Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

haleynahman.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 479 posts

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#151

Post by vanilla_nut »

jblakey wrote: post #78

On a related note, why is Netflix's interface so locked down? Why would it be bad for me to turn off autoplay for trailers? Why can't I say "never show me this show again, I'm never going to watch it"? And why, in this age of AI, and they still putting white text over a white background? That last one, especially, made me say "do people at Netflix eat their own dogfood"?

I can't stand the fact that pausing Netflix to go fix up a plate of dinner inevitably leads to an obnoxious adroll for shows I've already seen or don't want to watch. And when I try to resume my show, I end up out of the video player, have to click the resume button, and I then deal with 20 seconds of garbage quality video as the bitrate settles and buffers.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#152

Post by gs17 »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #120
jblakey wrote: post #78

On a related note, why is Netflix's interface so locked down? Why would it be bad for me to turn off autoplay for trailers? Why can't I say "never show me this show again, I'm never going to watch it"? And why, in this age of AI, and they still putting white text over a white background? That last one, especially, made me say "do people at Netflix eat their own dogfood"?

First google result: "How to turn autoplay previews on or off" https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102 On mobile: 1. From the Netflix app home screen, tap the profile icon or More 2. Tap Manage Profiles 3. ...

Most people are in the "On all other devices" category. Having to pull out a computer for what should be an in-app setting is ridiculous when you can sign up on some of those devices directly.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#153

Post by bombela »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #40
gigaparsec wrote: post #11

The number one thing that bothers me the most in the "netflix aesthetic" is the weird looking background bokeh that every scene seems to have. It looks like a cheap gaussian blur filter applied in post production and adds to the fakeness. This is probably due to the optics in some of the latest Red digital cameras, but it's still not convincing. Kinda like 48 vs 24 FPS.

> The number one thing that bothers me the most in the "netflix aesthetic" is the weird looking background bokeh that every scene seems to have. I complained about this with a group of friends the other day and it seemed I was the only one that even noticed it. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Sure, when you focus on something the background is a bit blurry. But on some modern movies, EVERY shot has a bokeh b…

I noticed that too. And I guess this is a way to offset the high resolution that shows every minute details. It must be cheaper and easier this way.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#154

Post by vanilla_nut »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #104
jblakey wrote: post #78

On a related note, why is Netflix's interface so locked down? Why would it be bad for me to turn off autoplay for trailers? Why can't I say "never show me this show again, I'm never going to watch it"? And why, in this age of AI, and they still putting white text over a white background? That last one, especially, made me say "do people at Netflix eat their own dogfood"?

Are there third party frontends? Why can't you just pay them, authenticate, and use whatever frontend or player you want? I suspect that the answer is ads. The Netflix app is an ad billboard on your phone and TV. Also, copyright and DRM. Edit: I wonder if draconian copyright laws are ultimately to blame here. Nobody is allowed to provide such a service. This is getting a bit off topic though since this article is spe…

I feel the same way about Spotify. I'm fine paying an honest price for a useful service, but the upsells and dark patterns have gotten so aggressive I can't stand the client any more. I wish they'd at least allow third party clients to access basic functionality... but decisionmakers don't understand the attraction of a third party client in the first place, let alone feel like unlocking that functionality when it could negatively impact engagement with their dark patterns.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#155

Post by mtsr »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #127
mtsr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d probably call it promoted content, but yes, that seems a likely explanation. And quite possible the ads-driven version, but I’ve never looked at that.

It's an ad though. They aren't going to advertise a new dishwasher but they are taking money from somebody to promote something.

But while there’s zero chance I’d willingly watch an ad without good reason, I might actually enjoy that promoted content because it just so happens to be of interest to me. That’s the difference between the two for me.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#156

Post by munificent »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #146

I don't really care about technical specs of cameras or film or whatever, but I think the author is largely just wrong. At least on their comparison between Moonshot and When Harry Met Sally. Those are just different films. The Moonshot still is CLEARLY using color with great intention. It's not a realistic scene. It's a carefully designed shot. The characters, the coffee, and the table are yellow. The background is…

> The Moonshot still is CLEARLY using color with great intention. It's not a realistic scene. It's a carefully designed shot. The characters, the coffee, and the table are yellow. The background is green. That's interesting.

I would be much more inclined to agree with that if every fucking movie in the past twenty years wasn't also using the exact same gold-cyan two-color palette: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeBlueContra...

It's just lazy. There's nothing interesting about it. Because every movie has a digital color pass applied now, they feel obligated to do something with the color, but they have no idea what, so they just do the same thing over and over.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#157

Post by nuancebydefault »

mort96 wrote: post #20
gigaparsec wrote: post #11

The number one thing that bothers me the most in the "netflix aesthetic" is the weird looking background bokeh that every scene seems to have. It looks like a cheap gaussian blur filter applied in post production and adds to the fakeness. This is probably due to the optics in some of the latest Red digital cameras, but it's still not convincing. Kinda like 48 vs 24 FPS.

I will never accept the hate for 48 FPS. 24 FPS looks like garbage. Panning shots are a stuttery mess. 24 FPS looks somewhat okay when the camera is still and only the people in it are moving, but the ridiculous choppiness ruins any moment with camera movement. A higher refresh rate is simply an objective improvement. I don't care that you associate it with bad soap operas.

In the old PAL/NTSC days we already had 48/50 FPS in terms of refresh rate. In fact those were only half frames, toggling between displaying only even and only odd line numbers. In fact this was very clever. Horizontal movement looked fluent but had a lower resolution but the latter disadvantage was not very noticeable because of fast movement, where fps matters. Still pics or slow movement provided more detail (24/25 full res pics per second). There was a rather long time of analog/digital transition era where I liked analog better.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#158

Post by CyberDildonics »

ulizzle wrote: post #64
miohtama wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing film can do that digital photography cannot do today. Any claims of film superiority must be based on subjective interpretation and existing familiarity with film like look. Digital cinema can 100% emulate film like look if they wish to add rendering artifacts.

Why is digital trying to look more like film instead of the other way around?

It's rare that people try to do that now, the person you were replying to said that's it's possible, not that it's common.

Re: The contagious visual blandness of Netflix

#159

Post by baryphonic »

Nursie wrote: post #90
matt-attack wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is equivalent to: "Impressionism is objectively worse than realism. Look at a Van Gogh painting, there's hardly any detail. It looks coarse, and grainy and the brush strokes are so wide I can hard tell what's what. Starry Starry Night would be objectively such a better painting if he had just reach for a finer brush and included more detail. Adding more detail would have made it far more realistic,…

Cool, so people that want that effect on their movies can use it, it hardly sounds like something everyone would want every time though. Or is impressionism the only valid art form? Also - > happens to be at that perfect balance between ... Yeah na, it's just what you're used to.

> Cool, so people that want that effect on their movies can use it, it hardly sounds like something everyone would want every time though.

That's not what GP said. GP was arguing that 24fps is a genuine artistic choice, and that an argument that 48fps is intrinsically superior is absurd. GP was arguing that frame rate is a choice artists can use to tell their stories, that 24fps is Impressionism and 48fps is realism.

Also, cross examining (e.g. "so, you're saying...") is against HN policies. Misrepresenting what someone said is also not great.

Post reply on HN