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Info & Info Wanted: GOUT film grain

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A few days ago I was discussing the level of grain in the GOUT DVDs with a couple of people. Looking round on teh interweb, I saw a statement on the Doom9 forum: “many cinemaphiles adore heavy grain these days”. This got me questioning the preconceptions I had about “film grain”.

I always knew that there are some benefits in having a bit of grain in the image:

  • it reduces the appearance of macro-blocking in backgrounds
  • it breaks up any banding or false contour compression artefacts
  • it gives the illusion of increased detail and texture

There are also some occasions where artifical film grain is digitally added to video, for example, to match CGI sequences with live action film.

The problem is that grain, due to its randomness, is difficult to retain when compressing video - you either have to increase the bitrate or reduce the overall quality. This is why, generally, most people who encode video perform some grain reduction or removal as a matter of course. These days, we have highly developed motion-compensated grain reduction tools at our disposal. Viewers have become accustomed to the “smooth” look.

But it doesn’t have to be that way any more. There’s now an AviSynth filter to optimize grain so that it’s efficiently retained by encoders without having to increase the bitrate. There are developments in film grain technology for h.264 and HD DVD.

Now: about the GOUT DVDs. Notwithstanding all the other defects present on these discs, there are three schools of thought on the heavy grain issue:

  • the “artificial grain has been added in post” conspiracy
  • it’s a side effect of sourcing the DVDs from the LD pressing masters - sharpness and edge enhancement were cranked up for the LDs which emphasises the grain on the DVDs.
  • the films were always that grainy, and the image on the GOUT DVDs is consistent with their theatrical presentations (as demonstrated by the 70mm film cell scans)

So, I want to hear your opinions. Do you consider the grain to be excessive or authentic? Given the option, would you prefer to watch a grainy GOUT or a grain-filtered GOUT?

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I have some Criterion Collection dvds with older movies (mostly black and white) that have a lot of grain compared to todays standards. So I'm used to grain and the grain in the GOUT never bothered me. I don't think LFL added grain on purpose, but maybe it stands out a bit more as a side effect of what they did to it. Also, I think Laserman said that the grain in the GOUT was consistent with the filmstock that was used to shoot Star Wars.

For comparison

70mm
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2664/anhstormtrooper00196800vs7.jpg

GOUT
http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/6938/anhstrhu1.jpg
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
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Here's my take:

-Star Wars was shot on 1970's film stock. These have far more grain that today's stocks, which some cinematographer's are complaining are actually too fine-grain, they almost look like video. So Star Wars, in its native form, has quite visible grain built in to it. Its part of the texture of the image. You can see this in the composite shots--as soon as Luke turns on his lightsaber in Ben's hut the grain level doubles. Thats because there is an optical composite for the saber glow, so the film was exposed twice, once on set and then once in the optical printer. So the grain is native to the image.

-Star Wars, even though it has grain in its O-neg form, is not nearly as grainy as what is on the GOUT. The GOUT looks like it has an extra layer of grain on top of the actual image--this is how the ridiculous "digi-grain conspiracy theory" started. That theory is of course bullshit, not the least because it makes absolutely no sense. But I'll tell you what I think is going on here.

So, Star Wars, in its O-neg form, has visible grain, but not as much as on the GOUT. Here is what people have overlooked---the GOUT is not the O-neg. It is a duplicate. It is either an interpositive, or maybe even an interpositive based off an earlier interpositive (ie a new print struck from the 1985 IP); I'm not sure exactly what its source is--maybe someone here can clue me in--but its, at best, second or third generation. Thats why it looks so grainy--it looks more like what one might have seen in a theater screen. Why didn't we see the grain before? One, DVD has given us a bit more detail, but I think mainly two, in an effort to make the GOUT look better they sharpened the image (especially because it already had DVNR), thus highlighting the grain. Its the texture of the film emulsion being artificially enhanced, thus you are seeing grain that the actual image is composed of that you would never normally see were the image being treated normally. Especially because the GOUT is based on an nth-generation copy, you have the grain of that physical print itself plus the grain from the O-neg, plus whatever other intermediate stages. I think its just a matter of the 1993 Laserdisk print was never as great as we thought, and when artificially sharpened in the manner that it was all of the print grain that would normally be subdued suddenly was given edges and thus made visible.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
You can see this in the composite shots--as soon as Luke turns on his lightsaber in Ben's hut the grain level doubles. Thats because there is an optical composite for the saber glow, so the film was exposed twice, once on set and then once in the optical printer. It's worth noting that this multiplication of grain is why ILM developed special effects and optical printers based on VistaVision - the 35mm format "on its side", which gave a larger exposure area. Standard 35mm would have ended up just too grainy with the multitude of elements required for some of the shots.

