if he is to be believed. We probably do.

https://kenrockwell.com/tech/how-we-see.htm

[kye]

3 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

According to Ken Rockwell we Do see grain in our eyes if he is to be believed. We probably do.

https://kenrockwell.com/tech/how-we-see.htm

Thanks for the link, that's interesting.  I am not surprised that Ken has a useful page on such a thing.

[webrunner5]

What is also interesting is that each eye is split in half. One side of our brain see half, the other side the other half. So one side see left in each eye, the other side see's right in each eye.

I know that because my daughter's last baby had a stroke in her womb. So when she was like 2 years old they had a doctor fly in from Germany I think, and literally cut out half her brain that had died from the stroke. So now she only see's on the left side of each eye. She is 5 years old now. She is doing surprisingly well. Here brain that is left is re wiring it's self to do what some of the other side did. She will Never be normal but it is pretty crazy that they can do what they did. But they can only do it until they are around 6 years old or younger. Any older you can't re wire like you can when you are really young.

She had like 200 seizures or more a day for a long time, and now she takes liquid Medical Marijuana and is down to only like 15 a day. Helps with her pain also. She has a drop foot also. They have done some crazy open spine operations on her for that also.

The Ronald Mc Donald house has paid every dime of her cost since she has been born along with my daughters cost to be with her in LA for operations. Amazing stuff happens behind the scenes that few know about.

[User]

23 hours ago, BenEricson said:

 

 

Holy smokes! Nice work Ben.

[Axel]

6 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

According to Ken Rockwell we Do see grain in our eyes if he is to be believed. We probably do.

https://kenrockwell.com/tech/how-we-see.htm

I entertain myself with niceties of visual perception ever since. It all comes down to what german poet Goethe concluded:

Quote

If the eye were not sun-like,
How could we ever see the sun?

(clumsy translation)

He had written on perception of colors early on, and we are talking about the 18th century! As William Gladstone proved later on, we may all *see* the same things, but we take completely different things *for real*. His finding: if you don't have a word for blue, you can't (yes: canNOT) distinguish blue from green. The sky turned blue the instance the color could be artificially reproduced, and the sky and lapis lazuli were no longer the only blue things in the world ("blue" flowers are always light or dark purple, and they are described as such in earlier times).

So the least we can say is that our perception is way more flexible than we are aware of. But what is still questionable is whether or not ISO grain does convincingly look like scotopic vision. The answer is, it can. Everything that signals a purpose, an intention, a calculated effect, and be it drastically distorted and stylized, will trigger the suspension of disbelief. On the contrary, if an image surrounded us 360°, had 20k resolution, 200fps and 30 stops of DR, we would be smart enough to find it reality-like, but ultimately unreal.

[John Brawley]

What killed film wasn’t digital per se, it was the migration of film PRINTS in exhibition to digital projection.  

Of course digital projection at first has obvious advantages. Dust, scratches, stability and of course, they won’t change the 4th reel for one printed on a different release stock from a different lab.

However, like film, most cinemas let their plant run down. With digital this sucks.

I see many many cinemas with poor digital projection.  Tired and shitty 2k projectors, dull whites, no contrast, soft setups, milky milky blacks make me crazy. 

Look at black masking / surround drapes next time you’re in a cinema and compare it to “black” from a projector in the image. 

Digital projected black is more like 18% grey.  There’s no contrast in the image like with a film print, no dynamic range.

Some new systems are fixing this (dolby and the new giant OLED cinema screens being trialled in CA)

...and for the love of god, showing a 2D on a 3D screen is a major crime that few notice. I complain and usually get blank stares.  They don’t even know what aim talking about.

When you see an “answer print” on a properly setup screen it’s something to behold. Truly breathtaking.  I’d forgotten how magical it really really is. 

We even have the technology to make prints at first generation (answer print) pretty much in real time instead of the two stage duplications of release print but it’s too late. Doesn’t matter now. 

Most of Kodak’s business was in making print stock, not camera negative.  That’s what killed them.  Well actually, the motion picture imaging division has always been profitable.  Just not profitable enough to continue to prop up their moronic decision to make consumer printers (but not supply the ink).

JB

[BenEricson]

On 7/3/2018 at 1:41 AM, kye said:

Very nice work there @BenEricson ???

