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points by olyjohn 3 days ago | 0 comments

I didn't know how bad TV looked in the 90s. We watched a low res 19 inch TV from across the room. Did moving to HD make any real difference in our lives? Do we really enjoy TV that much more? Once the excitement wears off about 20 minutes into watching it, its still the same thing. If the story is good, you get into it either way and forget what you're watching it on.

[–] biggc 3 days ago

Watching older TV shows I notice a lot more close ups of actors faces. I’m convinced it’s because the shows were produced with small screens in mind.

[–] me-vs-cat 2 days ago

Sounds very similar to old glass panes being thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom. Did the glass flow over the years, or did we lose what was common knowledge at the time, for installers to orient each pane a certain way?

[–] MonkeyClub 1 day ago

That one’s down to gravity, glass flows down very slowly over long periods.

[–] zeppelin101 3 days ago

Depends on the content. When people are talking in a nondescript (thing the "12 Angry Men" movie), SD is quite fine. Now compare it to Blade Runner or Scarface. Those movies absolutely benefit from more detail and colors.

[–] dwb 3 days ago

I watched TV and used computers in the 90s and the whole time I was desperate for display technology to improve. Mainly CRT refresh rates, which often gave me a headache, but yeah I noticed the crappy pixel density all the time too. The nice Apple display I have now is one of my fave things I’ve ever bought and could only be improved by being >60Hz (which I do notice, but it’s not a big deal).

[–] kome 3 days ago

CRT refresh rates is super high, usually starting at 120hz... and now we are trying to do the same? you want to feel headache again?

[–] spider-mario 3 days ago

> CRT refresh rates is super high, usually starting at 120hz...

That’s not my memory of it at all. They were often set to 60Hz by default, and increasing the setting to 75Hz would make it noticeably less flickery.

> and now we are trying to do the same? you want to feel headache again?

The headaches were from when it was too low.

[–] dwb 2 days ago

That’s what I’m talking about. 80Hz was just enough to keep the headaches away for me and that was either impossible or came with other compromises for some monitors / video cards.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

HD matters a lot for sports. Big screens and nice sound help with movies, which DVD quality is usually good enough for, but certain movies deserve to be a theater or IMAX. It doesn't matter for most other things. I still watch stuff in 360p or 240p.

[–] libria 2 days ago

Big of you to assume I only watch "if the story is good".

The kids make me watch Transformers - completely devoid of suspense or consistency. That 4k 120Hz OLED is the only thing getting me through that gauntlet.

[–] apparent 3 days ago

Yes, I definitely remember noticing how much better TV was when we moved from 20" sets from last century to HD LCDs (and then much larger/higher-res LCDs) over the last 25 years.

And I would disagree that only the story matters. If that were the case, people wouldn't go to the theater (a trend that has started happening in the last 15 years as people have been able to rig their living rooms to give an experience that is nearly theater quality, especially when considering cost and convenience. When we had 20" TVs, they were no substitute for going to the movies.

[–] alexgoodhart 3 days ago

People had giant TV’s in the past as well. They are cheaper now.

Either way, a larger screen is not the same improvement as higher resolution. And more importantly, the reason people may not go to the movies when they have a home theater system is partly due to justifying the cost of the theater system.