My experience watching a movie with non A/V people...

[singhcr]

I visited some old college friends for the first time since COVID. In general I tend to avoid watching movies at other people's houses unless I know them to have some standards as the experiences are so bad, but as I hadn't seen them in years and it was part of the weekend visit up to see my friend's new cabin along with his wife and baby it would be rude.

So they literally had just bought a brand new 4K Samsung LCD TV. The wife was setting it up with a Blu-ray player. Sneaky me was trying to offer to set it up to disable all the shit that's turned on by default but the wife was having none of it.

So my friends who are mostly PhD's in engineering brought a bunch of DVDs and a handful of Blu-rays. I could see Labyrinth for the first time on DVD (ugh) and I eventually suggested a title I hadn't seen that I wouldn't be too sad if it was messed up, which was Yes Man with Jim Carrey on DVD.

My friend's wife was not at all receptive to any feedback about setting up the TV they literally just bought and the whole movie had the motion smoothing on, along with some stupid auto brightness feature which meant even in a dark room it was really dim. When the TV booted up it wanted some "brightness IQ" setting that "adjusts to the environment" which I suggested she turn off but she said "no I want it to be darker when the room is dark" and just would not listen to any suggestions, a perfect example of someone being confident without having any knowledge whatsoever. She admitted she had no knowledge but just wanted to "leave it alone" as she would somehow make it worse, and even afterwards when she was flipping through the settings she and others again said something to the effect of "who can figure out what to do here, just leave it alone before you make it worse" knowing that I'm a film and A/V guy who knows a lot and puts a lot of time, attention, and care into my setup.

When the trailers started playing, they were stretched from 4x3 letterbox to 16x9 and I cringed. Nobody says anything, nobody notices. Then the movie starts and is 16x9 enhanced, thank God. That was the only thing good.

With that dynamic brightness came motion interpolation and DNR by default as they hadn't touched any of the settings because they were afraid of messing something up. So the whole thing just looked like some weird melted video that wasn't at all real, kept speeding up and slowing down and was all blurry with this dull haze over the whole image due to the lack of brightness. The motion smoothing also had an effect like a fake 3D look where say a car or a person looked like a cardboard cutout relative to the background, it was just soooo bad. That's apparently what a brand new Samsung 4K LCD TV is set to do right out of the box. I just sucked it up for the friendship but I never want to do that again, it was an even worse experience than I thought.

I simply cannot believe how bad that intrapolation was along with the DNR and haze. I'd never seen a whole movie that way as I can't stand to see that fast/slow shit for more than a second or two. Nobody, absolutely nobody made any comment on the worst, farthest from looking like film experience I had ever seen. We're all engineers, fine detail people. As a mechanical engineer I want to know how everything works from A/V to calibration standards, what settings do on TVs, etc etc. Apparently that does not extend to the A/V world for the rest of my friends.

As soon as it started I cringed, and I genuinely tried to get used to it. After 5-10 minutes I physically was getting annoyed and tense about it because it was so so so bad. You get used to it for a few minutes and kind of get into the story but that shit is something I simply could never adjust to. I was just thinking to myself "This isn't like just comparing OLED to LCD in terms of blacks, how can anyone possibly think a movie is supposed to look like this?"

Hell, even a YT rip of a movie I could adjust to eventually but the combination of all of those factors was just too much.

The bar for what the average person watches is so much lower than even I thought. The sacrifices I make for my friends! Remind me not to go to a movie night....

[erixon20]

You need new friends...lol

[bhampton]

Well,

How else would you blow them away when they come see what you can do?

Like Marie Antionette said "Let them watch steaming"

[unberechenbar]

That sounds horrible. Thanks for sharing. I can't imagine someone being so close-minded. What do you mean by the movie being 16 x 9 enhanced? Does that mean it was cropped to fill the screen?

