Podcast: Filmmaker Mode & Creator's Intent on your TV + News & Reviews (17/02/21)

Phil Hinton

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This week we look at your TV settings and why the new Filmmaker mode will allow you to see the director's intent when watching your TV. We delve into what that means and how you can improve your TV image in a few easy steps. Plus, has lockdown changed your AV equipment purchase plans and why? Meanwhile, Tom will round-up the latest film and tv show news and reviews...

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:25 - Welcome and catchup
00:14:58 - Competitions
00:17:21 - Filmmaker mode and setting up your TV properly
00:48:02 - Sennheiser news
01:02:18 - Ed's album of the week
01:08:30 - Promising Youg Woman movie review
01:15:30 - Joss Whedon got cancelled again
01:18:34 - Streaming content coming soon (none with Gina Carano)
01:21:33 - Lord of The Rings Amazon TV series news
01:26:42 - Picks of the best 4K Blu-rays coming soon
01:29:15 - What are we watching this week?
01:36:00 - Podcast competition

Presented by Phil Hinton with Ed Selley and Tom Davies

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Links to the audio versions will appear once the podcast has been live-streamed on Wednesday the 17th.

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Good poddy, gents :thumbsup:

I'm fortunate to have had Steve come over to calibrate a couple of projectors over the years. I get the basics of calibration but knowing how to correct an image when it's not playing ball, is where experience and knowledge comes in. I liken it to the story about a ship engine that needed some TLC:

"A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemised bill.

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer………………….. $ 2.00

Knowing where to tap…………………….. $ 9,998.00"


Film Maker mode's a step in the right direction for those who care about accurate picture settings. I have an interest in AV that goes as far as throwing some effort into a Spears & Munsil disc, but beyond that I'm out of my depth, so having a display that's just being honest and not manipulating a signal is a better start point than some of the old presets.

In regard to how Covid's changed viewing habits; I wasn't really into streaming this time last year - upon lockdown starting, so began the Netflix binge. Predominantly it was Netflix produced shows (Drive to Survive, The Last Dance etc).

I'm still buying the occasional 4K disc, but with the streaming quality taking big steps in recent times, I expect my UHD disc player will serve solely as a streaming device rather than a disc spinner within the next 12 months or so.
 
Great show guys.

Like Ed, I also know of a few people who’ve upgraded TV this year, mainly to get something that can handle Smart TV. Lots of friends buying Roku sticks as well. 2021/22 is going to be the period of blowing money on booze and holidays, so I hope the AV manufacturers are braced for that.

Will be interesting to see what Sennheiser have planned, maybe looking for a Samsung or similar to come in and take the brand to the next level. People are now more appreciative of the audio brands integrating into other equipment, as long as the quality is maintained. It’s like when your favourite band gets famous, you resent everyone else having a slice of something that used to be your niche interest, but you still want them to do well!
 
Enjoyable podcast as always guys 👍🏼 Question for Phil if I may: obviously you guys are all about creators intent when viewing an image and turning off all image processing (I’m of the same mind by the way).

My question is, I've got and LG C8 & I’ve heard you and Steve highly praise the Dynamic Tone Mapping feature on LG OLEDs which attempts to mimic dynamic metadata and ends up brightening the image in my experience. How come you like this feature if it alters the creators intent? Or am I misunderstanding somewhere?

Keep up the great work gents!
 
My question is, I've got and LG C8 & I’ve heard you and Steve highly praise the Dynamic Tone Mapping feature on LG OLEDs which attempts to mimic dynamic metadata and ends up brightening the image in my experience. How come you like this feature if it alters the creators intent? Or am I misunderstanding somewhere?

Keep up the great work gents!
It's down to how it works by assisting the tone mapping without changing the actual intent. If anything it is trying harder to mimic a high brightness HDR panel and present the content as it would be seen on such a display. Hope that helps.
 
Good one as usual :smashin:.
Regarding using tech differently during the pandemic:
It has certainly made me think of which devices i use more than others and acted accordingly.
 
Agree with you @Tom Davies about Promising Young Woman. I do think it could have had a bit more teeth, the 2006 David Slade film Hard Candy addressed similar issues with more depth and horror, but PYW in its candy-coloured trip into a moral nightmare was very impressive. The opening with Carey Mulligan staring down the cat callers was brilliant.
 
Agree with you @Tom Davies about Promising Young Woman. I do think it could have had a bit more teeth, the 2006 David Slade film Hard Candy addressed similar issues with more depth and horror, but PYW in its candy-coloured trip into a moral nightmare was very impressive. The opening with Carey Mulligan staring down the cat callers was brilliant.
Agreed, though I think despite its outward similarities, Hard Candy is coming from a very different place. The two have different strengths and different issues, I think. Both great, though.
 
Mr Hinton

Whilst I share your enthusiasm for quality in Tv and film content and I am well aware of the need for technical standards in the industy I feel I must correct you in one regard.

