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Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

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Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#402

It would help if TV manufacturers would clearly document what these features do, and use consistent names that reflect that. It seems they want to make these settings usable without specialist knowledge, but the end result of their opaque naming and vague descriptions is that anybody who actually cares about what they see and thinks they might benefit from some of the features has to either systematically try every p…

> It would help if TV manufacturers would clearly document what these features do, and use consistent names that reflect that. It would also help if there was a common, universal, perfect "reference TV" to aim for (or multiple such references for different use cases), with the job of the TV being to approximate this reference as closely as possible. Alas, much like documenting the features, this would turn TVs into c…

"reference TVs" exist, they're what movies/tv shows are mastered on, e.g. https://flandersscientific.com/XMP551/

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know when something doesn't annoy you until someone points it out? It's so obvious in hindsight. Shows like the Big Bang theory, House and Scrubs I very rarely caught two episodes consecutively (and when I did they were on some release schedule so you'd forgotten half of the plot by next week). But they are all practically self contained with only the thread of a longer term narrative being woven between them. It…

I think this is less “Netflix vs old TV” and more episodic vs serialised, and the serialised form definitely isn’t new. Buffy is a great example: plenty of monster of the week episodes, but also season long arcs and character progression that rewarded continuity. The X-Files deliberately ran two tracks in parallel: standalone cases plus the mythology episodes. Lost was essentially built around long arcs and cliffhang…

> When your audience gets one episode a week, with mid-season breaks, schedule slips, and multi-year gaps between seasons

Multi-year gaps between seasons is a modern thing, not from the era you're talking about. Back then there would reliably be a new season every year, often with only a couple of months between the end of one and the beginning of the next.

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that the people mixing the audio already know what is being said: Top-down processing (or more specifically, top-down auditory perception) This refers to perception being driven by prior knowledge, expectations, and context rather than purely by sensory input. When you already know the dialog, your brain projects that knowledge onto the sound and experiences it as “clear.”

Makes sense, but how does this explain the fact that this problem seems recent, or at least to have worsened recently ?

Have you got older recently?

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV shows changed completely in the streaming age it seems. These days they really are just super long movies with glacial pacing to keep users subscribed.

You know when something doesn't annoy you until someone points it out? It's so obvious in hindsight. Shows like the Big Bang theory, House and Scrubs I very rarely caught two episodes consecutively (and when I did they were on some release schedule so you'd forgotten half of the plot by next week). But they are all practically self contained with only the thread of a longer term narrative being woven between them. It…

Arguably there are lots of films which could have done with being 4-5 hours long, and were compressed to match conventions and hardware limits for 'movies'.

Lots of novelizations fall into this category. Most decently dense and serious novels cannot be done justice to in 2 hours. The new TV formats have enabled substantial stories to be told well.

The Godfather parts I and II is just one story cut in half in a convenient place. Why not cut it into 4 50 minute eps and an 80 minute finale? (Edit: this substantially underestimates the running time of the first two Godfather movies!)

People are going to pause your thing to go to the toilet anyway. You might as well indicate to them when's a good time to do so.

Obviously there are also quite a few movies where 90 minutes is plenty. Both formats seem needed.

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know when something doesn't annoy you until someone points it out? It's so obvious in hindsight. Shows like the Big Bang theory, House and Scrubs I very rarely caught two episodes consecutively (and when I did they were on some release schedule so you'd forgotten half of the plot by next week). But they are all practically self contained with only the thread of a longer term narrative being woven between them. It…

I think this is less “Netflix vs old TV” and more episodic vs serialised, and the serialised form definitely isn’t new. Buffy is a great example: plenty of monster of the week episodes, but also season long arcs and character progression that rewarded continuity. The X-Files deliberately ran two tracks in parallel: standalone cases plus the mythology episodes. Lost was essentially built around long arcs and cliffhang…

Yes. Arguably the new Netflix mini series and extended episode formats are better for decent shows. To be fair, they are much worse for garbage shows. But 20x25 minute episodes is still an option, so what's the problem.

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#407

It would help if TV manufacturers would clearly document what these features do, and use consistent names that reflect that. It seems they want to make these settings usable without specialist knowledge, but the end result of their opaque naming and vague descriptions is that anybody who actually cares about what they see and thinks they might benefit from some of the features has to either systematically try every p…

They will setup their TVs with whatever setting makes them sell better than the other TVs in the shop.

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#408

He is absolutely right. The soap opera effect totally ruins the look of most movies. I still use a good old 1080p plasma on default. It always looks good

Drives me insane when people say they can't tell the difference while watching with motion smoothing on. I feel for the filmmakers.

Re: Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Various sections of my screen (LG C series) are significantly thicker than 30mm. Also - this isn’t a speaker problem this is a content problem. I watched the princess bride last week on the TV, and didn’t require captions, but I’m watching Pluribus on Netflix and I’m finding it borderline impossible to keep up without them.

The content is mixed with decent audio systems in mind. When you listen to that content on a good system you don't have these issues. Nolan films are a perfect example.

Imagine if we said “hey your audio is only usable on iPhone if you use this specific adapter and high end earphones”. Somehow the music industry has managed to figure out a way to get stuff to sound good on high end hardware, and passable on even the shittiest speakers and earbuds imaginable, but asking Hollywood blockbusters to make the dialog literally audible on the most popular device format is too much?
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