Re: The OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Season 1 Discussion Thread
I have to confess: I am a little bit dissappointed. I didnt expect so much strong grain in the image, since it was shot in a well lit studio athmosphere. 1080p resolution seems even be a bit too high for the source material, it would pretty much look the same in 720p. Looking close it even looks more like an to 1080p upscaled 720p picture to me.
But I guess thats due to the old analog source material? New movies have a much sharper image on BluRay for me.
Huh? Most film stock used in TV production in the late 80s is going to have a layer of grain... sorry but grain is not an imperfection it's part of the structure of the image. And what does analog have to do with anything? The images on the disc are struck directly from the camera negative so you are going to get the best image possible. Certainly doesn't look "upscaled" at all.
You need to watch some older movies. I would dare say "Casablanca" and "Sound of Music" on blu-ray are two of the best representations of film on disc and demonstrates just how much detail a properly restored and scanned film shot on celluloid has.
Well said! As you touched upon, grain on the original camera negative isn't simply something in the way of the image... it
is the image. Each individual silver-halide crystal grain in the blue, green and red sensitive layers of the film emulsion are exposed to light in their respective wavelengths. The silver grains are then bleached away during processing, leaving behind a color dye "cloud" -- like a tiny drop of water on a paper towel.
If you're interested Salinga, you can read more about the process
here.
Also, if you pay close attention to the Energized featurette, a gentleman, I believe it was Wade Felker, the film transfer technician on the project, holds up an original film canister from the episode "Justice" (if I remember correctly)... and on the camera report sticker it says the film stock used was
Kodak 5294 (400T). This was a high-speed stock that was a bit contrastier and grainier than the stocks we have today.
Another film that used Kodak 5294 400T was 1986's
The Name of the Rose starring Sean Connery.
You can see some screencaptures here, (NOTE: there is one NSFW cap in the mix!). You'll see that its contrast and "graininess" is quite similar to TNG in its first season. Though, I'll just point out that this blu-ray did not have an original camera negative as its source.
Interesting side note... all films shot before 1981 used 100 ISO* speed film. The first high-speed stock was introduced by Fuji (
Fuji A 250T 8518) which, as you can see by the number, was 250 ISO.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was one of the first motion pictures to use this stock.
*ISO (International Standardization Organization) Yes, they also measure film speed!
