this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
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This is one of those things that you know something looks wrong or cheap, but you don't know why. Once you know though you can't unsee it, and it's absolutely horrible.
I think a lot of people have tvs that can't handle darks well, so things like the dark knight, game of thrones, I remember the departed especially, if you have a lot of shadow it won't show at all. So there was already a push from consumers to make things "easier to see" at the expense of good cinematography.
Netflix though is the worst because they encourage and actively push for people to watch big block uster hits on their phones and tablets while commuting or out and about. Turns out big movies don't really look great on a 4.3 inch screen, and so my tin foil hat theory is all this over brightness is to make things easy to watch on formats that aren't good for them.
But line must go up. They make more money when you watch a big budget drama on your cracked iPhone, so screw actual good lighting. Otherwise you might watch a YouTube video or social media instead of giving them views.
(If you like movies at all and you are getting a new TV, just get an OLED. Trust me. Just do it. It's more expensive yes but you just need to. Movies look so much better. I even got the wife begrudging approval that even she admits it was worth the cost. There's so much you're missing on the dark range, and it's insane how ina dark scene there is no backlight, there's just nothing, the panel is off, it makes the watching experience better)
If you don't listen already, I recommend the Team Deakins podcast. Roger Deakins and his wife/creative partner talk about movies with actors and industry professionals. Sometimes it's a philosophical discussion about storytelling, and other times it's a highly technical talk about color grading. Steve Yedlin has some excellent eps about 4K and TV settings (see ep. 145 about "deliverables")
I'll give it a shot!
This is the thing that kills me, and it took that game of thrones episode for me to realise. I watched it just fine on a mid-range 4K from about 5 years before it came out. 80% of the people I talked to that week about it said they couldn't see a thing.
People are out there getting scammed into buying the shittest panels available and now the media itself is being compromised because they're the biggest market.
I sold TVs at best buy now 15 years ago and this was it. It didn't matter if it was 20 dollars more, I'll say at least 70% of the people I talked to would not be interested. It's cheaper? Sign me up. "But for 20 dollars you can have an actual good tv, with like, a good picture and everything". Nope, they'd happily leave with their crap. Please just save for one more month, come back, and buy something worth the money instead of throwing it away on garbage.
What's even worse is sound. I hear so freaking often "they're making the sound terrible" "I have to constantly turn it up and down". 99% of the time when I ask them what they did for sound they say "I just use the TV speakers". Well there's the freaking problem! You're listening on speakers that are slightly better than those you'd find in a tablet. TV makers will make it as cheap as possible, and speakers don't sell TVs. I'm not even saying do something like surround sound, just something that was made with sound in mind like a sound bar, hell even computer speakers are going to be better than the pieces of tissue paper they call speakers in your TV. You go buy any sound device, even a cheap soundbar, and the quality will go up. Again though, people will just complain, say it's horrible, and even when presented with a very reasonable option, they will opt to save a few bucks. Even if it's an investment they'll be sitting in front of for years, nope 20-100 bucks more is not worth it.
My parents own a sidebar (not an amazing one but better than TV speakers) and I can't even convince them to use the thing. It's like keeping one extra device plugged in is too much effort and they're convinced they don't need it, despite the same volume complaints.
I wish people would understand basic physics which show that there's only some much you can do with tiny speakers, but it doesn't seem to get through.
Wait they complain about the volume issues while also not using their soundbar?!
Precisely. I think it's also because they are trying to be quieter at night but better speakers will be more intelligible at lower volumes anyway. They are starting to use headphones more at least so that might be the alternate approach to reasonable sound.
I have an LG C1 and the upside-down in Stranger Things is still a dark, undiscernable mess.
I haven't seen stranger things on my C.. something, but I do remember tuning it quite a bit, making sure HDR was enabled and I calibrated with dark images for a while.
That being said, going back to Netflix, they'll happily sacrifice quality for a better bitrate. I usually buy the Blurays
Fully agree. I have a 65” LG OLED since 2019, was crazy expensive, but fully worth it.
Bro, where did you get a phone with a screen <6.5 inches!?
Tablets.
They make 4" tablets?
Crts handled darks perfectly ;)
Ill never get rid of mine
Is that because you throw your back out every time you try?
Console gamers used to be swole back in the day because they had to carry a TV to their friends house for the Halo party.
I always brought my Xbox, guaranteed me a spot all night in the 8 v 8 tournaments. We had so many people that there would always be someone waiting for spots. But if you brought a Xbox or a TV you were guaranteed a spot all night.
I mean, LAN parties weren't much easier.
Is only a 25" but yes hahha
What? How? Just because the screen is smaller doesn't mean it would stream at a lower resolution.
Simply that you're spending more time watching their content instead of something else makes them more money
I don't know if this is still the case, but for a long time, Netflix literally did have lower bitrate defaults for the mobile apps vs TV apps.