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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

#481
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local hummus factory puts the product destined for Costco into a different sized tub than the one destined for Walmart. Companies want to make it hard for the consumer to compare.

Costco’s whole thing is selling larger quantities, most times at a lower per unit price than other retailers such as Walmart. Walmart’s wholesale competitor to Costco is Sam’s Club. Also, Costco’s price labels always show the per unit price of the product (as do Walmart’s, in my experience).

Showing a unit price on the label is a requirement of US law.

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

#482
post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watch YouTube with internal TV speakers and I understand everything, even muddled accents. I cannot understand a single TV show or movie with the same speakers. Something tells me it's about the source material, not the device.

A YouTube video is likely a single track of audio or a very minimal amount. A movie mixed for Dolby Atmos is designed for multiple speakers. Now, they will create compromised mixes for something like a stereo setup, and a good set of bookshelf speakers will be able to create a phantom center channel. However, having a dedicated center channel speaker will do a much better job. And using the TV's built in speakers wil…

Yup, I definitely do agree those are wildly different beasts. But the end result is, the professional mixing is less enjoyable than amateur-ish youtube mixing. Which is a shame, really. Mixing is a craft that is getting ruined (imho) by the direction to perform theatrical mixes (where having building-shaking sfx is not an issue) or atmos mixes (leaving no budget/time for plain stereo mixes).

The crux of the issue IMHO is the theatrical mixes. Yes I can tune the TV volume way up and hear the dialogue pretty well. In exchange, any music or sfx is guaranteed to wake the neighbors (I live in a flat, so neighbors are on the other side of the wall/floor/ceiling).

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

#483
Regarding the darkness trend, a great HN comment from a few years ago by @atoav who worked as a director of photography:

Movies have dark scenes nowadays mainly because it is a trend. On top of that dark scenes can have practical advantages (set building, VFX, lighting, etc. can be reduced or become much simpler to do which directly translates into money saved during shooting).

If I had to guess, the trend of dark scenes are a direct result of the fact that in the past two decades we our digital sensors got good enough to actually shoot in such low-light environments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35398576

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

#484
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.

Americans also seem to believe that their accent, which generally sounds awful to other speakers, is somehow natural and easy to understand for everyone.

I turn on closed captions for most American films, but I find that I rarely need them for British ones.

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

#485
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.

Americans also seem to believe that their accent, which generally sounds awful to other speakers, is somehow natural and easy to understand for everyone. I turn on closed captions for most American films, but I find that I rarely need them for British ones.

What a weird comment. I think that probably most Americans, like most people of any nationality, could give two shits if people elsewhere find their accent hard to understand, or “awful”.

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

#486
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you check it will say the resolution is AMAZING. Despite being a subscriber I pirate their shows to get some pixels.

Where do pirates get the shows from? Not from the very platform you're trying to avoid?

I found a pirate copy of Netflix at 1080p looked a lot better than Netflix at 1080p, presumably because the pirate copy was a remix of the 4K copy and Netflix serves a low bitrate 1080p version.

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

#487
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's the job of whoever is mastering the audio to take such constraints into account.

Bass is the only thing that counts. Doesn't matter if it makes vocals part of the backgroud at all times.

True. I can tell when my neighbor is watching an action film, due to the rumbling every few minutes. And silence in between.

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

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans also seem to believe that their accent, which generally sounds awful to other speakers, is somehow natural and easy to understand for everyone. I turn on closed captions for most American films, but I find that I rarely need them for British ones.

What a weird comment. I think that probably most Americans, like most people of any nationality, could give two shits if people elsewhere find their accent hard to understand, or “awful”.

Hollywood movies specifically target a global audience and not just a domestic one.

The US is only at most 30% of Hollywood revenue.

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

#489
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.

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.”

Look at any setup audio is being mixed on and tell me how many sound bars do you see there? How many flat panels with nothing more than the built in speakers being used? None. The speakers being used and the tricks the equipment do to make multichannel audio work with fewer speakers plays havoc on well mixed audio. Down mixing on consumer device is just never going to sound great

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was always just a compromise between film cost and smoothness. I think the criticisms of The Hobbit when it came out in 48fps showed that it's not just that.

That film had many problems, but the acceptable frame rate was not one of them. Most criticism wasn’t about that.

True but there was specific criticism about how the framerate made it far too easy to see the parts of the effects, sets and costumes that made it clear things were props and spoiled the illusion. Maybe we just require a new level of quality in set design to enable higher frame rates but it clearly has some tradeoff.
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