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I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefe

I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films. What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like they were produced with today's audience in mind and doesn't sound like the original recording of the time, which has way more character and inherent texture by the artists without the soulless robo-producer repaint job. That would all be fine, except that they remove the original non-Remastered versions.

pimeys 2y ago
For the second part, 100%. I started years ago already collecting my own flac files, and I'm quite careful on picking the best mastering if possible. In 2024, finally, some of the latest remasters are great (like the new Steely Dans from Bernie Grundman). But between 2000-2015 or something a remaster of an album was usually just compressed to the maximum and made very _loud_. For some of my favorite albums I have multiple masters available, because they can be very different how they sound and sometimes I can't choose the best one. Oh, and for most of the people none of this really matters...
- m348e912 2y ago
  Where do you find masters? I only know of stems ripped from games like Rock Band.
  - bloomingeek 2y ago
    Mp3Caprice
    - m348e912 2y ago
      The site seems to sell high quality 320kpbs mp3s but as far as I can tell none of them are seperate multi-channel recordings (aka masters)
  - pimeys 2y ago
    There is nothing official available. There may or may not be services in the internet that meticulously archive every possible master and of course you can go to discogs to buy a physical copy of a certain version of the album if somebody still has it. This is for me over two decades of hard work and deep interest into music. I highly value my collection.
- mrob 2y ago
  Earache Records released several remasters of classic metal albums with increased dynamic range: https://bandcamp.com/search?q=full+dynamic+range&item_type=a&from=results https://bandcamp.com/search?q=full+dynamic+range&item_type=a... (also finds some other high dynamic range albums)
neuralRiot 2y ago
> I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. A simple description would be: It makes film movies look like direct-to-video productions, so basically everything looks like a soap opera. Horrible indeed.
- karmakaze 2y ago
  Yeah that's what I'd feared--I hate that soap opera effect. It makes fictional escapes into film look like every day life or a TV newscast. I suspect that the mode was originally made for large screen TVs that mostly sold well for watching sports.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I've even commonly heard it referred to as "soap opera mode".
- redwall_hp 2y ago
  It butchers animation, which is carefully drawn at certain intervals. There's a reason you can pause anime at any frame and it will look like a defined, static image without blurring and smearing. Motion smoothing absolutely destroys the look of the motion.
vundercind 2y ago
Real film does have (effectively—the aperture’s closed half the time so you don’t see a smear of moving film) a blacked out every-other-frame which makes the perceived motion smoother (some digital projectors can replicate this, though it halves the effective brightness so you need a really bright one for it to work ok) but yeah, I’d take a little judder over faked digital smoothing. It looks awful. [edit] I just mean that an actual film projector does achieve smoother motion than most TVs displaying 24 fps the best they can “naturally”, but a TV’s natural best is still far better than the alternative of alien-looking digital motion smoothing.
xur17 2y ago
> It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films. I realize that I might just be the exception here, but I honestly really like it.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I'm glad other systems offer it as an option for people who enjoy it. I can't fathom the decision process that permanently enabled it for everyone.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    They made the feature, they’re gonna enable it or nobody would use it and it would have been a waste of time making You’re really gonna hate the fact that 99% of people think this is what stuff on their digital television is supposed to look like. (Which is exactly why Roku did it)
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      That's just not true. My non-Roku TV has this as an option alongside dozens of others I can turn on and off. I'm gonna need to see some data on that. The nearly universally description I hear from regular, non-techie people is "my TV started looking weird", especially when they're watching content they're familiar with. If a brand new movie or show looked like this and that's the only way I'd ever seen it, fine, so be it. I remember seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in soap opera mode on our then-new TV and thinking "WTF is this and how do I turn it off?". That's not what Indiana Jones movies are supposed to look like.
      - adamomada 2y ago
        > I'm gonna need to see some data on that. It’s enabled by default on all smart TVs. Q.E.D.
    - romwell 2y ago
hedora 2y ago
I got an Apple TV 4K a while back to replace my Roku. It sets my ancient sony 1080p TV to 24 fps when playing back 24 fps content. On top of that, it let me recalibrate the colors using my iPhone camera. Anyway, I bought it to reduce ad tracking, and was pleasantly surprised that it was roughly equivalent to buying a new TV.
- longtimelistnr 2y ago
  Yes that is my favorite part of the apple tv as well, that it adjusts output to the source frames and resolution. As long as you have a good looking panel with nice color you'll never need to get rid of it. 1080 can really look gorgeous even with everything today being 4k
  - lherron 2y ago
    My 2013 Panasonic plasma is still going strong with AppleTV as the primary input source.
    - devilbunny 2y ago
      Well, short of Pioneer Kuro units, the Panasonic plasmas were the best screens of their time and are still very, very good.
      - karmakaze 2y ago
        I was sad both to hear that Pioneer got out of the plasma TV business, and also to let go of mine. It was funny how Pioneer basically perfected the form then promptly exited--true to name I guess. Panasonic bought Pioneer's TV biz, so that was the upside.
    - jnaina 2y ago
      Same here. I have a Panasonic Plasma hooked to the AppeTV 4K in the bedroom, and the picture quality is awesome.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
christkv 2y ago
The loudness war has ruined a lot of music on streaming services for me. Remasters where you lose the ability to distinguish instruments. No way to listen to the original version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war So it's back to digging out and ripping my old cds.
MarkLowenstein 2y ago
It makes things in the foreground have very sharp edges and seem brighter than the things in the background. They call it "soap opera effect" because it reminds you of the way those sets and people are lit. But also--never seemingly noticed--the technology leads to very crisp changes in direction of the camera panning. So you see a very smooth pan, stopping with no deceleration period, and then a quick new pan in a different direction, with no acceleration. It's disorienting and makes everything look fake. IMO this is the most annoying part, but it's hard to identify and articulate.
K7PJP 2y ago
> What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like … [a] soulless robo-producer repaint job. Spotify serves up a stereo version of The Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You" that completely destroys the atmosphere of the song. It's nearly criminal.
RichardCA 2y ago
For the music listening use case, if you can get your hands on a CD and rip it to FLAC that's the way to go. When the CD format first took hold in the early/mid 80's, it was common for the record labels to push out CD's that were just straight digital transfers of the original analog mastering that was used to create the vinyl LP. Now we're here 40 years later, and you can still find those CD's on Ebay and rip them using a program like foobar2000, and the result is basically flawless for all the common playback use cases (I'm not here to make the audiophile argument). I'm also impressed that the 80's and 90's era CD's are not going bad on me. Boomers and Gen-X-ers will always have that box full of treasured CD's, and not a single one of them has failed on me so far.
blessedwhiskers 2y ago
Another thing that annoys me endlessly: a few months ago, Apple Music introduced animated cover art and then proceeded to animate album covers that shipped decades before Apple Music existed. If modern artists want to use this for their new albums, or if an artist wants to rethink the album artwork for a remaster, fine. But, Apple deciding to do a shoddy job of moving the Beatles to another layer and having it pulse in and out on the cover of Abbey Road? Fuck that.

