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I think this sort of thing is great, but then the final, meticulously adjusted product gets compressed down to 7-8 megabit streams that annihilate all grain, an

I think this sort of thing is great, but then the final, meticulously adjusted product gets compressed down to 7-8 megabit streams that annihilate all grain, and then shown on poorly configured TVs at 120Hz in bright rooms. It's hard being a detail-oriented colorist, DP, or producer right now! There's so much you can't control.

mrandish 6y ago
Yep, spot on. As a technologist (and person with eyes) it's frustrating when I visit family and friends and see just how much great technology, production craft and standards-setting effort ends up not making it to the average viewer's eyes for mundane reasons that mostly happen between compression artifacts in distribution, misleading marketing, misguided "sounds-good" featuritis, consumer device UX design fails and a typical haphazard living room install.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  Also, average viewers like us just don't care about visual and auditory nuance. My living room is a comfortable place optimized for living and conversation, and every now and then the TV gets rolled into the middle of the room at a comfortable distance from the couch and chairs. My speakers are $50 analog Logitechs under the TV (and most people don't even have that). If you're not targeting this kind of scenario, your great works won't be noticed except by awards committees and aficionados who are willing to spend the cash and time to set everything up "just right".
  - mrandish 6y ago
    Yes, people should right-size their spend and effort to their goals. I'm thinking of the scenario where the person actually had an intent to have "good" quality and spent more money for what they were told would "look better", but due to inaccurate information sources (eg salespeople, buzzwordy feature bullet points on signage, friend, etc) they don't end up with what they thought they would get (and paid upward for). The frustrating part is there's no fundamental reason they couldn't have actually got what they wanted instead of being mildly disappointed that their extra $500 spent "isn't really as different as they'd hoped". Yes, there's a point of diminishing returns beyond which more money buys things that don't matter (like 4k resolution vs good 1080 when the viewing distance-to-screen size makes the difference optically negligible to human eyes). However, under that point of contextual diminishing returns, a little bit of on-point knowledge or information can really maximize the return on incremental spend and effort.

mrandish 6y ago

Yep, spot on. As a technologist (and person with eyes) it's frustrating when I visit family and friends and see just how much great technology, production craft and standards-setting effort ends up not making it to the average viewer's eyes for mundane reasons that mostly happen between compression artifacts in distribution, misleading marketing, misguided "sounds-good" featuritis, consumer device UX design fails and a typical haphazard living room install.

kstenerud 6y ago
Also, average viewers like us just don't care about visual and auditory nuance. My living room is a comfortable place optimized for living and conversation, and every now and then the TV gets rolled into the middle of the room at a comfortable distance from the couch and chairs. My speakers are $50 analog Logitechs under the TV (and most people don't even have that). If you're not targeting this kind of scenario, your great works won't be noticed except by awards committees and aficionados who are willing to spend the cash and time to set everything up "just right".
- mrandish 6y ago
  Yes, people should right-size their spend and effort to their goals. I'm thinking of the scenario where the person actually had an intent to have "good" quality and spent more money for what they were told would "look better", but due to inaccurate information sources (eg salespeople, buzzwordy feature bullet points on signage, friend, etc) they don't end up with what they thought they would get (and paid upward for). The frustrating part is there's no fundamental reason they couldn't have actually got what they wanted instead of being mildly disappointed that their extra $500 spent "isn't really as different as they'd hoped". Yes, there's a point of diminishing returns beyond which more money buys things that don't matter (like 4k resolution vs good 1080 when the viewing distance-to-screen size makes the difference optically negligible to human eyes). However, under that point of contextual diminishing returns, a little bit of on-point knowledge or information can really maximize the return on incremental spend and effort.