[chip75]

Originally Posted by unberechenbar

That sounds horrible. Thanks for sharing. I can't imagine someone being so close-minded. What do you mean by the movie being 16 x 9 enhanced? Does that mean it was cropped to fill the screen?

Anamorphic perhaps? it's not a thing for Blu-rays as they're all in 16:9 containers.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by singhcr

I visited some old college friends for the first time since COVID. In general I tend to avoid watching movies at other people's houses unless I know them to have some standards as the experiences are so bad, but as I hadn't seen them in years and it was part of the weekend visit up to see my friend's new cabin along with his wife and baby it would be rude.

So they literally had just bought a brand new 4K Samsung LCD TV. The wife was setting it up with a Blu-ray player. Sneaky me was trying to offer to set it up to disable all the shit that's turned on by default but the wife was having none of it.

So my friends who are mostly PhD's in engineering brought a bunch of DVDs and a handful of Blu-rays. I could see Labyrinth for the first time on DVD (ugh) and I eventually suggested a title I hadn't seen that I wouldn't be too sad if it was messed up, which was Yes Man with Jim Carrey on DVD.

My friend's wife was not at all receptive to any feedback about setting up the TV they literally just bought and the whole movie had the motion smoothing on, along with some stupid auto brightness feature which meant even in a dark room it was really dim. When the TV booted up it wanted some "brightness IQ" setting that "adjusts to the environment" which I suggested she turn off but she said "no I want it to be darker when the room is dark" and just would not listen to any suggestions, a perfect example of someone being confident without having any knowledge whatsoever. She admitted she had no knowledge but just wanted to "leave it alone" as she would somehow make it worse, and even afterwards when she was flipping through the settings she and others again said something to the effect of "who can figure out what to do here, just leave it alone before you make it worse" knowing that I'm a film and A/V guy who knows a lot and puts a lot of time, attention, and care into my setup.

When the trailers started playing, they were stretched from 4x3 letterbox to 16x9 and I cringed. Nobody says anything, nobody notices. Then the movie starts and is 16x9 enhanced, thank God. That was the only thing good.

With that dynamic brightness came motion interpolation and DNR by default as they hadn't touched any of the settings because they were afraid of messing something up. So the whole thing just looked like some weird melted video that wasn't at all real, kept speeding up and slowing down and was all blurry with this dull haze over the whole image due to the lack of brightness. The motion smoothing also had an effect like a fake 3D look where say a car or a person looked like a cardboard cutout relative to the background, it was just soooo bad. That's apparently what a brand new Samsung 4K LCD TV is set to do right out of the box. I just sucked it up for the friendship but I never want to do that again, it was an even worse experience than I thought.

I simply cannot believe how bad that intrapolation was along with the DNR and haze. I'd never seen a whole movie that way as I can't stand to see that fast/slow shit for more than a second or two. Nobody, absolutely nobody made any comment on the worst, farthest from looking like film experience I had ever seen. We're all engineers, fine detail people. As a mechanical engineer I want to know how everything works from A/V to calibration standards, what settings do on TVs, etc etc. Apparently that does not extend to the A/V world for the rest of my friends.

As soon as it started I cringed, and I genuinely tried to get used to it. After 5-10 minutes I physically was getting annoyed and tense about it because it was so so so bad. You get used to it for a few minutes and kind of get into the story but that shit is something I simply could never adjust to. I was just thinking to myself "This isn't like just comparing OLED to LCD in terms of blacks, how can anyone possibly think a movie is supposed to look like this?"

Hell, even a YT rip of a movie I could adjust to eventually but the combination of all of those factors was just too much.

The bar for what the average person watches is so much lower than even I thought. The sacrifices I make for my friends! Remind me not to go to a movie night....

Whenever you go to visit somebody's home as a guest, and if you see something that you don't like, you have to pretend and not take it personal. For instance: If I go to somebody's home to watch a movie or a game on their 32" TV, I'm not going to get angry nor frustrated because I'm watching it on a much smaller screen than mine. I'm there to socialize and have fun, not to be critical of their 32" TV. Ask yourself are you a true friend? If that's how you feel towards them because they're not as efficient about their TV as you are, then you're not really a friend.

