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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

new tv's look like s#@T

RANT:
Thank you all for this thread!!! This motionflow stuff is horrible. I hope there is a special place in h*ll for the engineers that came up with this.

I'm at my folks' house- they are smart, worldly people and patrons of the arts. They have a new TV and surround system (the surround speakers right next to the L and R up front, but that's another story). TV has motionflow or equivalent. Nephews are watching Harry Potty. NO ONE but me saw the motionflow, even the kids who have seen the movie a 100 times. WTF??? I'm like "this looks like a Mexican soap opera" and they're like "it's a kids movie" and I'm like "not the movie, the TV, the way it looks" and they're like "well, it's this fancy HD" and I'm like "no, it's that the TV makes this nice movie look like it was shot by the local news (no offense news guys)" and they're like 'well, sorry our TV doesn't meet your professional standards" and I'm like "no, my $400 Audiovox Black Friday from three years ago looks better" and they say "well, fix it then Mr. Film dude" "OK, where's the remote" and they say "oh, the A/V guys who set up the TV have all that stuff, we just have the fancy master controller.."

So not only did the manufacturer make this f*cking feature, but some A/V guys that my folks paid to set their stuff up left this feature ON, with the Mars skin tones and triple halos and everything, and took the remote so my folks would accidentally mess-up the TV!!! WTF!!!

:END RANT
 
Paul Lee said:
RANT:
Thank you all for this thread!!! This motionflow stuff is horrible. I hope there is a special place in h*ll for the engineers that came up with this.

I'm at my folks' house- they are smart, worldly people and patrons of the arts. They have a new TV and surround system (the surround speakers right next to the L and R up front, but that's another story). TV has motionflow or equivalent. Nephews are watching Harry Potty. NO ONE but me saw the motionflow, even the kids who have seen the movie a 100 times. WTF??? I'm like "this looks like a Mexican soap opera" and they're like "it's a kids movie" and I'm like "not the movie, the TV, the way it looks" and they're like "well, it's this fancy HD" and I'm like "no, it's that the TV makes this nice movie look like it was shot by the local news (no offense news guys)" and they're like 'well, sorry our TV doesn't meet your professional standards" and I'm like "no, my $400 Audiovox Black Friday from three years ago looks better" and they say "well, fix it then Mr. Film dude" "OK, where's the remote" and they say "oh, the A/V guys who set up the TV have all that stuff, we just have the fancy master controller.."

So not only did the manufacturer make this f*cking feature, but some A/V guys that my folks paid to set their stuff up left this feature ON, with the Mars skin tones and triple halos and everything, and took the remote so my folks would accidentally mess-up the TV!!! WTF!!!

:END RANT
Click to expand...

That sucks. It's also a cautionary tale on why you should never let the store set up your A/V system. besides, A/V system's aren't even that hard to set up.

My 42" Samsung HDTV doesn't look all that bad. It doesn't ahve the insanely high refresh rate, but it doesn't really have anything to give it that film look.

Still, watching Blu Ray on it looks fairly good and is up to my standards
 
Store display TeeVee's have been typically set up in "Torch Mode"... crank the brightness and contrast up so that it stands out from the the other displays around them... and in the less-than-critical viewing eviroment of a typical store (overhead flourescents, windows, the analog signal sent thru a 25-way distribution amp, etc...) it was often "brightest wins" with the average consumer.

Now that manufactures have provided not only the basic image controls, but all this other "Uber Super Fantastico!" feature crap, it ALL gets turned on... and it looks horrible.

Brining your own disc, and spending some time with the display is highly recommended...

-sc
 
I personally prefer projectors... Every night I go down to my man cave and watch movies on a 12 foot screen in a pitch black room..... It's heaven to me. The look of all the showroom tv's just hurts my eyes. You'all are right though, they could took the time to make them look better.

I feel the same way about guitar shops.... Why do they put crappy cheap strings on guitars? Put some elixirs or Martin strings on and they would sell more!
 
A properly calibrated Panasonic Plasma VT25 will knock your socks off. Given it's playing something nice.

BTW: Never go by what you see in the stores; they're usually all playing highly compressed garbage, and are set to "torch" mode.
 
All these new TV's look great when you TURN OFF the motion "enhancement" technology. OTOH, the motion enhancement for 240Hz sets really works wonders for motion interpolation and blur reduction for sports and live event stuff.

I was in a Best Buy store today and they had Pirates3 running on a 60" or so Sharp LED and it looked like crap. I couldn't take it, fiddled with the settings for a minute and turned off the TruMotion or whatever Sharp calls it and suddenly the set looked amazing.

