A typical grain-monk sentiment is in this review of Universal Home Video’s Buck Privates Bluray, courtesy of Bluray.com’s Jeffrey Kaufman: “Is there DNR? Yes. Is it horrible? [That] depends on one’s tolerance for a digitally scrubbed image. There’s still grain in this presentation, but it has been diminished. The noise reduction is not as dramatic as in many Universal catalog releases, and the studio seems to be gaining cognizance (albeit too slowly for some) of how their efforts are being greeted by potential consumers.”

I love Universal’s Psycho Bluray, which has certainly been been DNR’d. It’s one of the most soothingly beautiful black-and-white Blurays I’ve ever owned, and it ticks me off knowing that if monks like Kaufman had their way it would be covered in grain. (On the other hand I would like to see a truer Bluray representation of the real Spartacus.) If loving that Psycho Bluray is wrong, I don’t want to be right. The grain-monk community is a very small clique of elite snobs who are so caught up in grain savoring that they can’t see the forest for the trees. “The people” (i.e., peons like myself) like a good sharp image, period. I personally can’t wait to take a bath in the DNRing of Buck Privates.