Still, even using this process, if you have 10 or more separate optical elements you're going to get significant grain. Perhaps the standard 35mm shots were "pushed" to enhance the grain and make them match the optical effects shots?
The GOUT looks like it has an extra layer of grain on top of the actual image--this is how the ridiculous "digi-grain conspiracy theory" started. That theory is of course bullshit, not the least because it makes absolutely no sense. I was unfair to mverta to refer to his comment as a conspiracy theory, and it shouldn't be dismissed as bullshit. What he actually said was:
"I'm willing to put some serious money on the fact that grain has been added to ANH, at least."
This is from someone with industry credentials and years of experience in visual effects. I'm not saying I think he's right, I'm more inclined to believe the excessive sharpening theory...Thats why it looks so grainy--it looks more like what one might have seen in a theater screen.
Are you saying therefore that the GOUT video is representative of a theatrical presentation? And if so, are you happy watching the GOUT without any grain filtering? ... in an effort to make the GOUT look better they sharpened the image
Or, as Laserman suggested, the LD pressing master was sharpened because LD video is notoriously soft, and it was this pressing master that was used as the source for the GOUT.

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Originally posted by: Moth3r
Originally posted by: zombie84
You can see this in the composite shots--as soon as Luke turns on his lightsaber in Ben's hut the grain level doubles. Thats because there is an optical composite for the saber glow, so the film was exposed twice, once on set and then once in the optical printer. It's worth noting that this multiplication of grain is why ILM developed special effects and optical printers based on VistaVision - the 35mm format "on its side", which gave a larger exposure area. Standard 35mm would have ended up just too grainy with the multitude of elements required for some of the shots.

Still, even using this process, if you have 10 or more separate optical elements you're going to get significant grain. Perhaps the standard 35mm shots were "pushed" to enhance the grain and make them match the optical effects shots?

Well, push-processing would give you more grain but the reasoning you described makes no sense. There would be no need to push process the neg because the opticals themselves are as clean as the original photography, its only when they are combined in the final composite that you get that extra overlay of grain because its now a photograph of a photograph.
The image is of course very grainy, much more than one would expect, and this is what I am talking about--theres an extra layer of grain on top of the grain already inherant from the multiple-exposure composites.

The GOUT looks like it has an extra layer of grain on top of the actual image--this is how the ridiculous "digi-grain conspiracy theory" started. That theory is of course bullshit, not the least because it makes absolutely no sense. I was unfair to mverta to refer to his comment as a conspiracy theory, and it shouldn't be dismissed as bullshit. What he actually said was:
"I'm willing to put some serious money on the fact that grain has been added to ANH, at least."
This is from someone with industry credentials and years of experience in visual effects. I'm not saying I think he's right, I'm more inclined to believe the excessive sharpening theory...

Sorry, I don't believe there is any basis for that theory. Yes, there's more grain than is native to the negative--but digitally added grain?? Come on. First, I have to ask: what would be the point of this? If the image is soft, making it grainey and soft is of no benefit. Digital grain is only added to CGI shots so that it matches the grain already present in the rest of the image, so that it appears as part of the original photography and not as an extra composite on top of that image. The whole digi-grain thing is totally irrational. Additionally, I don't believe that the human eye can distinguish between real grain and digital grain since visually they look identical. What mverta is responding to is the more illusive visual imbalance of an extra layer of grain over the original image--but this does not mean digitally added grain. That, I have to say, is ridiculous to propose if this is all we have to go on. Have you ever watched a bad 35mm print, maybe at a second-run house? How about all those early DVD's from 1998? They are taken not from the O-neg or from IP's but from a normal 35mm print, and you can see theres a subtle layer of grain overlayed on top of the original image--this comes from the duplication stage. Its the actual grain of the emulsion you are watching, which contains an image with grain already photographed in it, so you have 2 layers of noticeable grain. And sometimes, yes--it can look as bad as the GOUT, and when you have sharpening enhancement done as the GOUT seems to then that grain looks even more prominent because it now has artificially enhanced edges.

Thats why it looks so grainy--it looks more like what one might have seen in a theater screen.
Are you saying therefore that the GOUT video is representative of a theatrical presentation? And if so, are you happy watching the GOUT without any grain filtering?


Yes, in some ways the GOUT is representative of what a person would have seen on the screen in 1977, in that it has a lot of grain and has lost some detail. This is not an endorsement of this kind of quality--I would not enjoy it more with sticky floors, chattering audience members and a crying baby as well, as this is closer to the theatrical experience as well.
But at the end of the day, yes, I can live with the grain, maybe its because I like grain myself, maybe because I'm used to watching the film look rough and maybe its because theres a certain charm to watching an old, grainy 1970's print.