[edmonddantes]

Originally Posted by singhcr

I visited some old college friends for the first time since COVID. In general I tend to avoid watching movies at other people's houses unless I know them to have some standards as the experiences are so bad, but as I hadn't seen them in years and it was part of the weekend visit up to see my friend's new cabin along with his wife and baby it would be rude.

So they literally had just bought a brand new 4K Samsung LCD TV. The wife was setting it up with a Blu-ray player. Sneaky me was trying to offer to set it up to disable all the shit that's turned on by default but the wife was having none of it.

So my friends who are mostly PhD's in engineering brought a bunch of DVDs and a handful of Blu-rays. I could see Labyrinth for the first time on DVD (ugh) and I eventually suggested a title I hadn't seen that I wouldn't be too sad if it was messed up, which was Yes Man with Jim Carrey on DVD.

My friend's wife was not at all receptive to any feedback about setting up the TV they literally just bought and the whole movie had the motion smoothing on, along with some stupid auto brightness feature which meant even in a dark room it was really dim. When the TV booted up it wanted some "brightness IQ" setting that "adjusts to the environment" which I suggested she turn off but she said "no I want it to be darker when the room is dark" and just would not listen to any suggestions, a perfect example of someone being confident without having any knowledge whatsoever. She admitted she had no knowledge but just wanted to "leave it alone" as she would somehow make it worse, and even afterwards when she was flipping through the settings she and others again said something to the effect of "who can figure out what to do here, just leave it alone before you make it worse" knowing that I'm a film and A/V guy who knows a lot and puts a lot of time, attention, and care into my setup.

When the trailers started playing, they were stretched from 4x3 letterbox to 16x9 and I cringed. Nobody says anything, nobody notices. Then the movie starts and is 16x9 enhanced, thank God. That was the only thing good.

With that dynamic brightness came motion interpolation and DNR by default as they hadn't touched any of the settings because they were afraid of messing something up. So the whole thing just looked like some weird melted video that wasn't at all real, kept speeding up and slowing down and was all blurry with this dull haze over the whole image due to the lack of brightness. The motion smoothing also had an effect like a fake 3D look where say a car or a person looked like a cardboard cutout relative to the background, it was just soooo bad. That's apparently what a brand new Samsung 4K LCD TV is set to do right out of the box. I just sucked it up for the friendship but I never want to do that again, it was an even worse experience than I thought.

I simply cannot believe how bad that intrapolation was along with the DNR and haze. I'd never seen a whole movie that way as I can't stand to see that fast/slow shit for more than a second or two. Nobody, absolutely nobody made any comment on the worst, farthest from looking like film experience I had ever seen. We're all engineers, fine detail people. As a mechanical engineer I want to know how everything works from A/V to calibration standards, what settings do on TVs, etc etc. Apparently that does not extend to the A/V world for the rest of my friends.

As soon as it started I cringed, and I genuinely tried to get used to it. After 5-10 minutes I physically was getting annoyed and tense about it because it was so so so bad. You get used to it for a few minutes and kind of get into the story but that shit is something I simply could never adjust to. I was just thinking to myself "This isn't like just comparing OLED to LCD in terms of blacks, how can anyone possibly think a movie is supposed to look like this?"

Hell, even a YT rip of a movie I could adjust to eventually but the combination of all of those factors was just too much.

The bar for what the average person watches is so much lower than even I thought. The sacrifices I make for my friends! Remind me not to go to a movie night....

no offense, but you read like such a snob. If my friends invite me to their house to watch a movie I have a great time, and leave my audiophile-videophile eyes at home.

I remember having a great time with a friend watching planet of the apes in a 18' tv with mono sound. Who the hell cares where you watch a movie when what you're experiencing is a human connection and spending time with someone who invited you to their home?

