4K Movies

[Huey]

One of the first movies I owned on DVD and then Bluray was Starship Troopers. Not a great movie by any means, but a fun movie none the less. Wife got it for me for Christmas in 4K, so I watched some of it last night. I noticed "noise" in certain scenes, and I've noticed this on other 4K movies as well, from Men in Black to The Hitman's Bodyguard. I haven't done a bluray/4K comparison, but I haven't really noticed this in any of the blurays that I've watched as well. I'm not sure if I'd call it mosquito noise, but on solid backgrounds, there seems to be something. Anybody else see this when watching a 4K movie? I haven't watched a much on Netflix 4K, but what I did, don't remember seeing it. Although, I'm right on the edge of having enough bandwidth for 4K streaming, so I do see artifacts from time to time.

 

[Flint]

Can you describe the noise with more words? Maybe we can make sense of it.

Mosquito noise tends to be from bad encoders or missing data (slow connection).
Banding tends to be from too much compression, which can come from slow data pipes or poor use of encoders
Wobbly and shifting colors tends to be from too much compression.
Tiny single-pixel spots and "dust" tends to be from loss of data (like a bad cable or connection)

What some people don't always acknowledge is that sometimes directors add noise to make a scene more as if you are remembering it to allow your brain to fill in the gaps which in turn makes the event more visceral deeply emotional - it increasing anxiety, the flight or flight instinct, and give you chills. If the movie is good, it can make you relate emotionally and have a greater experience than if the movie were crystal clear and always in focus. Sometimes it is noise they add, other times it is just going slightly out of focus or making the scene very dark. With the Bourne movies it was to slow the frame rate, increase the shutter speed, and have the camera moving around and missing some of the action you want to see. That made what you were watching seem more like you were there because it allowed you to see only brief snippets of what was actually happening and you had to fill in the gaps from your intuition. Very effective when it was introduced, but annoying now.

 

[Huey]

I'll try to explain it better, but I'm not sure if I can accurately describe it. Mosquito noise, at least to me, would be like imposing an image on a screen of static noise. Things almost seem to be moving. The only reason I'm not calling this mosquito noise, is it doesn't seem to be moving, just busy. Kind of like you had a screen of static, paused it, and then superimposed an image on that. You could still see the noise, but it wasn't "moving". One of the opening scenes in MIB is when Will Smith chases down an alien to a white building. The building is where I would have notice it.

I do own MIB and Starship Troopers in both Bluray and 4K, so I'll have to do a comparison. The 4K movies in most scenes do look better than the blurays, and it could be just that I'm seeing something that was always there, but the higher resolution makes it more apparent. I tend to turn off most enhancements, like video noise and motion blur, but even turning the video noise filter to it's highest setting didn't seem to make a huge difference. I think the only thing I have turned on is something called extreme black engine, or something like that, so maybe I'll turn that off to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Towen7]

I often notice macro-blocking, especially in dark areas.

 

[Huey]

I often notice macro-blocking, especially in dark areas.

I would say I notice this in lighter areas, not darker, although it's not the whole scene, just maybe a building in the scene.

 

[Flint]

And it is consistent across multiple movies from different studios? It might be in the scalar and could be a byproduct of missing data in the signal.

If so, I'd look into the cable (duh-duh-duuuuuum). An older-spec HDMI cable may not pass everything well.

 

[MatthewB]

I've noticed this with all forms of media I call it macro blocking where you get blocky pixelation as we are talking about digital media going to a digital display and the TV just can't keep up with dark or bright white scenes and you notice the pixelation. I've seen it on streamed services, Blurays and 4K media. Shit never happened in the tool ol days with analog signals but it's the price of progress.

 

[Huey]

And it is consistent across multiple movies from different studios? It might be in the scalar and could be a byproduct of missing data in the signal.

If so, I'd look into the cable (duh-duh-duuuuuum). An older-spec HDMI cable may not pass everything well.