... in an effort to make the GOUT look better they sharpened the image
Or, as Laserman suggested, the LD pressing master was sharpened because LD video is notoriously soft, and it was this pressing master that was used as the source for the GOUT.


Well, either way theres been some enhancement on the original image. My money is on being done for this release--it looks like they bumped the contrast up as well and the saturation too, as most telecines now do to make it "pop" more, so to me it follows that they would run a sharpening filter on it too.

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I also do not believe that there was grain added, nor do I believe that there was intentional blurring. The grain is indeed more obvious in the heavy-fx scenes (as expected - can you imagine the grain level if they hadn't used those VistaVision cameras?!). In the rest of the scenes, the grain is at an acceptable level (to me, at least). I don't hate film grain. At least film grain isn't static, like some digitally-induced artifacts.

The prints that they used weren't theatrical prints obviously as they had no burnt-in subtitles. So, would I be wrong in thinking that they were of slightly higher quality (less generations) than a typical theatrical print?

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Wasn't it mentioned here earlier that for one of the widescreen releases, they had to search for a print before subtitles were burned in? And I'm sure the X0 team would be able to tell if any grain was added for the dvd release. I think it was just on the master tape that was used for the laserdiscs. I'm sure someone would have noticed if the X0 screens looked drastically cleaner.

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
Wasn't it mentioned here earlier that for one of the widescreen releases, they had to search for a print before subtitles were burned in? And I'm sure the X0 team would be able to tell if any grain was added for the dvd release. I think it was just on the master tape that was used for the laserdiscs. I'm sure someone would have noticed if the X0 screens looked drastically cleaner.


The X0 doesn't neccessarily have to look the same. Different format and different physical copies--ie sharpness enhancement could have been added just for the DVD, especially since it looks like the image has been visually tweaked.

I had forgotten that its sans-subtitles. Were the previous releases burnt-in? Was the 1995 LD burnt-in? I ask because the VHS of the THX release has burnt-in subs that I always assumed were from the print itself and not overlayed by video. The subtitle issue raises a number of questions, firstly where the hell would you get a print. One possibility is that there was a "blank" IP made with foreign distribution in mind, as foreign versions have their own subtitles and thus would need one without the english--so you would create this master blank IP and then from that each country would generate its own IP for its respective version.

In any case though one need only look at that great film scan that Arnie provided--and see how grainy it is. Now the image is faded and scratched and all the color layers have eroded but you can clearly see that there is substantial grain throughout. Now you will also notice that the grain is different from the GOUT. That is because it is 70mm--the chemical structure of 70mm release prints are different from 35mm, the grain structure is different. 70mm has a very fine grain structure, which is why 70mm looks so crisp and clean and why Bryan Singer originally wanted to shoot Superman Returns in this format before opting for HD. Thats why the 70mm frame has more or less the same amount of grain as the GOUT, but why the 70mm frame has very fine grain (smaller, less intrusive in other words) while the 35mm GOUT has very coarse grain (bigger, more noticeable in other words).
They both have an extra mask of grain on top of the native image, but the GOUT is sourced from a 35mm stock which gives us the coarser grain seen in the GOUT. I don't think there ever was any doubt that the GOUT had more grain than was inherant in the O-neg, but to say "grain is added" is about as correct as it would be to say that Arnie's 70mm scan has grain added--the grain is "added" because its from a nth-generation duplicate stock, its a photograph of a photograph, so you have the grain from the actual photograph and then the grain from the photograph of the photograph overtop of that (and in the case of optical composite shots this process is doubled).

So yeah, the GOUT looks rough--but you guys ever seen Taxi Driver? It looks like shit. Its made from the same filmstock that Star Wars was shot on. Seen the new Taxi Driver DVD from a month or two ago? They went back to the O-neg for the first time; the movie suddenly looks clean and nice. In fact most people consider this robbing the film of its identity, since the gritty, shitty, grainy look was a part of the texture and style of the film.

I think its purely a matter of the GOUT being from a less-than-perfect source. It just looks like a release print of a film from the 1970's without any modern mastering technology applied to it, and thats exactly what it is.
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Another 2 examples

70mm (top), GOUT (bottom):
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/504/anhc3po02101800sm8.jpg
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2638/0001fj4.jpg

70mm (top), GOUT (bottom):
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/6682/anhcreatures02304800ge6.jpg
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/7392/x0000iq4.jpg
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
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Originally posted by: zombie84


I had forgotten that its sans-subtitles. Were the previous releases burnt-in? Was the 1995 LD burnt-in? I ask because the VHS of the THX release has burnt-in subs that I always assumed were from the print itself and not overlayed by video.