Im sorry I dont get the OP or the other posters who immediately agreed and accompanied him in his "ordeal", but perhaps its because I come from a third world country.

[willieconway]

Obviously the ideal scenario for both parties is that you’re not invited again. Ever.

[Spooked]

This is why I have no friends.

[Ernest Rister]

There's a saying that Hell is other people. Then there are those who dig even further down into Dante's Circle and think Hell is other people's music. I guess you dig even deeper and think Hell is other people's settings on their displays.

[drb999]

I guess the is one of those first world problems.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by unberechenbar

That sounds horrible. Thanks for sharing. I can't imagine someone being so close-minded. What do you mean by the movie being 16 x 9 enhanced? Does that mean it was cropped to fill the screen?

It was a DVD:

Originally Posted by singhcr

I eventually suggested a title I hadn't seen that I wouldn't be too sad if it was messed up, which was Yes Man with Jim Carrey on DVD.

DVDs are coded either to display in 4:3 or 16:9

If it's a NTSC DVD the container is 480 x 720 pixels which with square pixels would be a 1.50 ratio, but the DVD image can be either coded to be displayed squished a little for old 4:3 TVs or coded to be unsqueezed to be displayed on 16:9 displays.
Yes Man would be about 275 x 720 pixels coded in 4:3 if mastered following analog NTSC standards, 366 x 720 pixels coded in 16:9 if mastered following analog NTSC standards. (Or the 16:9 coding may be 357 x 720 pixels if mastered for modern 16:9, square pixel, digital displays)
The trailers were coded for 4:3.



I would had disabled everything and quickly calibrated it proper, which is what I do when I visit friends. Similar to taking the keys from drunk friends


The company they work for needs new engineers tho.

[Show spoiler]

[jess1581]

I'll have to go with Slimdude's and Edmond's assessment. It's not really your place to dictate other people's belongings. That's not good manners. You can offer your advice if they actually want it, but overall know your boundaries dude. It's not like they went over to your place and started tooling around with your set up right? You'd be Uber pissed. Just let others be and hang out as a friend, not a technofreak.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by jess1581

I'll have to go with Slimdude's and Edmond's assessment. It's not really your place to dictate other people's belongings. That's not good manners. You can offer your advice if they actually want it, but overall know your boundaries dude. It's not like they went over to your place and started tooling around with your set up right? You'd be Uber pissed. Just let others be and hang out as a friend, not a technofreak.

I agree with that mindset.

To be fair, I didn't insist on anything, nor did I try and dictate things. I politely made one suggestion during the initial setup which she rejected and that was it. I just found it confusing that people who openly admitted they had no idea what they were doing would not at least consider my input as they know it's something I invest a lot of time and energy into. But at the end of the day it's their call which is why I stayed silent. I apologize if I didn't make that clear in my original post.

I never complained, nor made any comment about the TV or how it looked because that would be very rude. Internally though, I thought it was awful and that's all I was trying to say. I just couldn't believe that movies can look that bad, and yes even a DVD doesn't look anywhere as bad on my setup as it did there.

I know friendship is more important than a movie, that's why I didn't say anything.

Sorry for the delay in responses, for some reason I wasn't getting notifications until now.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Well,

How else would you blow them away when they come see what you can do?

Like Marie Antionette said "Let them watch steaming"

Lol, that's a good point. It would be nice to show them what a nice setup can do.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by slimdude

Whenever you go to visit somebody's home as a guest, and if you see something that you don't like, you have to pretend and not take it personal. For instance: If I go to somebody's home to watch a movie or a game on their 32" TV, I'm not going to get angry nor frustrated because I'm watching it on a much smaller screen than mine. I'm there to socialize and have fun, not to be critical of their 32" TV. Ask yourself are you a true friend? If that's how you feel towards other them because they're not as efficient about their TV as you are, then you're not really a friend.