I'm not sure on the studios, but that would be my guess, that it just isn't authored as well as some of the other movies. I didn't get a chance to compare Bluray vs 4K, but watched a little of Starship Troopers and realized they just didn't do a decent job. A movie like Valerian looked great though. The cable is brand new and said it was good for 4K, so I don't think that's the problem.

Watching Planet Earth II last night on Netflix, and couldn't believe the picture we were seeing. Both the wife and I were stunned at how well it looked. BTW, we were watching it on the Sony 4K player through the Netflix app.

 

[Towen7]

Yeah ... I don't think it's anything more than "noise" that got encoded during the transfer process.

 

[Huey]

Yeah ... I don't think it's anything more than "noise" that got encoded during the transfer process.

Which kind of reminds me when HD-DVD and Blurays came out. HD-DVD's seemed to be bettered authored, and Blurays were hit or miss on picture quality, you think the studios would have learned and just put out the best copy they could. But then again, maybe that's the plan to sell remastered movies as the format takes hold.

 

[Towen7]

There is a real cost to putting those discs out and I would expect that more time/money goes into the some titles compared to others based on the expected ROI.

 

[mzpro5]

Well I just got back from the rental store and in a couple days will be able to tell you if I see any abnormalities. I just walked around pciking movies that were 4k though I may not have rented them otherwise

Fate of the Furious (not a fan of the series)
American Assassin (know very little about this movie)
Transformers the Last Knight ( I know, I know Alzheimer's may be setting in)
Hitman's Bodyguard

Figured I was there, it will be freezing all week, have a new system and had a half price deal so I got all four for five days at a total of $6

 

[Huey]

Hitman's Bodyguard is actually pretty good, I think you'll enjoy it, especially if you're a fan of Samuel L Jackson.

 

[mzpro5]

I checked amazon to see if they were discounting any 4k movies. they must figure alot of people got 4k rigs as everything seems to be priced at full retail. Even movies that were discounted last week are higher.

 

[Huey]

I checked amazon to see if they were discounting any 4k movies. they must figure alot of people got 4k rigs as everything seems to be priced at full retail. Even movies that were discounted last week are higher.

When you posted about the Planet of the Apes deal, I checked out a few of their other offerings. For the most part, Walmart had almost the exact same pricing, if they had the disks for sale. Didn't get the Ape movies, but did end up buying the MIB trilogy at Walmart, mainly because I can use my wifes discount.

 

[MatthewB]

Which kind of reminds me when HD-DVD and Blurays came out. HD-DVD's seemed to be bettered authored, and Blurays were hit or miss on picture quality, you think the studios would have learned and just put out the best copy they could. But then again, maybe that's the plan to sell remastered movies as the format takes hold.

HD-DVD's were far superior but I still lost a bet to Flint over that one because society is dead set on picking a far inferior product just like when as a teen I chose Beta over VHS but the pervs of the world wanted porn on VHS instead of better PQ that beta offered. Same with HD-DVD

 

[Huey]

So I was at Best Buy looking at receivers yesterday, still haven't gotten the audio issue figured out, but I saw Close Encounters for $15 in 4K. Sure, why not. I have the 30th anniversary edition on bluray, but as it turns out, this one has 3 different cuts of the film. Put it in last night, and couldn't believe how bad it looks. Tried the bluray that came with the 4K, and it was about the same. Even though I had swapped disks, the player wanted to pick up playing the bluray where I left off in the 4K disk, which I thought was pretty cool. Decided to get out the original bluray copy I had, and that looked pretty bad as well. I'm guessing my issues are with the way the disks are made, because 4K streaming looks fantastic. I don't remember Close Encounters looking so bad back when I just had 1080, so maybe the new formats show the flaws even more so. I will say, I need to watch the directors cut all the way through, as what little I watched was quite a bit different than the 30th anniversary edition.

 

[Huey]

Watched The Dark Knight bluray on my Sony 4K player last night, and it looked fantastic, especially the 70mm Imax scenes. They looked as good or better than any 4K movie I have with the exception of maybe Valerian. Makes me wonder how the 4K version looks, but I had no complaints about what I watched last night.