Removing grain is the absolute worst thing you can possibly try and do with a transfe. Grainis natural and it is what makes up the image for film. Anyone that has anything against grain just doesnt understand cinema at all. I wont even get into a big discussion about the grain thing, ill just recommend everyone go and read.

http://www.lyris-lite.net/2007/03/fi....html#comments

Bottom line when you start taking out film grain you are not only going to mess up the image, your altering the directors vision for his film which should be absolutley 100% off limits for every encoder out there. You have to remeber that noise and grain are not the same thing. Noise is an unwated artifact of the video process, grain is not. Imagine what a film like se7e would look like without any grain and I can name another 100 movies that you could say the same thing about.

Again grain is not a bad thing, it is the look of the film stock selected plain and simple and when you start taking out grain you screw with the image quality in a big bad way. Nobody should ever try and remove grain, EVER!!!

Isn't that basically what I said?

Isn't that basically what I said?

Yes I was agreeing with you and posting that link, what is the problem?

PS...

I agree with Suprmallet but not PornoStar.

I agree with BornAgainStar and PornoStar but not Suprmallet.

I think you guys are making it too black and white. Some can be removed to make the picture better.

According to an insider on avs (some can probably guess who), Marty wasnt happy with the first run of the hd encode of the Departed since it showed too much of the film grain.

That's the key. If the director wants it removed, it's okay.

I think I now have a different view on what's happening. Upon looking closer at the discs, what I'm looking at is not really a scatch, but appears to be a "blemish". Can't really find another word to describe it. It seems like the felt-like filter that rubs against the disc when it's placed in the slot is leaving smudge-like small particles near the edge.

I went to Circuit City today and bought a microfiber cloth. Wiped it on my Broken Arrow disc and it looks brand new again. Good thing about microfiber is it won't leave scratches on the surface like something that a cotton cloth would do. So I guess I'm okay afterall. This is my speculation anyways and I feel better about having the unit. If the worst thing that happens is I have to get that cloth to wipe off these smudge-looking lines on my discs, then that's not too bad. Hopefully the more I use the player, the less it will leave this stuff on the surface of my discs.

I felt better also about finding 2-3 threads on the PS3 forums that described what I was seeing, so it's not just me that has seen this, but hopefully all is good now.

Keep in mind that the world's softest substance can cause scratches if something is on it. Water may also clean something, pretty much guaranteed not to scratch.

True, but what if he is dead, unavailable or just plain doesnt want to be involved.

Im not saying we should alter movies drastically. But, in this new age of high definition, some films can benefit from a cleaner print or digital restoration (where some film grain would be removed along with imperfections). Like I said, if we remaster audio into 5.1, why cant we try to make the picture as good as possible?

Alot of older movies really benefit. Look at The Searchers. Yes, there are questions about whether the color is right or not. BUT, is that enough to halt the digital restoration?

Many think it looks awesome in high definition. Is it what the director intended? Who knows, but its a grand experience to witness.

I have the same feelings about film grain as you do. I don't care that much about film grain. Honestly, I would like the picture as clean as can be.

I was recently watching "The "Phantom Menace" in HD and then saw "Revenge of the Sith" and I can say I preferred the look of the Sith more than I did of The phantom menace.

Stomp The Yard (5/15) will be the first Blu-Ray to have both an PCM a TrueHD track.

Also the first Blu-Ray porn title, Debbie Does Dallas Again is up for preorder at Adult DVD Empire for $50

Amazon has a new Blu-Ray dedicated microsite now:

Amazon Blu-Ray

You do realize that you linked to Amazon's regular Blu Ray page, which has been up for months? The "microsite" is just an external link to the Fox Blu Ray page.

Why make a movie with both PCM and Dolby TrueHD? Seems like a waste of space.

I hear on the same disc they have the movie in AVC and MPEG2 also.

The only possibility I can think of is that they want to test something, like compatibility, reaction from the public, etc. There's a poll on AVS as to whether people want the dialog normalization flag on TrueHD tracks or not, so maybe they decided to try both on a title that wasn't constrained for space.

I know we all hate rumors/speculation that comes from AVS and Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits, but he posted this in a now-locked thread over at AVS:

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

"The other interesting thing that's going on right now, is that friends who work at authoring facilities around town have been e-mailing me to say that Universal reps have been stopping by investigating Blu-ray authoring pretty seriously in the last couple of weeks. From what a lot of people I trust in the trenches are telling me, the writing is starting to be on the wall for HD-DVD."

I'm at a point to where I wouldn't mind one bit if Universal announced dual support, then we could all just worry about 1 format.

My brother's best friend's sister's boyfriend's dad works next door to one of these authoring facilities and can confirm this.



No, seriously though, he should have not posted this on his website.

Just because Universal is look at Blu-Ray authoring does not mean HD-DVD is going belly-up. Ive seen Microsoft and Sony reps looking at Nintendo's booths at trade shows and vice versa.

Exactly why he should not have posted it on his website. He was alluding to something.

BIG difference between checking out a competitors booth at a trade show where all three parties are already in attendence and visiting a Blu Ray authoring facility on a special trip only for that purpose. I bet Toshiba has never been to a Blu Ray facility.

I see no problem with him reporting it. This IS news. He made it very clear that this info came from a friend. If he had any doubt to his friends validity, I don't believe he would have posted it.

Now, does this mean Universal is going neutral any time soon. No, but it does look like they are, at least, examing the possibility.

I usually believe about 0% of any statement that begins with, "I heard from a friend".