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  1. Member brassplyer's Avatar
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    Recently got the Blu-Ray complete Batman TV series, I was suprised to see how noisy it is. Particularly given how popular a release it is and how much hoopla there was about all the care taken with the video. Obvious compression noise, not just film noise. Surely those who do this kind of thing are aware of noise reduction solutions?
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  2. Dinosaur Supervisor KarMa's Avatar
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    Maybe post a picture of what you are talking about. As blurray.com says nothing about this, and they usually would point such things out. They list "Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (14.92 Mbps)" which sounds like more than enough for 4:3 1080p (with black bars on the side, saving bitrate)

    http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Batman-The-Complete-Series-Blu-ray/103989/
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  3. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Various sites have screen-grabs from Warners own samples. They certainly look pristine. Also some reviews are more than happy (Yeah. I know)

    I trust you bought these from an official source since ANYTHING (packaging included) can be faked. And there are plenty of tv copies out there.
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  4. It's pretty hard to tell from still pictures as noise isn't static, but if it works (many of the links for screenshots on the page wouldn't work) you can see there's a reasonable amount of noise when you look at the blue sky here.
    http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screenshot.php?movieid=103989&position=2
    Or it's the second screenshot on this page:
    http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Batman-The-Complete-Series-Blu-ray/103989//#Screenshots

    It's probably par for the course for old film. Pretty much all noise removal removes detail to come degree. Chances are if it was all removed people would complain about the picture having a lack of detail.
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  5. That looks like normal film grain ( and maybe a dirty cyc.) Stills are always going to look granier than the same shot in motion where subsequent frames perceptually blend together.
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  6. Member brassplyer's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by smrpix View Post
    That looks like normal film grain ( and maybe a dirty cyc.) Stills are always going to look granier than the same shot in motion where subsequent frames perceptually blend together.
    No, that's pretty representative of what I'm talking about. It's very noticeable in motion. I believe it to be largely video noise because it moves with the camera motion.
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  7. Member brassplyer's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    I trust you bought these from an official source since ANYTHING (packaging included) can be faked. And there are plenty of tv copies out there.
    Got it off ebay from a seller with 99.9% pos feedback. I see some references to boots of the animated series, I don't see anything about boots of the 60's tv show package. No obvious signs of a boot. Got it with sealed packaging, everything looks sharp, no misspellings or odd printing alignment issues. Pretty confident it's genuine.
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  8. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Several studios quit sending me Blu-ray releases to review because they were noisy as hell, and I noted it in my reviews. Screw them. They wanted content reviews, and not quality reviews.

    A lot of "reviews" are on wink-and-nod contingency that you like everything and give a glowing 9+/10 rating.

    This is why the format sucks.

    You can clean up film. Most Blu-rays, however, do not do anything to the masters. Many don't even go back to film, and simply use later broadcast masters.

    Warner is often full of shit when it comes to "remastering". They abuse that term.
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  9. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by brassplyer View Post
    Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    I trust you bought these from an official source since ANYTHING (packaging included) can be faked. And there are plenty of tv copies out there.
    Got it off ebay from a seller with 99.9% pos feedback. I see some references to boots of the animated series, I don't see anything about boots of the 60's tv show package. No obvious signs of a boot. Got it with sealed packaging, everything looks sharp, no misspellings or odd printing alignment issues. Pretty confident it's genuine.
    Quite possible that the demand for boots of the tv series dried up once the official product arrived - there was even a poster in these forums talking about 'cleaning up' the recordings and pretty sure he does not do that just for his own benefit (but enough said about that)

    As for Ebay, I once bought a Box Set of those Beatles dvds from some years ago. That was also sealed and came with all the packaging. Maybe I am too sceptical but I do also buy from Ebay from time to time but usually when I can not get the item from elsewhere.

    I do not own the Batman series. I have been tempted now that the issue is affordable but when I would get around to watch them - have many disks already awaiting their turn - is debatable.

    As for your concern, I do read many reviews about 'film grain'. I guess some would rather leave that in place and not seek to 'improve' the image. My greatest moan with Blu Ray and dvd for that matter is when it is deemed necessary to alter the viewing frame to create 16:9. Thankfully Warners have atleast left these alone (but just check yt to see what some idiot did with The Munsters). Damn. That's another series I must get some day.
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  10. Originally Posted by smrpix View Post
    That looks like normal film grain ( and maybe a dirty cyc.) Stills are always going to look granier than the same shot in motion where subsequent frames perceptually blend together.
    In my experience it's the opposite. Noise isn't static so it can stand out more when the pictures are moving than it does looking at a single image. That's why the pic I linked to is one of the few that looks noisy. Even when the pictures are moving noise is more obvious against a flat background, but that doesn't mean it's not spread evenly throughout the frame. For a single still image sometimes it's hard to tell what's noise or detail unless there is a flat background.
    Having said that, I'd agree when frames are perceptually blended together it can help noise to become less obvious by making it harder to distinguish from picture detail, but by definition noise isn't static and a single image is.

    Now (some of) the links for the screenshots are working again, have a look at #7 and #8.
    http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screenshot.php?movieid=103989&position=7
    http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screenshot.php?movieid=103989&position=8
    The wall in the background appears to have a "texture" but that's probably just noise. It's pretty hard to spot anywhere else though, yet it's hard to imagine it's not evenly distributed throughout the frame.

    I've found (although I tend to noise filter more noisy sources when re-encoding) often Bluray versions of old films don't really have 1080p worth of picture detail, but there's 1080p worth of noise. Those screenshots have been resized down to 720p and compressed as jpeg so they mightn't be truly representative.

    I'd agree it's probably just normal film grain though, or at least what normal film grain looks like when it's encoded, but I suspect there's more of it than is apparent in those pictures. Some people don't mind it and see it as part of the "film" look, while others dislike it, and that would no doubt help determine how noticeable it is.
    Last edited by hello_hello; 25th Apr 2016 at 10:27.
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