A lot of modern films and TV programs streamed though Netflix/Amazon prime (etc) will have 5.1. 5.1 surround sound, which you get on DVDs and most Blu-rays.General TV programs like the news & comedy shows will use this. Stereo, basic TV or HD TV quality stereo audio.There is a large variation between the audio quality of what you watch, the main categories of source are: ![]() For home viewing I’ve gone from TV speakers (pre-2005) to a valve amp with good stereo speakers, to a JVC soundbar (~2010), to a Sonos Arc with “sub” in 2020. What I have discovered fairly recently is how much I appreciate good sound. If you have an OLED TV it already has good contrast and can make the best of a lower resolution (or lower contrast) source. You really need a close side-by-side comparison to see the difference though. The other main difference can be the HDR aspect, where the bright areas are brighter, and the range of colours are better. Otherwise you get a >10GB file that looks patchy. A modern film can convert at a quality setting of 22 and produce a small file (under 5GB), but for older films I’d add the ‘film’ filter and reduce the quality to 24 or 25. If I rip a blu-ray to store locally for my Plex server, I check the ripped file for this grain effact and adjust the quality settings on Handbrake quite a lot. Anything recorded after 2010 is likely to be a good quality transfer without the grain effect. Generally I’ve found that anything recorded on film from before 2005 will have this grain effect unless it has been transferred after 2015. With a good quality transfer it doesn’t matter whether it is HD or 4k, it looks good on a modern TV and makes a much better digital (compressed) copy. A 4k version just means finer grain, but it is still there. It’s just a pattern of dots that fluctuates back and forth in those flat areas of colour, not very obvious when watching the disc at full quality but it adds a massive overhead for digital copies. If you copy an older Blu-ray to MKV/MP4 the lack of quality is very noticeable because there is a ‘grain’ in flat areas, such as the sky. Where as an Apple TV or Xbox playing a low-res source from Plex looks fine. For example, if you get a recently transferred 4k copy of Back to the future (in 4k or standard Blu-ray) it is a clean copy that looks great and compresses well if you make a local digital copy.Ĭonversely, I got a 4K copy of “ They live” which is a classic 1980s movie, but the transfer to digital seems less ‘clean’, and it is hard to tell the difference between the 4k version and the standard Blu-ray, or even DVD.Īny source which does not up-scale on the TV looks awful, such as the TV’s in-built Plex app playing a low-res source. With a modern TV and player that up-scales the resolution, what makes the visual difference is how clean the transfer is. When you buy a DVD, Blu-ray or 4K Blu-ray the quality of what you see depends very much on how it was transferred. With a reasonable quality television (which up-scales lower resolutions) playing a DVD can look very similar to a Blu-ray or other high-quality source. Even with a phone picture, the OLED TV (in the foreground) looks much better than the LED TV. Whilst swapping to the new TV, I took a very quick picture with my phone. I now have a Panasonic OLED TV which has excellent contrast compared to the LED TV I had before. ![]() That’s what the human eye is evolved to pick out, and having had a 4k non-HDR TV for a couple of years I have to agree with that. The “HDR” bit is worth expanding on, because the general consensus is that good contrast beats sharpness (resolution). ![]() 4k HDR, (3840 x 2160) and a “high dynamic range” (HDR).HD / Blu-ray, 1080p (with a width of 1920px).DVD, also 720p but generally less compression so it looks better.Broadcast TV, up to “ 720p” (height, with a width of 1280px).There is a large variation between the visual quality of what you watch, which I’d categorise as: I also need to store local digital copies on a Plex server so the kids don’t mess with the physical copies! I’m not claiming to be an expert, these are my observations from a lot of experimentation. I want them to look and sound good in comparison to modern films. I have been going through a process of introducing my kids to my favourite (kid friendly) movies. I love good films and TV, and I have a middle-age wish to watch (and listen) to the best versions of the current cultural stories that I like. If you have a good OLED TV and surround-sound system, this may be relevant. Unusually this is not an accessibility post, it is a home cinema/TV thing.
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