AV1@Scale: Film Grain Synthesis, The Awakening

There are definite philosophical questions over the merits of adding noise, but the problem with their example here is their denoising process appears to excessively blur everything, so both it and the synthesized grain image look noticeably less sharp than the source. The grain itself also looks too much like basic noise, and not really grain like.

These days, when we see noise/grain in an end product it has likely been added in post-production. So, ideally, studios would provide distributors with a noiseless source plus grain synthesis parameters. Bonus: many viewers would welcome an option to turn it off.

> provide distributors with a noiseless source plus grain synthesis parameters.

What parameters would that be? Make it look like Eastman Ektachrome High-Speed Daylight Film 7251 400D? For years, people have taken film negative onto telecines and created content of grain to be used as overlays. For years, colorists have come up with ways of simulating the color of specific film stocks by using reference film with test patterns that's been made available.

If a director/producer wants film grain added to their digital content, that's where it should be done in post. Not by some devs working for a streaming platform. The use of grain or not is a creative decision made by the creators of the work. That's where it should remain

> If a director/producer wants film grain added to their digital content, that's where it should be done in post. Not by some devs working for a streaming platform. The use of grain or not is a creative decision made by the creators of the work. That's where it should remain

Why? If you're spending a significant chunk of your bits just transmitting data that could be effectively recreated on the client for free, isn't that wasteful? Sure, maybe the grains wouldn't be at the exact same coordinates, but it's not like the director purposefully placed each grain in the first place.

I recognize that the locally-produced grain doesn't look quite right at the moment, but travel down the hypothetical with me for a moment. If you could make this work, why wouldn't you?

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...and yes, I acknowledge that once the grain is being added client side, the next logical step would be "well, we might as well let viewers turn it off." But, once we've established that client-side grain makes sense, what are you going to do about people having preferences? Should we outlaw de-noising video filters too?

I agree that the default setting should always match what the film maker intended—let's not end up with a TV motion smoothing situation, please for the love of god—but if someone actively decides "I want to watch this without the grain for my own viewing experience"... okay? You do you.

...and I will further acknowledge that I would in fact be that person! I hate grain. I modded Cuphead to remove the grain and I can't buy the Switch version because I know it will have grain. I respect the artistic decision but I don't like it and I'm not hurting anyone.

> Why? If you're spending a significant chunk of your bits just transmitting data that could be effectively recreated on the client for free, isn't that wasteful? Sure, maybe the grains wouldn't be at the exact same coordinates, but it's not like the director purposefully placed each grain in the first place.

I'm sorry your tech isn't good enough to recreate the original. That does not mean you get to change the original because your tech isn't up to the task. Update your task to better handle the original. That's like saying an image of the Starry Night doesn't retain the details, so we're going to smear the original to fit the tech better. No. Go fix the tech. And no, this is not fixing the tech. It is a band-aid to cover the flaws in the tech.