A lot of the new 4K TVs by default have some 'video enhancement' processing steps turned on by default which ends up making everything look fake. If you go into the TV settings and turn all of those things off it should make the world look more natural.

this processing can create desync issues where the audio is in front of the video by just a bit. this creates a lip sync issue which makes people feel the audio is dubbed over and can tear you out of suspense of disbelief. but i don't think that's what they mean here. rings is just bad acting - or rather, bad direction that forces bad acting. i have no doubt the actors are capable of much more than what they're being confined to.

I think OP was talking about frame interpolation aka "soap opera effect", which is both horrible and enabled-by-default on most large TVs nowadays.

Prior HN discussion on the 'soap opera effect' I'm referring to >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613575

I find all of these TV shows have the same pattern that breaks the immersion: too many close up face shots, and the characters look too clean. Watch the original LOTR and see the composition of the shots ("every scene a painting"): it's not just a close up of a face with a bokeh behind it; there is a visual composition and blocking like a scene designed for a play. The characters looking too clean is another issue, and the Wheel of Time series on Amazon has this problem as well. Every character is perfectly manicured, no dirt or grime despite the setting... it breaks the immersion!

I remember... maybe 10 years ago? seeing a big OLED screen playing a very high def version of LOTR. You could see that the props were made of styrofoam.

Of course there is a lot of other stuff going on, but I do think that high fidelity really makes stuff hard. That combined with much more pressure to cut corners in post production (on top of more stuff needing to actually happen in post!) just makes it all fall apart.

Part of the problem when every story has to be the biggest thing ever, and a problem that other industries have hit (games in the PS3/PS4 generation).

With something like that new LOTR show, the budgets are so astronomical but where’s the auteur? It’s a series so presumably directors are not consistent.

Might be an issue that there isn’t a single person pushing the world, aesthetic, vibe and vision making the actors immersed in their roles. In the end getting all dressed up and standing against a green screen probably feels a bit silly without someone selling it to you.

Agreed. Who knew that corporate structures are not conducive to creative expression?

The majority of Netflix series produced in Europe are actually a pleasant surprise in that regard. When to comes to writing and acting as well as production, and yes, sound mixing.

I consider myself a fantasy and sci-fi nerd, binge read the Lord of The Rings, starting with the Hobbit, between Christmas Eve and when the first movie came out. Read the Simarilion. Loved the LotR triology. Like the Hobbit, ehich already strechted the source material a lot, but in a way that could be justified as a lead up to LotR. I did not manage to dare whatching the Amazon series, and propably never will. Thr LotR films, The Expense and the Star Wars series and first two triologies are the last movie ftanchises I still get immersion and suspenson of disbelieve from, I'm not taking any risks eith LotR.

Agreed. But then comes along something like The Expanse with impeccable writing, a gripping, high-octane story, with every episode being pretty much perfect, and great set design, and it falls into obscurity and gets prematurely cancelled because it's not being shoved down people's throats.

> between Christmas Eve and when the first movie came out

That potentially gives you _decades_ to binge-read the books... how many depends on what do you consider "the first movie". :-)

I shoupd have been more precise: I didn't read the books before, I knew they would be my Christmas gift. So I started with the Hobbit on, if memory serves well, on Dec. 23rd. Was finished in time for the unpacking of the triology on 24th. And was through, for go one, with all three books before going to see the first movie. I never read as many pages in as little time before or after. And I totally loved it!