Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by kankerlijer » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #65

golfer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GoT got so bad that I don't really have any desire to watch any of the seasons ever again. Killed rewatchability.

I rewatched it in recent weeks and enjoyed all the bits that I enjoyed years ago during the first watch. The stories I found a bit tedious first time (High Sparrow plotline, Arya and faceless men) weren't as miserable; I think I was expecting them to drag on even more. My biggest grievance on the rewatch was just how poorly it's all tied up. I again enjoyed The Long Night through the lens of 'spectacle over military…

I don't really view this as the show runners fault. GRRM was unable to complete his own work. The show worked best when it drew from the authors own material (GRRM was a screenwriter himself and knew how to write great dialog/scenes).

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

#422

Post by moduspol » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:25 PM UTC

sirmarksalot wrote: post #393

PunchyHamster wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

author's intentions for how stuff should be watched are overrated ...that being said motion interpolation is abomination

At the end of the day the viewer should get to see what they want to see. But in my case I usually want to see what the author had in mind, and I want my TV to respect that preference.

I agree that the viewer should see what they want to see, but I do think they should be made aware what it is and that they're seeing it.

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

#423

Post by devilbunny » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:25 PM UTC

atq2119 wrote: post #314

sfn42 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to the House model where every episode is exactly the same with some superficial differences? I like the long movie format, lots of good shows to watch. Movies feel too short to properly tell a story. It's just like a few highlights hastily shown and then it's over.

A lot of this is personal preference, but I still feel like the most memorable shows tend to be the ones that have a bit of both. Season-long stories, but also episodes that can stand on their own. In a show like Stranger Things, almost none of the episodes are individually memorable or watchable on their own. They depend too much on the surrounding episodes. Compare to e.g. Strange New Worlds, which tells large stor…

The original Law & Order did a masterful job of this. Each episode (with very few exceptions) is self-contained, but deeper themes and character development run through them in long (often multi-season) arcs to reward the long-term viewer. But there was rarely more than one episode per season that was solely for the long-term viewer.

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

#424

Post by Hamuko » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:26 PM UTC

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I keep my LG C1 on the "natural" motion smoothing setting, since I watch a lot of anime and it really smooths out panning animations without making live action look like soap operas.

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

#425

Post by fireflash38 » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:28 PM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #242

KeplerBoy wrote: post #223

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…

Movies are just as bad with the editing. They're way too fucking long.

Wake up dead man? I feel like 30-45m could be cut and it'd be good. Why is One Battle after another almost 3 hours?

Is there a competition to try to beat the notoriously long Lord of the Rings Extended edition in runtime?

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

#426

Post by Y_Y » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:29 PM UTC

Avery3R wrote: post #402

TeMPOraL wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

$21k for a 55-inch 4K is rough, but this thing must be super delicate because basic US shipping is $500.

(Still cheaper than a Netflix subscription though.)

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

#427

Post by sevensor » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:30 PM UTC

What is the “soap opera effect?” Mentioned in the article, but I haven’t heard of it.

Also, this is probably just because I’m old, but a lot of recent TV seems inadequately lit, where you can just barely see part of one character’s face in some scenes. It’s like they watched Apocalypse Now and decided everything should be the scene with Marlon Brando in the cave.

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

#428

Post by Izkata » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:31 PM UTC

techjamie wrote: post #52

eudamoniac wrote: post #45

The soap opera effect is only a problem because no one is used to it. Higher FPS is objectively better. These motion interpolation settings are now ubiquitous and pretty much nobody cares about said effect anymore, which is great, because maybe now we can start having movies above 24FPS. To preempt replies: ask yourself why 24 frames per second is optimal for cinema instead of just being an ancient spec that everyone…

Personally, I have no issue watching things that are shot at 60fps (like YouTube videos, even live action) but the motion smoothing on TV shows makes it look off to me. I dunno if it's just a me thing, but I wonder if a subconscious part of my brain is pegging the motion smoothed content as unnatural movement and dislikes it as a result.

Personal guess based on the impression I get from my parents' TV: You know how when you pause video while something is moving quickly, that object is blurred in the frame? Motion smoothing has that to work with, and causes the blur to persist longer than it should, which is why it looks bizarre - you're seeing motion blurs for larger movements than what's actually happening. Like the object should have moved twice the distance for the amount of blur, but it didn't. Something recorded and replayed at a high framerate wouldn't have this problem.

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

#429

Post by mancerayder » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:32 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #98

pupppet wrote: post #66

The fact that I have to turn on closed captioning to understand anything tells me these producers have no idea what we want and shouldn’t be telling us what settings to use.

I have the same sound issues with a lot of stuff, my current theory at this point is that TVs have gotten bigger and we're further away from them but speakers have stayed kinda shitty... but things are being mixed by people using headphones or otherwise good sound equipment it's very funny how when watching a movie on my macbook pro it's better for me to just use HDMI for the video to my TV but keep on using my MBP s…

I have a relatively high end speaker setup (Focal Chora bookshelves and a Rotel stereo receiver all connected to the PC and AppleTV via optical cable) and I suffer from the muffled dialogue situation. I end up with subtitles, and I thought I was going deaf.

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

#430

Post by allturtles » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:36 PM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #293

VBprogrammer wrote: post #242

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…

That was the principle many years ago, you had to leave the world exactly in the state you found it in. If John dumped Jane at the beginning of the episode, they had to get back together at the end, otherwise the viewer who had to go to her son's wedding that week wouldn't know what was going on. There was no streaming, recaps were few and far between, and not everybody had access to timeshifting, so you couldn't jus…

> That was the principle many years ago, you had to leave the world exactly in the state you found it in.

This is not true as a generality. e.g. soap operas had long-running stories long before DVRs. Many prime-time dramas and comedies had major event episodes that changed things dramatically (character deaths, weddings, break-ups, etc.), e.g. the whole "Who shot J.R." event on *Dallas*. Almost all shows that I watched as a kid in the 80s had gradual shifts in character relationships over time (e.g. the on-again/off-again relationship between Sam and Diane on Cheers). Child actors on long-running shows would grow up and the situations on the show changed to account for that as they move from grade school, to high school, to college or jobs.