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

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

#511

Post by jrmg » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:32 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #508

jrmg wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 neces…

Bit of a tangent, but another WTF for me has been the mainstream return of mono audio for music (HomePods, Echos, many Bluetooth speakers etc.), after decades of everything being at least stereo.

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

#512

Post by h2zizzle » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:33 PM UTC

IlikeKitties wrote: post #442

wil421 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was garbage before streaming services took off. Dark Knight Rises is one example. I can remember renting DVDs in the mid to late 2000s from Netflix and they had a similar issues.

[flagged]

That interview is maddening. Of course people flinch more at bad sound versus bad imagery, they're completely different senses. Our hearing is deeper and more archaic, more directly connected to our emotional than language neural centers, and harder to shut off.

Imagine someone being perplexed at people's "conservatism" with regard to smell. Pump an even slightly unpleasant odor into the theater and people walk out in droves. The tolerance for these types of risky moves definitely varies by sense.

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

#513

Post by unethical_ban » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:34 PM UTC

pvdebbe wrote: post #269

drysart wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That choice was made long before Scorsese made The Godfather; and so has virtually every other movie made over the past century. Real artists understand the limits of the medium they're working in and shape their creations to exist within it. So even if there was no artistic or technical merit in the choice to standardize on 24 FPS, the choice to standardize on 24 FPS shaped the media that came after it. Which means…

>just like Scorsese intended. >before Scorsese made The Godfather Can you let me in on the joke?

Whether he invented 24hz or not, the film was shot with that in mind, is the point. Just like the lighting of black and white films was very different because of color limitations, or the mannerisms of silent films were different due to lack of dialogue or sound other than a musical track.

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

#514

Post by tsss » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:35 PM UTC

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.

Yeah, Stranger Things producers of all people should perhaps be cautious calling something "garbage". Rarely has a TV show fallen so far so fast.

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

#515

Post by knorker » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:39 PM UTC

dontlaugh wrote: post #387

knorker wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think this is about snobbery, then I'm afraid you've completely misunderstood the problem. This is more comparable to color being turned off. Sure, if you're completely colorblind, then it's not an issue. But non-colorblind people are not "snobs". Or if dialog is completely unintelligible. That's not a problem for people who don't speak the language anyway, and would need subtitles either way. But people who s…

There is no such thing as the soap opera effect. Good quality sets and makeup and cameras look good at 24 or 48 or 120 fps. People like you insisting on 24 fps causes people like me to unnecessarily have to choose between not seeing films, seeing them with headaches or seeing them with some interpolation. I will generally choose the latter until everything is at a decent frame rate.

> There is no such thing as the soap opera effect.

What has been asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

I'll take the Pepsi challenge on this any day. It looks horrible.

> Good quality sets and makeup and cameras look good at 24 or 48 or 120 fps.

Can you give an example of ANY movie that survives TV motion interpolation settings? Billion dollar movies by this definition don't have good quality sets and makeup.

E.g. MCU movies are unwatchable in this mode.

> People like you insisting on 24 fps

I don't. Maybe it'll look good if filmed at 120fps. But I have seen no TV that does this interpolation where it doesn't look like complete shit. No movie on no TV.

Edit: I feel like you're being dishonest by claiming that I insist on 24 fps. My previous comment said exactly that I don't, already, and yet you misrepresent me in your very reply.

> causes people like me to unnecessarily [… or …] seeing them with some interpolation

So you DO agree that the interpolation looks absolutely awful? Exactly this is the soap opera effect.

I know that some people can't see it. Lucky you. I don't know what's wrong with your perception, but you cannot simply claim that "there's no such thing" when it's a well known phenomenon that is easily reproducible.

I've come to friends houses and as soon as the TV comes on I go "eeew! Why have you not turned off motion interpolation?". I have not once been wrong.

"There's no such thing"… really… who am I going to believe? You, or my own eyes? I feel like a color blind person just told me "there's no such thing as green".

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

#516

Post by coryrc » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

Steuard wrote: post #439

TeMPOraL wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was the principle many years ago, you had to leave the world exactly in the state you found it in. This doesn't make sense; no show I know from that time followed that principle - and for good reason, because they'd get boring the moment the viewer realizes that nothing ever happens on them, because everything gets immediately undone or rendered meaningless. Major structural changes get restored at the end (wi…

How old are you? Because I promise you, that description was pretty much spot-on for most shows through most of the history of TV prior to the late 1990s. My memory is that the main exception was daytime soap operas, which did expect viewers to watch pretty much daily. (I recall a conversation explaining Babylon 5's ongoing plot arc to my parents, and one of them said, "You mean, sort of like a soap opera?") Those "P…

> Again looking back to Babylon 5 which was a pioneer...