I have worked in the Tv industry since 1981, firstly with the BBC and now as a freelance video editor working on programmes for UK broadcast. In no way are all programmes graded as you suggest, in fact the vast majority of broadcast tv is not graded. Much is broadcast live of is made at a budget level which rules out expensive post production.

Obviously dramas will get a full grade but there is a middle ground such as low cost factual where a grade is often preformed but only as a "quick fix" and a general tidy up. It's too expensive to pay someone to go through most programmes with a fine comb.

None of this goes againt the general thrust of your argument and many programmes are well made. I simply point out that most are made to a budget. It is a paradox that enthusiasts such as your self are at the mercy of the quality delivered by the production industry. The vast majority of the people I have worked with in the industry do care about the picture standards but many don't, and all work within the constraints of the programme budgets.
 
Good info guys. ( I learned the hard way about using the correct white balance on a Pan. HC X1 Pro Cam. a while back. ) Hotel Cecil ? A huge spoiler there, that I won't divulge ! No one watching Anna Friel in Marcella ? Shame on you guys !
 
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Good poddy, gents :thumbsup:

I'm fortunate to have had Steve come over to calibrate a couple of projectors over the years. I get the basics of calibration but knowing how to correct an image when it's not playing ball, is where experience and knowledge comes in. I liken it to the story about a ship engine that needed some TLC:

Then they brought in an old man
Are you calling Steve an old man?

That's the last of your projectors he'll calibrate. :D
 
Thanks gents for what was quite a " racy " podcast at one stage.

Would love to participate in your proposed week of using the filmmaker setting, however SWMBO would object immediately. She still complains about the darkness of HDR films and programmes, so any further change will be vetoed.
 
Has anyone else noticed that Steve goes off at the same time as Vinegar Syndrome releases the first 4K UHD of their classic erotica?🧐
 
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Good poddy, gents :thumbsup:



“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemised bill.

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer………………….. $ 2.00

Knowing where to tap…………………….. $ 9,998.00"
Your paying someone to fix something.

Did they fix it?

Then shut up.

When I used to work for an indy TV shop I used to fix people's picture/sound/set-up etc. It never took me long in most cases, some people were over the moon and some were apoplectic I didn't need to strip the TV to bits in order to fix it.
 
Thanks gents for what was quite a " racy " podcast at one stage.

Would love to participate in your proposed week of using the filmmaker setting, however SWMBO would object immediately. She still complains about the darkness of HDR films and programmes, so any further change will be vetoed.
Which tv are you using Filmmaker mode on? I have had it on since getting my LG 55CX and I don’t find it dark at all
 
Thanks for another great Podcast!
@Phil Hinton Touring the USA a few years ago, I also got carded several times in areas where they had to while buying booze. I was in my late 50's at the time, and my reply always was "here you go, and thank you!"
Regarding the calibration, I looked into settings for the B7 before it was delivered, so it got switched to ISF with the suggested "tweaks" during Day 1. Vivid mode would burn my eyes now!
@Tom Davies I am also a huge LOTR nerd, & excited for this series. I did read the Silmarillion when much younger, but now leave it up to the You Tube Nerd of the Rings website to jog my memory. I can recommend that site to anyone interested in LOTR Lore.
 
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Is this the right area to provide general feedback on the podcast? If so, having listened to the podcast for several years now and mostly enjoying it, my main piece of feedback is it would improve the quality of it if certain participants could just wait for the person currently talking to finish. The amount of interrupting and cutting off the person talking has certainly increased since you went to the live format. Listening to the audio version, this is really irritating; just let the person speaking finish his point.
 
Is this the right area to provide general feedback on the podcast? If so, having listened to the podcast for several years now and mostly enjoying it, my main piece of feedback is it would improve the quality of it if certain participants could just wait for the person currently talking to finish. The amount of interrupting and cutting off the person talking has certainly increased since you went to the live format. Listening to the audio version, this is really irritating; just let the person speaking finish his point.
To me, that makes it what it is; a bunch of strong-minded friends talking about a bunch of items, & friends interrupt each other.
And I guess I now accept that as normal - in my Household, for years the only sentences I've ever managed to finish completely have been the ones in my head, (As my wife didn't hear them!) :D
 
Assuming the new Mogwai album is a stick on for Ed's album of this coming week???!!! ;)
 
Thank you everyone for another great podcast.
I've got a question, during the podcast at 39m 53s @Phil Hinton said there's a bug with the LG CX with the brightness causing floating blacks which could be fixed by hitting '1 up or 1 down'.
Which setting should I change up or down?

TIA
 
Great software podcast, keep them coming.
NB Why haven't you been discussing the brilliant
ZERO,ZERO,ZERO with an astonishing soundtrack by Mogwai
Best series for last 6 months!!
 
I'm a little behind but yeah, very useful podcast. Thanks gents.
@Tom Davies - you're in for a treat with Kagemusha. AFAIK, this marks the first time the UK receives the original longer uncut version (previous releases have been the shorter international cut).
 

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