So you lie to all your friends and that makes you a "true friend"?

Friends are the people that you should be the most honest with. You shouldn't have to pretend to like anything.

[Hitman Horton]

Originally Posted by jess1581

I'll have to go with Slimdude's and Edmond's assessment. It's not really your place to dictate other people's belongings. That's not good manners. You can offer your advice if they actually want it, but overall know your boundaries dude. It's not like they went over to your place and started tooling around with your set up right? You'd be Uber pissed. Just let others be and hang out as a friend, not a technofreak.

I agree with this. Also, look at the way he made a "suggestion." Telling somebody simply to "turn that off" is really quite rude. I'm sure if things had been approached differently, the situation would have gone quite differently.

[Hitman Horton]

Originally Posted by singhcr

I agree with that mindset.

To be fair, I didn't insist on anything, nor did I try and dictate things. I politely made one suggestion during the initial setup which she rejected and that was it. I just found it confusing that people who openly admitted they had no idea what they were doing would not at least consider my input as they know it's something I invest a lot of time and energy into. But at the end of the day it's their call which is why I stayed silent. I apologize if I didn't make that clear in my original post.

I never complained, nor made any comment about the TV or how it looked because that would be very rude. Internally though, I thought it was awful and that's all I was trying to say. I just couldn't believe that movies can look that bad, and yes even a DVD doesn't look anywhere as bad on my setup as it did there.

I know friendship is more important than a movie, that's why I didn't say anything.

Sorry for the delay in responses, for some reason I wasn't getting notifications until now.

So you say that you made ONE suggestion. At least now you do. The problem is, your own words don't back you up. In the original post you start off by saying that you were being sneaky about it. That doesn't sound right.

Then you say that she was not receptive to any of the feedback you were offering. AFTER that you mention one specific setting that you "suggested" she turn off. Please note that you told her to turn off a setting on HER TV without any knowledge what they were looking for in picture quality. If you only made one suggestion, why were you complaining that she wasn't listening to your feedback BEFORE you made the suggestion.

Lastly, after that, you specifically wrote that she wouldn't listen to "any suggestions" you were offering. That's plural...as in more than one.

My guess is that you handled this situation terribly from the very start and it went downhill from there and you have nobody to blame but yourself.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Hitman Horton

So you say that you made ONE suggestion. At least now you do. The problem is, your own words don't back you up. In the original post you start off by saying that you were being sneaky about it. That doesn't sound right.

Then you say that she was not receptive to any of the feedback you were offering. AFTER that you mention one specific setting that you "suggested" she turn off. Please note that you told her to turn off a setting on HER TV without any knowledge what they were looking for in picture quality. If you only made one suggestion, why were you complaining that she wasn't listening to your feedback BEFORE you made the suggestion.

Lastly, after that, you specifically wrote that she wouldn't listen to "any suggestions" you were offering. That's plural...as in more than one.

My guess is that you handled this situation terribly from the very start and it went downhill from there and you have nobody to blame but yourself.

I'm pretty sure I know what actually transpired, even if my wording in my initial post was misleading. I was ranting in my initial post and didn't perfectly describe the exact order of things. But whatever, you can think whatever you want even though you weren't there.

[witheygull]

Anyone who wasn't there is in no position to judge the level of tact the OP used in the situation, as that's the sort of thing that can't really be conveyed through text. Even if we all had an absolutely accurate transcript of every word spoken by the OP and everyone else involved, there would be nuances of tone and the effects of existing relationships that would shape perceptions of the conversation.

I'm more interested in the larger point of acceptance or rejection of expertise. One person is a self-professed expert and is willing to put in the work to achieve a desired goal, while the other person is a self-professed novice and is unwilling to cede control. If the expert did the work the novice likely wouldn't notice or care about the end result, but the expert absolutely notices and cares about the result from the novice's efforts.

How to assert your expertise in a manner where it is welcomed and not viewed as rude or condescending can be tricky.