The VT25 plasma looks amazing too, I'm looking at mine right now! I'm really starting to wish I had bout the 54" instead of the 50" as the slightly larger set will still fit on the same wall. The Samsung LED sets are a mixed bag for 2010. They have better color rendition and motion than the 2009 models, but terrible light leakage, which destroys any potentially better contrast. The Sharp LED sets with the additional yellow layer do seem to add some detail to yellows, oranges and flesh tones. But they seem to be weak in reproducing purples and some blues. Overall, I think the LG and Samsung panels still have a nicer image.
 
I bought my plasma some weeks ago and I can switch off all those annoying interpolated extra frames. The refresh rate is high, but not the frame rate.

I, too, loath that video-ish look! And yes, nobody but me sees the difference! My girlfriend then looks at me like she expects me to smell almonds next!
 
Anyone with a Phantom care to point it at one of these screens to see what the interpolated frames look like? Especially the '600Hz' claims are interesting. That is so far beyond a sane super-sampling rate, it makes me wonder if they're actually moving pixels that often.

At 600 Hz, they'd be calculating 24 inter-frames per real frame. An object moving half the screen between two real frames would move just 20 pixels or about an inch on 50 inch screen. They're probably doing it, which explains why it looks so awful. Just the CPU power needed to do a proper job of it... dedicated GPU's are marvelous, sure, but seriously, the optimizations must be making insane tradeoffs.
 
My Life as a Home Video

My Life as a Home Video

Thanks for this thread--it explains some things:

I was in an appliance store watching a trailer for Lasse Hallstrom's recent film "Dear John" on one of their flat screens recently. I thought he must have shot it on a camcorder. Then I looked it up on IMDB and discovered that it was originated on 35mm!

I'm glad the filmmakers didn't intend the movie to look the way it did, sorry that it's possible for it to look like that, and really glad to hear it can be turned off!
 
I am glad to say i am not the only one who can see this... even my non tech oriented brother in law and my dear old dad can see it. The first time we wandered into a shop and saw one, my brother in law turned to me and said " whats wrong with that TV?" I wasn't sure so i asked the guy in the store what the deal was after all a 120hz tv should be able to reproduce 24P better not worse. his line? " Nothing is wrong with it. Thats the best TV on the market!" my brother in laws response? " well thats too bad because it looks like crap!" Made me so happy.
 
Well I was looking into upgrading my TV as well but as I go through Best Buy, I am really tired of all the blu ray movies looking like sitcoms. I am now looking at a projector since movies still seem to look like movies on them.
 
Like was stated earlier, all the motion flow garbage can be turned off for a great looking show. The higher refresh rates give you nice true 24 motion. just make sure you turn off the crap that they turn on.
 
I really hate how widescreen TVs are set by default to stretch 4:3 instead of letterboxing, and most people never turn it off. It looks so stupid.
 
Sony of the Sonys (and probably other brands) have a side-by-side demo mode where the Left side is "normal" and the right "motionflowed"
In every single case I thought the right side looked completely fuckugly.
I'd love to have been a fly on the wall where they designed these things.

Add to that the (utterly impossible) "3,000,000 to one" contrast ratios
Am I the only one who thinks most of the LCD screens are far too bright?
OK, great if you want to watch TV in daytime, but at night I can't see the damned buttons on the remote!

The only TVs that you can turn the brightness down to a reasonable level on are the ones with LED backlights.

Some of those with proper RGB LEDs produce stunning color.
Others seem to use white LEDs and they're total finger-down-the-throat material:zombie_smiley:
 
Sorry, OT:
Felix K. said:
No, because you sometimes smell almonds right before a stroke... :D
Click to expand...

Interesting notion... I've never heard that one before in all of the years I worked as an EMT or Nurse. I have had a couple recovered stroke patients tell me they sensed a smell like burning hair. I found that interesting because that is what cautery smells like; burning flesh... Kinda nasty, kinda not.

Cyanide often has an almond smell though, as it can be derived from almonds. I've never personally smelled it, that is what I've read.

Anyway, I hope you managed to keep your composure. Maybe you should stay away from the TV isle for the sake of your health. ;-)
 
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As Display technology advances, infomercials decline in quality. I love watching the $500,000 network identity animation dissolve to reveal a $5000 90 second spot for useless gadgetry or elective pharmaceuticals. Since watching television nowadays doesn't leave visible scars, its impossible to prove to a jury that basic cable is actually assaulting me.
 
@David M: those "dynamic contrast" numbers have become meaningless; Just like with P.M.P.O Watt it isn't based on any fact anymore. Last time I checked the static contrast ration of LDCs tops around 2500:1. In a completely black room, that is. Not counting OLEDs and Plasmas, though.
 
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