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Comment by rperez333 | Hacker News Reader

They are starting for a very good source material, but it still grainy - even from highend digital cinema cameras.

High-end digital cinema cameras are not _that_ grainy per se. The sensors are very clean.

The level of grain you get from digital cinema photography is mostly by artistic choice and added through the camera or in post production. Sometimes the movie is shot digitally and transferred to film, then scanned. This was done for Dune (2021), for instance.

Also, ARRI (who make the most renowned cameras for cinematic use) now specifically let you choose a grain texture on the Alexa 35 that is imprinted in the digital material. [1]

[1]: https://www.arri.com/en/learn-help/learn-help-camera-system/...

> Also, ARRI (who make the most renowned cameras for cinematic use) now specifically let you choose a grain texture on the Alexa 35 that is imprinted in the digital material. [1]

That is so sad. Such a waste if it can just be done during decoding.

From a technical perspective that would make sense, but it's unrealistic to achieve this in practice. It would be impossible for the entire market to support that. In order to maintain the artistic intent across different platforms, it's better to imprint it in the source. I guess lots of directors and DPs are frustrated enough with motion smoothing and other "enhancements" on modern TVs.

The same way Dolby Vision has kind-of enforced better color consistency, I imagine grain could be done as well.

One could call it something like Dolby Vision Film Enhancements, that would just mandate decoder support. Those who don't support it get a fallback, like the usual.

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