Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemesis
(Post 108089)
You may be a grain purist but I'm sorry the grain = film argument has not been won, not by a long shot. Quite simply, some people do not like grain even if it is authentic and presents the film in the form that it was supposed to be seen - they may not care if the film looks waxy, but to them it looks good. Look at some of the comments of Predator Ultimate on Amazon. For the reverse, some people hated the grain on the Ghostbusters blu. With such a division of views, DVD and Blu companies will have one heck of a time trying to please both sides. |
I'm sorry to rock your little world, but it really isn't an argument. Grain = film is a fact, not an opinion. It's just that a lot of people have a very distorted view of what a film should look like, because of years of watching second-rate duplications like DVD and TV. Because the resolution of DVD isn't high enough, it wasn't able to render grain good enough, so on most DVD's it wasn't visible or at least not very much. Blu-ray is the first home-video medium that's capable of maintaining a good grain structure, so an element that's always been an essential ingredient of film has long last been restored. So in fact, some people are now for the first time in their lives actually seeing grain and when they see all those funny little dots on the screen, they go 'hey, wait a minute, I've never seen this before, it isn't what I'm used to, so this most be bad'. Well, that's quite unfortunate for them, but the only thing those people have to do is changing their concept of what film should look like. Thank god, virtually every label out there sees BD (rightfully so) as an opportunity to approach the way films looked upon release in theatres and try to recapture this on BD. And for that grain is essential, it's really as simple as that. So unless, you're actually trying to say that a BD shouldn't look like film always has, but instead like some plastic fantastic travesty of the original film just to cater to some people with a distorted view of film, you're just talking nonsense. Yes, some people probably prefer to see Arnie look like a plastic action figure instead of a man of flesh and blood, but instead of catering to such people, labels should try to educate them. Eventually, they will probably see the ways of their error and change their minds.
And why do you think is it, that for every Predator or Patton DNR disaster, there are, say 100 releases that actually do show grain? Why do you think that virtually all releases of highly regarded companies like Criterion, BFI, Blue Underground, MoC or even most of the major studios, show grain in abundance? Just because it strikes their fancy? No, because that's the way film is supposed to look. Labels like that have an obligation to their films and film-makers, not towards some idiotic nitwit consumers who prefer a waxy DNR image, just because they just don't know where it's at.
Also, the rendering of grain is very much dependent of the quality of your blu-ray player. I recently switched from my relatively cheap Momitsu 899 to a much more expensive Oppo 83 and the differences are very pronounced. I suspected it for some time, but wasn't really sure until I watched the beautiful Arrow BD of 'City of the Living Dead' again, the first BD I had watched on both systems. Because of the differences I hooked up my Momitsu again and watched them back to back and it turned out the image on the Oppo was much less grainy than on the Momitsu. On the Oppo the grain is still very much there, but much less obtrusive. The Oppo is actually capable of the making the grain an integral part of the image, so you still have all the advantages of grain (detail, texture, depth etc.), without being 'bothered' by it. So I would suggest to people who call themselves grain-haters (which is really a silly word, it's exactly the same as saying 'I don't like the way celluloid film looks), should invest in a better BD player if they are so much bothered by grain. The differences can be quite spectacular.
Finally, let me say something again about the Arrow Inferno. Some people have said that it's not as bad as I make it out to be. Well, I still stand by my convictions 100%, and I shall clarify a bit why. Last night I watched the BD of 'Rio Bravo' for the first time. Throughout the whole picture (except for the last 20 minutes, where it inexplicably suddenly disappears), there is some unfortunate brown, sluggish hue on everything - Dean Martin looked like he had been sunbathing in olive oil for a couple of days. It's far from perfect, but I actually didn't mind that much, because almost everything else looked fine, and most importantly the image was very much alive and breathing - exactly what a BD should do. But all the strong points of the Inferno disc become pretty irrelevant, quite simply because the image never comes to life. So, yes it's sharper, colors are better and the music is spectacular, but what does that all matter when the image is as dead as a doornail - courtesy of the scrubbing out of grain?
You can compare it with a dead man: you can dress him up real nice, do his hair and everything and he will look pretty for his funeral, but not only will he never come back to life, he will look dead at all times. The fancy clothes and make-up can never quite conceal that little fact. So that's what the Arrow pretty much boils down to: a dressed-up corpse.