The '95 "faces" LDs have the subtitles in the black-bar area, as do the DC LDs and the "faces" widescreen VHS tapes (as well as the "hologram" widescreen VHS tapes from '92/'93).

Since the GOUT used the same masters as the aforementioned LDs, I was hoping that they would leave the subtitles as-is, since the LD subs were positioned in such a way that they weren't cropped off if the image was zoomed in. However, for whatever reason, they decided to re-do the subs for the GOUT DVDs.

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The imperfections in the 70mm is almost attracting... strange, isn't it? Particularly the detail and color brought out by them.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Yes they are great. These scans are from the "Star Wars 70mm ref cd" I once downloaded from a.b.sw I think. It has scans of the 70mm frames in a resolution of 4180 x 1842.
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Oh, holy crap ! Those 70mm shots would be a perfect color reference ! How can I get it when I don't have newsgroups access ?
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I'm not sure you can use the 70mm scans as color reference (some changed color).
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
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aww, broken links.
but DAMN, those 70mm prints are great. Better than the '04 source. To have one of those...

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Yeah, they are not reference quality--you can see the sandcrawler one is pink, and a lot of the ones on the death star have faded to green. Also, the exposure is different from 35mm>>70mm>>scan, especially with all the fading that has gone on, and theres tons of video noise in there as well that is quite ugly and distracting. But damn they look nice, and because its an actual piece of celluloid being illuminated you get that authentic 3-d glow that gives it that life that video doesn't have, and the detail is great.

That reminds me, outside of usenet has anyone posted this cd? Would make a great torrent.
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The links are broken because I only uploaded the thumbnails. I don't have enough space on my ftp to hold it all. I can upload it to megaupload but I'm not sure I'm allowed to post the links here...

Edit: The cd is about 650mb. I split it into 2 rar files because megaupload has a 500mb file limit. I'm currently uploading file 1. If I'm not allowed to post the links I'll PM the links to whoever wants them (I guess that is allowed?).
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Arnie, "you're a wonderfull human being" I would be for example interested in it
And BTW why do you think it has changed colors ? To be honest the colors look very good, very natural. At least the screenshots you posted
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Originally posted by: pittrek
Arnie, "you're a wonderfull human being" I would be for example interested in it
And BTW why do you think it has changed colors ? To be honest the colors look very good, very natural. At least the screenshots you posted


They change color for the same reason your parent's photographs look faded and old newpaper clippings look yellow. Film is chemical, and when the chemicals age they change composition and hence colours.

The scans of course still look wonderful--one of the reasons is that you are seeing a direct image of a backlit piece of celluloid, the same as it would be when illuminated by a projector in a theater, so it has that great three-dimensional luminance with all the detail and color (faded and changed as it may be).

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Arnie, if you could PM me the link too I would be grateful!

Are they definitely 70mm scans, though? The reason I ask is that they appear to be full 2.35:1 without any cropping, but I though the Star Wars blow ups were 70mm full width – ie. 2.21:1


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I'll send the links to everyone who asked for them.
Pants, can you turn on PMs in your profile?

I didn't scan them myself so I can only give the information that came with the files I downloaded. And I don't know much about actual film reels.
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It's turned on now, Arnie. Thanks!
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Just a few words about the 70mm scans--they are taken from a commercially-sold line of 70mm frames that was offered in the mid-90's. For like 20 bucks or something you would get a 70mm frame mounted on a piece of glass. I can't remember the source that these were taken from but there was a special print made in 70mm just for the release. They then made series for ESB and ROTJ if I recall. You could order them from the Jawa Trader catalog in the Star Wars Insider, and they were of course very limited. I'm quite certain thats where these stem from. Someone just collected them all and scanned them. The scans by the way are very bad, you can see there is video noise everywhere and it often makes it difficult to judge the detail and grain level when you blow them up; these have been floating around for a while now so maybe they were made with older, cruder scanning hardware. I think there was a page on the net somewhere that explained where these 70mm frames came from and how the print was made.
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What do you mean by video noise? Is there a difference between video noise and grain? I think they are scanned pretty well. You think the scans don't show the full quality of the original 70mm frames?
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Hi, Arnie.

Hate to be a pain, but if you could PM me the link I'd really appreciate it.

Anyone know if there's scans of the ESB and ROTJ sets floating around anywhere?

Your brain just makes s**t up!

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