The stylising elements were done really nicely, strong but coherent and adding to the package instead of distracting.  Was the WB differences in some shots from filming or done deliberately in post?  I thought it added to the aesthetic, thus maybe added.
I also very much liked the style and editing.  I'd assume the transition shots between the two sections where you pan left/down and then pan left/up from the water was planned and deliberate, and it was subtle but so nicely done.

I used to write electronic music with a guy who was a master of subtlety and would just nail things but in a very understated way and in a sense this video reminded me of that.

What were you riding while filming?  and how large / cumbersome was your rig?  I used to be a skater a long time ago and watched a lot of videos and some of the most incredible efforts are by the DoPs who have to keep up while still getting the shot.

Sorry, not trying to derail this thread. I just want to mention that it is neither THAT expensive or difficult to shoot film. Grain holds up fine on Vimeo.

@kye - Thanks for the kind words. The WB was done in post. Half of the footage was summer and half was winter, so I wanted to separate the footage with color. The entire project was scanned to flat log 2k on the Scan Station Scanner. 

The rig was just the Bolex 16mm with the gun/trigger grip. I have a Super 16mm version but we went with the 4:3 because of the wide lens look and choices with that ratio. I've been skateboarding for about 16 years, so just me rolling down the street. I did a bit of warp stabilize here and there to help it out, (which works way better on film because theres no rolling shutter jello.) What you get in a bolex is pretty amazing. Slow motion, single frame, long exposure, internal slot ND, etc. The camera was really built to be used for quick setup and just getting shots. The pan up from the water was done deliberately, but everything else was just made in the edit. Thank you again for checking out the project. 

[webrunner5]

Out of likes. That was some really great footage you produced, not counting your skills on the skateboard.

Now if I won the Lotto I would buy this one.

 

[User]

On 7/4/2018 at 12:11 PM, John Brawley said:

What killed film wasn’t digital per se, it was the migration of film PRINTS in exhibition to digital projection.

Spot on.
I recently watched a beautifully shot doc projected digitally that was absolutely lifeless. All the work that went into making it and it came out flat as a pancake, tragic.
The sparkle of celluloid on a silver beaded screen is feast that younger generations will, most probably, never know. Progress.

[kye]

4 hours ago, User said:

Spot on.
I recently watched a beautifully shot doc projected digitally that was absolutely lifeless. All the work that went into making it and it came out flat as a pancake, tragic.
The sparkle of celluloid on a silver beaded screen is feast that younger generations will, most probably, never know. Progress.

As a consolation, in digital audio the start was abysmal (in comparison to analog) but with better and better specifications the heart and soul is gradually coming back.  Down the line I think it will come back, to some degree anyway.

[User]

5 hours ago, kye said:

As a consolation, in digital audio the start was abysmal (in comparison to analog) but with better and better specifications the heart and soul is gradually coming back.  Down the line I think it will come back, to some degree anyway.

I sure hope so Kai.

I had also heard some time ago that some theatres were using under powered bulbs as a way to save on electricity costs.

[kye]

4 hours ago, User said:

I sure hope so Kai.

I had also heard some time ago that some theatres were using under powered bulbs as a way to save on electricity costs.

It doesn't surprise me if they were.

I don't know what it's like where you are, but where I live there are a couple of large grocery franchises where people do their weekly food shopping, and a number of other smaller competitors.  One of the things that the smaller shops would do is run their freezers warmer (still within the rules, well, hopefully) but what it would mean is that by the time you got home the frozen stuff you bought would have melted, whereas the same products bought from the large chain of stores didn't.

Cutting costs in hidden ways that hurt the customer is a pretty popular business strategy.

[User]

6 hours ago, kye said:

It doesn't surprise me if they were.

I don't know what it's like where you are, but where I live there are a couple of large grocery franchises where people do their weekly food shopping, and a number of other smaller competitors.  One of the things that the smaller shops would do is run their freezers warmer (still within the rules, well, hopefully) but what it would mean is that by the time you got home the frozen stuff you bought would have melted, whereas the same products bought from the large chain of stores didn't.

Cutting costs in hidden ways that hurt the customer is a pretty popular business strategy.

Interesting the the freezer thing. Though this type of thing is actually how the majority of the world operates, where in largely corrupt countries, checks and balances (consumers watchdogs) just don't exist.
I once watched a man try to paint a wall. From the market he purchased a paint roller brush - because it 'looked' like what needed. After he saturated the roller in paint, he then lifted it to the wall surface where the roller brush unrolled and just stuck to the wall. He was now officially done painting walls in South Asia.