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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

#501

Post by Joiblumen »

gwbas1c wrote: post #475
pezezin wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is my second language and I always though my lack of understanding was a skill issue. Then I noticed that native speakers also complain. Then I started to watch YouTube channels, live TV and old movies, and I found out I could understand almost everything! (depending on the dialect) When even native speakers can't properly enjoy modern movies and TV shows, you know that something is very wrong...

The problem is that a lot of content today is mixed so that effects like explosions and gunshots are LOUD, whispers are quiet, and dialog is normal. It only works if you're watching in a room that's acoustically quiet, like a professional recording studio. Once your heater / air conditioner or other appliance turns on, it drowns out everything but the loudest parts of the mix. Otherwise, the problem is that you proba…

Yes, seems like both audio and video are following a High Dynamic Range trend.

As much as I enjoy deafeningly bright explosions in the movie theater, it's almost never appropriate in the casual living room.

I recently bought a new TV, Bravia 8ii, which was supposedly not bright enough according to reviewers. In it's professional setting, it's way to bright at night, and being an OLED watching HDR content the difference between the brightest and darkest is simply too much, and there seems to be no way to turn it down without compromising the whole brightness curve.

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

#502

Post by redox99 »

archi42 wrote: post #323
School-Cotton wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who cares about audio will have dedicated speakers, so it barely even makes sense to make TV speakers good.

Nope. That's a misconception. Due to space constraints I don't have dedicated speakers for our living room TV. And I don't think I'm the only one. And I do own two proper dedicated speakers + amps setups. I also know how to use REW and Sigma Studio. So I guess I qualify regarding "cares". Sadly I lack time to build a third set of cabinets to the constraints of our living room.

A sound bar, even though fairly bad, is still a million times better than internal speakers, and you'd need a very exotic setup to be unable to fit one.

I'm surprised given you care about audio that you can even tolerate internal speakers. I'd just not use that TV and watch wherever you have better audio.

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

#503

Post by Scoundreller »

randerson wrote: post #497

I'd pay good money for a dumb 4K OLED TV that does nothing but show whatever is coming in through the HDMI port. I use a Playstation 5 for everything including Netflix, Apple TV and so on. But every time I turn on the PS5, my TV detects the Playstation and automatically changes the TV's Sound and Video modes to "Gaming", which makes dialog difficult to hear on TV. So I change the setting manually using its horrible r…

You just gave me an idea. I have a “modern” Samsung Tv with the 8 button or whatever remote. Always a pain to change source.

I think I could get a proper aftermarket Samsung remote for their older models with 100 buttons and not have to use the menus as much.

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

#504

Post by Yizahi »

mrob wrote: post #452
Yizahi wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that phones, tablets, laptops, most PCs don't have an option of "just add speakers"? You are technically correct, yes full Dolby Duper Atmo 9.2.4.8.100500 system is better. But people without them are not using their setups incorrectly, they have valid setups they have valid use case and they don't get basic level of quality which IS possible and WAS possible just a few years ago with proper channel mi…

>Do you realize that phones, tablets, laptops, most PCs don't have an option of "just add speakers"? You can buy Bluetooth receivers that plug into the line input of your amplifier.

If you are at an arm's length from a proper amplifier/speaker setup, why are you using a tiny screen to watch movies? (that was a rhetorical question)

Phone/tablet/laptop etc. in my top comment was not a technological limitation, like "oh no, we don't have a port or protocol to connect o speakers and so we can't use them". It was a logistical limitation. Like being physically in place without speakers or possibility to even buy them. Traveling, renting, having big family and only one set of speakers, and so on. Situations where you can't just pluck a Dolby setup from a thin air but do still watch movies.

Here is a datapoint - in the whole world around 1-2 *billion* headphones are sold, every single year. I would bet that at least a double digit percentage of those numbers had been used to watch a movie at least once. Proposing that all those people in all those situations bought themselves a surround speaker setup just to understand voice track in the movies is an inane take.

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

#505

Post by thesuitonym »

randerson wrote: post #497

I'd pay good money for a dumb 4K OLED TV that does nothing but show whatever is coming in through the HDMI port. I use a Playstation 5 for everything including Netflix, Apple TV and so on. But every time I turn on the PS5, my TV detects the Playstation and automatically changes the TV's Sound and Video modes to "Gaming", which makes dialog difficult to hear on TV. So I change the setting manually using its horrible r…

Sceptre makes them, and they're not terribly expensive, although in the US the price has gone up significantly for some strange, remote reason.

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

#506

Post by Scoundreller »

SoftTalker wrote: post #466
lotsofpulp wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Often a false economy. My MIL shops at Sam's Club, and ends up throwing half her food away because she cannot eat it all before it expires. I've told her that those dates often don't mean the food is instantly "bad" the next day but she refuses to touch anything that is "expired."

Also: freezer

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

#507

Post by thesuitonym »

pmontra wrote: post #407
omnicognate wrote: post #258

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.

I'm not certain this is true. TVs have become so ludicrously inexpensive that it seems the only criteria consumers shop for is bigger screen and lower price.

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

#508

Post by dylan604 »

jrmg wrote: post #500
dylan604 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There’s something to what you’re saying - but it’s also something of a spectrum. Our need to turn up the volume in dialog scenes and turn it back down again in action scenes (for both new and old content) got a lot less when we added a mid-range soundbar and sub to our mid-range TV (previously was using just the TV speakers). I’m not sure whether it’s sound separation - now we have a ‘more proper’ center channel - or…

Audio has become a WTF situation for me. I grew up with speakers that had a driver for low ends some where in the 8"-12", a driver for the mids typically in the 4"-6", and then a third for the highs in various forms of a tweeter. These were all internally crossed over so that only a single cable was necessary.

Now, we have "satellite" speakers that are smaller than the tweeter and are touted as being all that's necessary. Sound bars are also using speakers the size of an old tweeter just in an array with separation between left/right sides smaller than the width of the TV. Some how, we let the marketing people from places like Bose convince us that you can make the same sound from tiny speakers.

Multichannel mixes used to also include a dedicated stereo mix for those mere mortals without dedicated surround setups. These were created in the same studio with mixing decisions made based on the content. Now, we just get downmixes made by some math equation on a chip that has no concept of what the content is and just applies rules.

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

#509

Post by neom »

I know this sounds extreme but I get actually angry/frustrated and often just can't watch peoples TVs. I don't watch TV myself but if I go to someones house and they have the TV on and it's one of those "enhanced" TVs, it boils my blood. I went to film school, I have emmy's, I've watched hours long conversations about frame rates and dynamic range choices and so many aspects of the creative process that the TV then...removes, heck sometimes I see these smart TVs playing something and I can't even tell what framerate it might even be in, sometimes it looks like in one scene it's 60p and in another is like 300p, then back to 24p? it's so jarring. I'm really surprised people even like these features/manufacturers think they're good defaults. Really grinds my gears!!!

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

#510

Post by jbaiter »

robhlt wrote: post #495
omnicognate wrote: post #258

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…

"Filmmaker mode" is the industry's attempt at this. On supported TVs it's just another picture mode (like vivid or standard), but it disables all the junk the other modes have enabled by default without wading though all the individual settings. I don't know how widely adopted it is though, but my LG OLED from 2020 has it.

Yup, it's great, at least for live action content. I've found that for Anime, a small amount of motion interpolation is absolutely needed on my OLED, otherwise the content has horrible judder.
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