pimeys 2y ago

For the second part, 100%. I started years ago already collecting my own flac files, and I'm quite careful on picking the best mastering if possible. In 2024, finally, some of the latest remasters are great (like the new Steely Dans from Bernie Grundman). But between 2000-2015 or something a remaster of an album was usually just compressed to the maximum and made very _loud_. For some of my favorite albums I have multiple masters available, because they can be very different how they sound and sometimes I can't choose the best one. Oh, and for most of the people none of this really matters...

m348e912 2y ago
Where do you find masters? I only know of stems ripped from games like Rock Band.
- bloomingeek 2y ago
  Mp3Caprice
  - m348e912 2y ago
    The site seems to sell high quality 320kpbs mp3s but as far as I can tell none of them are seperate multi-channel recordings (aka masters)
- pimeys 2y ago
  There is nothing official available. There may or may not be services in the internet that meticulously archive every possible master and of course you can go to discogs to buy a physical copy of a certain version of the album if somebody still has it. This is for me over two decades of hard work and deep interest into music. I highly value my collection.
mrob 2y ago
Earache Records released several remasters of classic metal albums with increased dynamic range: https://bandcamp.com/search?q=full+dynamic+range&item_type=a&from=results https://bandcamp.com/search?q=full+dynamic+range&item_type=a... (also finds some other high dynamic range albums)

neuralRiot 2y ago

> I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. A simple description would be: It makes film movies look like direct-to-video productions, so basically everything looks like a soap opera. Horrible indeed.

karmakaze 2y ago
Yeah that's what I'd feared--I hate that soap opera effect. It makes fictional escapes into film look like every day life or a TV newscast. I suspect that the mode was originally made for large screen TVs that mostly sold well for watching sports.
kstrauser 2y ago
I've even commonly heard it referred to as "soap opera mode".
redwall_hp 2y ago
It butchers animation, which is carefully drawn at certain intervals. There's a reason you can pause anime at any frame and it will look like a defined, static image without blurring and smearing. Motion smoothing absolutely destroys the look of the motion.

