Nice to see that I am not alone in finding a LOT of modern visual media unintelligible due to how dark it is on the screen (visually, not necessarily emotionally).
This example from The Crown is excellent as it compares the modern re-creation vs the original broadcast.
#Protip: Enabling #DescribedMedia can make stories more intelligble than whatever is going on with modern directors/editors these days.
#film
#TV
#streaming
#vision
#DescribedVideo
#DescribedMedia
#wtaf
#muddyScreens
Also: I have NO idea why this happens, but different #streamingServices can also make a big difference in visual intelligibility.
I've watched The Finest Hours (2016) on multiple services. It takes place mostly in the dark on a stormy ocean. One service shows this as black on black movement. Another shows everything going on in these scenes, albeit in a dark environment.
2/x
#film
#TV
#streaming
#vision
#DescribedVideo
#DescribedMedia
#wtaf
#muddyScreens
If a film isn't intended to be a radio drama, it seems reasonable for viewers to expect on-screen visuals to be … y'know, like … *visible.*
🙄
Probably a combination of issues making things much worse:
- A lot of televisions can't handle dark/black well, often it all comes out as a muddy grey. Physical screens, software and apps vary ad lot.
- Streaming services save bandwidth by compressing all those lovely subtle shades
-The source media may not be optimised for TV or streaming. In some cases, they may be upscaling (badly) from SD, 720, 1080 etc to 4k before it even reaches you.
.
Nods. Agreed. Plus in-cinema there are issues with lens filters making something otherwise good quite terrible.
But this really does need to be thought about and mitigated if productions genuinely want broad audiences.
And if they don't? That's fine, but then add something in the media description so I don't need to waste 15 min or so to figure out the show is unwatchable. 😐
A lot of people don't seem to care, or don't notice. I think the days of studios spending $$$ to regrade colour (and sound) for TV/streaming are long gone. Many streaming services, TVs, smart devices etc can't even sync audio well. Amazon seems particularly poor at this. Some TVs have a setting to adjust the delay but it's 'global' and not per input.
Anyway, back to the Doctor Who marathon in iPlayer!
I seem to have the fewest problems viewing on an iPad, with the exception of darkness: that's on all sorts of stuff no matter the device.
But yeah, older shows are generally excellent and don't end up exhausting me just trying to figure out what is going on!
Likely Jan Lukas
Tony Wells