Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

Re:Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video] by hedora on Saturday March 12, 2022 @09:49AM (#30651742)

I've noticed an even newer effect: Making scenes almost all black. It might be a software problem with the HBO Max app's gamma and brightness settings, but it's absolutely the case that, during the day with thin curtains drawn, I had to put a thick blanket over my head and an iPad in order to see the highlights in some of the darker scenes in one of their recent original productions (probably Raised by Wolves Season One; can't remember for sure).

These were action scenes with grunting and no dialogue, so the blanket was the only way to follow the plot.

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Re:Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video] by 0xcde4c3db on Saturday March 12, 2022 @09:57AM (#30651796)

This sounds a lot like "dynamic contrast", i.e. varying the display's light source brightness with the scene brightness. I can't speak to whether or how the iPad implements it, but it's a common behavior of LCD screens. It's configurable on some devices.

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Re:Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video] by drexlspivey on Saturday March 12, 2022 @11:07AM (#30652291)

You can just cover the light sensor (right next to the camera) if you don’t want to mess with menus instead of using a blanket.

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Re:Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video] by thfuran on Saturday March 12, 2022 @03:18PM (#30654535)

But that would dim the display. Selectively illuminating the sensor would boost display brightness.

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Re:Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video] by mixedCase on Saturday March 12, 2022 @01:37PM (#30653618)

Yep I subbed to HBO to get GoT a couple of hours before "other sources" and immediately cancelled mid-way through last season. Night-time fights were just pitch black and a few smudges moving around the screen.

They probably just throw the thing into ffmpeg with the fewest amount of arguments that satisfies a codec and bandwidth cost metric and call it a day.

However, I've never had any problems under the same situations on Netflix using a "blessed" 4K HDR10 set-up (Fire TV Cube and a cheap Hisense TV).

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Re:Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video] by Cerium on Saturday March 12, 2022 @09:56AM (#30651791)

In the past I have adjusted the black level on my video player to make movies like this watchable. It won't look good, but you can make the few shades they used visibly different.

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