Afternoon,
All of my UHD movies are really grainy. I’ve looked through the TV settings and all the coreelec settings but nothing I do seems to change it.
I have a H96+ pro and although everything works well enough, HDR pass through, HD audio sou D etc I just can’t get rid of the grain.
I’ve checked several 1080p files and those seem fine.
It’s more noticeable on some films that others.
Some are really bad whereas others it’s almost non exist ant. I’m not sure if it’s just a poor bitrate on some movies but it’s definitely there on all of them.
Anyone got an ideas?
I see this on the original output from UHD disks, as such it seems to be an artifact in the original.
Some producers of consumer content filter and smooth the video to hide film grain.
This works pretty well for 1080p where the pixels tend to be bigger than the film grain. It works less well for 4K where the grain is on the same order as the pixel size.
Many 4K producers use the convenient rationalization that the limitations of the original media represent ‘artistic intent’. I am sure somebody who could afford better quality film made it grainy on purpose, but that is only one. Low light is another complication that contributes to graininess since faster film always produces more grain, all other things being equal.
Though it is technically difficult to do, I would much prefer digital filtering to remove as much grain as possible to the ‘artistic intent’ excuse, but tastes vary.
Your other choice is to buy 4K UHD only for recent titles where digital cameras were used and once again the source material is much better than what you have at home.
Grain can sometimes be more pronounced on UHD content, because the HEVC codec in conjunction with 4K resolution enables much higher picture quality and details than was possible with regular bluray. Grain is something that is common in movies that were shot on film. Some newer productions that were shot digitally add grain artificially to make the end result appear more “film” like, sometimes it doesn’t look that good. An extreme example of artificial grain, in my opinion, is the first season of Iron Fist (haven’t checked out 2nd season so don’t know about that)
In other words - this is completely normal.
The Walking Dead series is extremely grainy too.
You think it’s as it’s meant to be? Maybe.
I hadn’t noticed it before but I changed my TV, and my device to get HDR and in some scenes it stands out like a sore thumb…
It’s almost like noise on the film. Its very distracting but you could be right.
I’m just watching Mortal Engines. I’m not very far in but it seems like an extremely clear imagine and not signs on noise/grain there so yeah, maybe your right.
Thanks for the feed back thou. Appreciate it.