vundercind 2y ago

Real film does have (effectively—the aperture’s closed half the time so you don’t see a smear of moving film) a blacked out every-other-frame which makes the perceived motion smoother (some digital projectors can replicate this, though it halves the effective brightness so you need a really bright one for it to work ok) but yeah, I’d take a little judder over faked digital smoothing. It looks awful. [edit] I just mean that an actual film projector does achieve smoother motion than most TVs displaying 24 fps the best they can “naturally”, but a TV’s natural best is still far better than the alternative of alien-looking digital motion smoothing.

xur17 2y ago

> It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films. I realize that I might just be the exception here, but I honestly really like it.

kstrauser 2y ago
I'm glad other systems offer it as an option for people who enjoy it. I can't fathom the decision process that permanently enabled it for everyone.
- adamomada 2y ago
  They made the feature, they’re gonna enable it or nobody would use it and it would have been a waste of time making You’re really gonna hate the fact that 99% of people think this is what stuff on their digital television is supposed to look like. (Which is exactly why Roku did it)
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    That's just not true. My non-Roku TV has this as an option alongside dozens of others I can turn on and off. I'm gonna need to see some data on that. The nearly universally description I hear from regular, non-techie people is "my TV started looking weird", especially when they're watching content they're familiar with. If a brand new movie or show looked like this and that's the only way I'd ever seen it, fine, so be it. I remember seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in soap opera mode on our then-new TV and thinking "WTF is this and how do I turn it off?". That's not what Indiana Jones movies are supposed to look like.
    - adamomada 2y ago
      > I'm gonna need to see some data on that. It’s enabled by default on all smart TVs. Q.E.D.
  - romwell 2y ago

hedora 2y ago

I got an Apple TV 4K a while back to replace my Roku. It sets my ancient sony 1080p TV to 24 fps when playing back 24 fps content. On top of that, it let me recalibrate the colors using my iPhone camera. Anyway, I bought it to reduce ad tracking, and was pleasantly surprised that it was roughly equivalent to buying a new TV.

longtimelistnr 2y ago
Yes that is my favorite part of the apple tv as well, that it adjusts output to the source frames and resolution. As long as you have a good looking panel with nice color you'll never need to get rid of it. 1080 can really look gorgeous even with everything today being 4k
- lherron 2y ago
  My 2013 Panasonic plasma is still going strong with AppleTV as the primary input source.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    Well, short of Pioneer Kuro units, the Panasonic plasmas were the best screens of their time and are still very, very good.
    - karmakaze 2y ago
      I was sad both to hear that Pioneer got out of the plasma TV business, and also to let go of mine. It was funny how Pioneer basically perfected the form then promptly exited--true to name I guess. Panasonic bought Pioneer's TV biz, so that was the upside.
  - jnaina 2y ago
    Same here. I have a Panasonic Plasma hooked to the AppeTV 4K in the bedroom, and the picture quality is awesome.
CamperBob2 2y ago

christkv 2y ago

The loudness war has ruined a lot of music on streaming services for me. Remasters where you lose the ability to distinguish instruments. No way to listen to the original version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war So it's back to digging out and ripping my old cds.

MarkLowenstein 2y ago

It makes things in the foreground have very sharp edges and seem brighter than the things in the background. They call it "soap opera effect" because it reminds you of the way those sets and people are lit. But also--never seemingly noticed--the technology leads to very crisp changes in direction of the camera panning. So you see a very smooth pan, stopping with no deceleration period, and then a quick new pan in a different direction, with no acceleration. It's disorienting and makes everything look fake. IMO this is the most annoying part, but it's hard to identify and articulate.

K7PJP 2y ago

> What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like … [a] soulless robo-producer repaint job. Spotify serves up a stereo version of The Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You" that completely destroys the atmosphere of the song. It's nearly criminal.

RichardCA 2y ago

For the music listening use case, if you can get your hands on a CD and rip it to FLAC that's the way to go. When the CD format first took hold in the early/mid 80's, it was common for the record labels to push out CD's that were just straight digital transfers of the original analog mastering that was used to create the vinyl LP. Now we're here 40 years later, and you can still find those CD's on Ebay and rip them using a program like foobar2000, and the result is basically flawless for all the common playback use cases (I'm not here to make the audiophile argument). I'm also impressed that the 80's and 90's era CD's are not going bad on me. Boomers and Gen-X-ers will always have that box full of treasured CD's, and not a single one of them has failed on me so far.

blessedwhiskers 2y ago

Another thing that annoys me endlessly: a few months ago, Apple Music introduced animated cover art and then proceeded to animate album covers that shipped decades before Apple Music existed. If modern artists want to use this for their new albums, or if an artist wants to rethink the album artwork for a remaster, fine. But, Apple deciding to do a shoddy job of moving the Beatles to another layer and having it pulse in and out on the cover of Abbey Road? Fuck that.