It's usually blocky compression artifacts that show up at 720p and some 1080p encodes. They're most noticeable in dark or fast moving scenes.

On Netflix, The Sandman looked abysmally bad at 720p. The complex backgrounds became a garbled mess and the dark scenes were filled with banding.

Do you like dark scenes?

> blocky compression artifacts that show up at 720p

It's just the shitty compression, not the mark of 720p.

This is extremely evident on YouTube now, for a couple of years if the source content is 4K native, they downgrade it to 1080p (so you can stream it with a comfortable bitrate), but despite a good enough resolution (1080p! 2K!) and the need to just downgrade the resolution (yes, double re-encoding, but) the 2K version looks abysmal. Especially evident on live videos with a contrast lights.

You're right that it's not a problem inherent to 720p itself. I was using it as a proxy since the issues weren't present in Netflix's 4k encoding and it's more familiar than other measures.

I grew up with analog TV where the colours used to bend and you had to kick the antenna with a stick after the wind moved it a bit. If I can tell the characters apart and the audio is synchronised, I don't need any better quality!

You and I both. I had the fortune of taking the kids out to look after a field camp years ago, where a storm.in the distance would cut internet and TV signals, and cloudy weather would knock stuff out for days. They learned a different way to use a compass and how to repoint an antenna to get signal using team work. Thoroughly rate it.

Depends on the movie I guess. Planet Earth 2 is a jaw-dropping experience on even an average UHD-1 tv (and it's not ALL about the HDR, I've tried turning it off). Distinctly more impressive than Planet Earth 1 (FullHD only).

It's a real shame that the same store that sold Blu-Ray players didn't have it and I had to pirate it (and also skip buying the player).