Heh I was going to reply "B5 is better than TNG", but thought "better check all the replies first". Wherever there's discussion of extended plots there's one of us nerds. (If anyone hasn't seen it... yes half the first season is rough, but you get a season's worth of "The Inner Light"-quality episodes by the end and for all the major characters; TNG, while lovely, has just a few because there's so little character development besides Picard)

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

#517

Post by estimator7292 » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

snakeboy wrote: post #216

joquarky wrote: post #119

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 ?

It hasn't. We've been having these same problems for decades. There was a while scandal about cable TV channels winding down the volume of shows so ads could play even louder.

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

#518

Post by dontlaugh » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

knorker wrote: post #515

dontlaugh wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as the soap opera effect. Good quality sets and makeup and cameras look good at 24 or 48 or 120 fps. People like you insisting on 24 fps causes people like me to unnecessarily have to choose between not seeing films, seeing them with headaches or seeing them with some interpolation. I will generally choose the latter until everything is at a decent frame rate.

> There is no such thing as the soap opera effect. What has been asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I'll take the Pepsi challenge on this any day. It looks horrible. > Good quality sets and makeup and cameras look good at 24 or 48 or 120 fps. Can you give an example of ANY movie that survives TV motion interpolation settings? Billion dollar movies by this definition don't have good quality s…

I agree with you that the interpolation isn’t ideal, I’m not praising it. It’s merely a necessity for me to not get headaches. It’s also much less noticeable on its lowest settings, which serve just to take the edge off panning shots.

The “soap opera effect” is what people call video at higher than 24 fps in general, it has nothing to do with interpolation. The term has been used for decades before interpolation even existed. You seem to be confused on that point.

Source video at 120 looks no worse than at 24, that’s all I’m saying.

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

#519

Post by nickthegreek » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

andersa wrote: post #378

KingMob wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every PC gamer knows you need high frame rates for camera movement. Obviously not, because generations of people saw "movement" at 24 fps. You're railing against other people's preferences, but presenting your personal preferences as fact. Also, there are technical limitations in cameras that aren't present in video games. The higher the frame rate, the less light that hits it. To compensate, not only do you need b…

> You're railing against other people's preferences, but presenting your personal preferences as fact. It is a fact that motion is smoother at 120 fps than 24, and therefore easier to follow on screen. There are no preferences involved. > Also, there are technical limitations in cameras that aren't present in video games. Cameras capable of recording high quality footage at this refresh rate already exist and their c…

The cost of recording/storing 120fps video, and editing/rendering effects at this fps is costly and incredibly meaningful to take into account when creating movies.

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

#520

Post by _factor » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 3:47 PM UTC

shakna wrote: post #313

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the naming is generally to overwhelm consumers and drive long term repeat buys. You can’t remember if your tv has the fitzbuzz, but you’re damn sure this fancy new tv in the store looks a hell of a lot better than you’re current tv and there really pushing this fitzbuzz thing.

Cynically, I think its a bit, just a little, to do with how we handle manuals, today. It wasn't that long ago, that the manual spelled out everything in detail enough that a kid could understand, absorb, and decide he was going to dive into his own and end up in the industry. I wouldn't have broken or created nearly as much, without it. But, a few things challenged the norm. For many, many reasons, manuals became les…

Going a level deeper, more information can be gleaned for how closely modern technology mimics kids toys that don’t require manuals.

A punch card machine certainly requires specs, and would not be confused with a toy.

A server rack, same, but the manuals are pieced out and specific, with details being lost.

You’ll notice anything with dangerous implications naturally wards off tampering near natively.

Desktop and laptop computers depending on sharp edges and design language, whether they use a touch screen. Almost kids toys, manual now in collective common sense for most.

Tablet, colorful case, basically a toy. Ask how many people using one can write bit transition diagrams for or/and, let alone xor.

We’ve drifted far away from where we started. Part of me feels like the youth are losing their childhoods earlier and earlier as our technology becomes easier to use. Being cynical of course.