I genuinely believe that not everything needs to be shot in ultra-HD, hyper-sharp, 4K, 120 fps, bla bla bla. There was something magical about older TV shows (fuzz, the warm lighting, the film grain).
You knew you were watching TV, and that was the point. It was a break from real life, not a simulation of it.
Now? Everything looks so real it’s uncomfortable. I don’t want to feel like I’m in the room with the actors while they’re having a meltdown or pretending to fall in love.
I want a layer of separation to remind me this is fiction, not a Black Mirror episode accidentally bleeding into my living room. let be honest, most of us are watching these shows on compressed streams, mid-tier TVs, or our phones.
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So buy a shit tv. Problem solved.
You know you can just… Not use a 4K TV, right? Buy a cheap 32 inch 1080p for like $150-200 and chill out.
I don’t understand what makes people think that just because they don’t like or agree with something, then no one else gets to enjoy that thing either.
If I think 4K HDR TVs are stupid and excessive, I’m not going to impose that on other people. I’m just going to ignore the TV I don’t want and only care about the one I already have/want.
I turned off the setting that makes shows and films look like that the moment I set up our new TV. I don’t like it at all.
All movies and tv shows are still shot at 24fps.
Turn off motion smoothing in your TV’s settings.
100% agreed. Many years ago I got a CRT to play all my old video games on, but then I came across a bunch of my old VHS tapes and decided to watch some for shits. My mind was kind of blown when I realized how much HD doesn’t matter. using a VCR created this analog fuzz-barrier that was perfectly enjoyable. You couldn’t see individual fibers on clothes, or strands of hair, and it was great because you never need to see those things, and in fact you don’t often realize how they can get in the way of immersion.
What DOES matter, though? A good sound system. I have a real nice amp and some heavy duty speakers and a subwoofer, and let me tell you, watching Indiana Jones on a 20 inch CRT, but with audio that shakes the room is exactly the way to do it. Modern entertainment has it all backwards—everyone is obsessing over 4k ultra HD and completely neglecting the sound, when sound is so much more important to the kind of immersion you want while watching a show or movie.
I think it’s the memories of how the shows and life at the time made you feel rather than a blurry picture.
not a big fan of the “worse is better” take
Maybe not an unpopular opinion, but one that’s more nuanced than “new 4K vs. old analog.”
Movies and TV are still shot in 24 fps
and 30 fps, respectively. If stuff looks ultra smooth and unnatural, it’s probably because of the stupid motion interpolation settings your TV set as default, which you can easily fix with a click. Otherwise, that hasn’t changed.Film grain is definitely still a thing, and some directors even add fake film grain on top of their footage to give it that look. A stylistic choice at the end of the day, and I personally don’t feel like it helps in certain genres like action. This is another thing TV settings can ruin with their “noise reduction” or “grain reduction” filters, but one you can fix with another click.
Lighting is a fair critique. Lots of movies nowadays are prioritizing accurate colors and brightness, which can make things feel overly dark and muted. Digital cameras are also better at capturing stuff in low-light, and we can see more luminance levels with HDR too, whereas in the past you had to pump more light into a scene to see details. But again, part of the blame is TV manufacturers and the settings they push. You’ll get TVs out of the box with weird, cooler tints and boosted colors that make things seem less natural.
Higher resolution (or better, higher bitrate) is always a good thing in my eyes, hard disagree there.
But as a start, try changing your TV settings to what rtings.com recommends for your model and see if that improves things. I’ve got a new OLED that I dialed in the settings on, and it’s an absolutely incredible. In no universe would I prefer a DVD copy of a movie on an old CRT.
Really not sure I’ve had the problem you’re talking about. I’ve never felt like I wasn’t “watching TV” because of how real it looks. It’s never felt uncomfortable to me.
Also this love for film grain and fuzz seems like nostalgia. Seems like just reminiscing on the old days of your favorite films. As there’s also something magical of watching a super vibrant scene on a large 4K OLED. There’s some jaw dropping scenes that just wouldn’t look great on older TVs
I agree for things like sitcoms. Nostalgia, really…Cheers and Seinfeld should be a little grainy.
For movies and sports, I love the advances in video quality. Watching old sports highlights shot in SD is jarring.
just buy an older TV and throw your new TV in the bin, problem solved. No one’s forcing you to watch a 4k TV
Couldn’t agree more. I hate it as much as you do however I find the majority of people I speak to about this dismiss my reaction as strange. Is this also your experience?
That sounds like a YOU problem, OP.
On my TV, I shut off anything called Smoothing and make a few other adjustments. Some shows and movies did look like I was watching a dress rehearsal, and any computer special effects looked less realistic because they were so sharp.
So you can make adjustments to make it look better.
It sounds like you are suffering from the ‘Soap opera’ affect.
Look up your TV model for proper calibration.
It’s creative direction though, since many do add film grain or remove it in 4K re-releases.
Dude, I almost wish I agreed with you. It would save me a lot of money lol.
I can’t say I’ve ever felt the need to have a layer of separation (like static or blurriness) to remind me that TV isn’t real.. the fact that it’s on TV is usually enough for that.
Bro is not a gamer?
Wait until you play a Xbox 360 game on a 720p TV and then switch to 4k
No thanks, ew
the way youre describing this is like your TV is a set of VR goggles from ready player one
I think I know what you mean, I have this a bit with comedic shows:
If it looks to real, I struggle with suspension of disbelief and I can’t stop thinking about how terrible that situation would be in real life.
For example slap stick humor with a dumb goofy characters, can feel like a mentally handicapped person experiencing serious violence (exaggeration to make my point clear).
I agree. I hated when it’s always sunny in Philadelphia went from 4:3 to 16:9 then to the really polished HD look.
I love CRTs. If I was rich I’d have dedicated 90’s room in my house. My favorite era lmao.
No matter what TV I buy, I can’t get it to look like what you described.
Maybe you’ll just need to fiddle with each other’s TV settings 😂
I don’t think we should have to continually dumb things down to the lowest common denomination.
I want 120″ 8K super-duper HDR perfection. Just turn off auto dimming, auto contract, auto smoothing, smoothing, fast motion, image enhancement, and any other nonsense post process ‘enhancement’ on the TVs.
I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they call Shelbyville in those days, so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. So, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. Give me five bees for a quarter you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah! The important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could was those big yellow ones.
A lot of film makers, directors etc have changed the way they film things. If you notice, a lot of times in older films specifically in night scenes, certain points of artificial light would have to be added in to highlight certain characters or areas. These days, cameras have gotten much better at capturing film in low light settings it no longer needs to be done as much. I would attest the “old film” way of shooting things is due to this, and more set camera angles. The first video camera with image stabilization came out in 1988 with the technology being invented in 83. Most people don’t realize this makes a big difference in how things are shot; look at the motion, angles, etc in older videos vs. what is shot today.
I guess it really depends on what you want to watch… have you ever tried to watch a hockey game on an old school tube television?
this is written by chatgpt. the “Now?” is a dead giveaway.
I actually think that the switch from film to digital has hurt TV more than movies. Digital can look great too, but there seems to be something about film that seems more forgiving. This is admittedly a personal preference thing, and for reference I’m talking about, like Deadwood and Breaking Bad being the height of TV cinematography.
Also the makers of prestige shows have decided that everything needs to be super dark for reasons I don’t really understand.
I remember going on a vacation, and the tv in the house had some sort of super-hyper-upscale-to-8k nonsense going on. Tried to watch a few favorite movies, and they all looked really weird and took me totally out of it.
I felt like the entire vacation was a fever dream.
(I wouldnt normally watch tv ever on a vacation but this was a weird circumstance.)
>There was something magical about older TV shows
Then watch them. There are countless ones available to you at any time.
So fucking get an older TV? What’s the problem? Everyone else doesn’t have to live in your dystopic future where technology never progresses or improves.
I’m with you. Turn off “Motion Smoothing” or whatever it happens to be called on your make/model of TV (an easy google to find out). Makes it look more grounded.
I don’t agree completely, but I do think the use of digital cameras has made a lot of television look worse. Netflix shows in particular look cheap and shitty. It seems like most people aren’t properly lighting or color correcting in post or maybe they use cameras that aren’t high quality enough.
I’m not against the use of digital cameras, but there has been a reversal in the quality of television visually.
It’s been a minute but I think it comes down to lighting and the camera lenses used. Like the look of mid-day soaps which haven’t changed much have little bokeh effect and at least to my eyes use practical lighting.
>You knew you were watching TV, and that was the point. It was a break from real life, not a simulation of it.
That there is the true unpopular opinion.
I have been watching TV since the late 1960s and at no point from then to now have I ever thought ‘Gee I wish this was a crappier picture so I would remember I am watching TV’
For me the point was getting a better picture so it did look like real life.
What an odd thing to complain about. Just buy a shitty tv
You can dim the tv, change the color textures, change the motion settings, resolution, whatever you want
I remember how jarring the effect was going from an older HD to higher frame rates and resolution. It looked like you were watching the show from a studio audience.
Don’t notice it as much now but it was terrible back at the start
My only issue is I don’t like the weird 120 refresh rate. Everything else I love.
Ok, so what you’re experiencing is called the ‘Soap Opera Effect’. You know how soap operas have this “too smooth” feel to them because they’re shot on relativelly cheap digital equipment? Well new TVs have something called Motion Interlopation, which basically fills in “missing” frames to match the frame rate of whatever you’re watching to the TVs refresh rate. So when a movie was filmed in 24 FPS, and the TV has a 60 Hz refresh rate, the TV will add a bunch of extra frames, and give the movie this effect you’re describing, where everything feels too smooth, too bright, and too real.
You can turn off the Motion Interlopation feature through the settings, and your layer of separation should return, film grain and all.
YESSS PREACH