Is the general public's expectation of video quality going down?

[lingyi]

Okay, I've ranted and been berated in the the past for believing in "Movies/videos the way they were meant to be seen", or at least the best way possible (large, 55"+ tweaked/calibrated HDTV) at home. But a recent thread about 720p vs 1080p quality got me to thinking, is the general public's expectation of video quality going down, especially this generation?

Movie theater screens are getting smaller and often not correctly calibrated or maintained, home HDTVs are getting larger, but the quality of most of them restrained by cost, especially the $299 55" specials, and ironically, conversely, videos are often viewed on tiny phone or tablet screens.

Bottom line is a very small minority are viewing "Movies/videos the way they were meant to be seen" in the theater or at home and I wonder whether the next generation (or possibly already this generation) will have a very different definition what a quality movie/video presentation is.

[Iamback]

Like you said, many are happy streaming video from a phone, and think the quality is great.
The quality bar is definitely going down

[smrpix]

Yes and no. Most movies still look better on a phone than what used to be available on an SD CRT.

[jagabo]

Compared to VHS?

[Barrythecrab]

It’s certainly an interesting question/observation. My three Canons are all full HD (60i/30p/24fps) and I’ve lost a little interest in filming events because I feel my equipment is no longer relevant as it’s not 4K. Big screens getting bigger, small screens getting better, it’s not like I’m taping the next great documentary or whatever but I feel like I’m scratching images on a clay tablet. Then I remember “content is king”. Sadly for me, content in 4K is kingy-er. It’s a silly attitude I need to overcome because my audience is YouTube and friends on Facebook, and two decent 4K cameras are simply not in my budget today and tomorrow ain’t looking good either.

[lingyi]

The evolution of home video quality from VHS to 4K is interesting.

VHS/Beta quality with the introduction of Super VHS and SuperBeta at their highest speeds were arguably close in resolution, if not in other areas (color, chroma, luma) to broadcast TV as seen on home sets, but people still insisted on using EP/SLP or BIII. Few people owned broadcast/presentation quality monitors so it's understandable.

By the early '80's, the much higher quality laserdisc was available, but it didn't catch on primarily because of the lack of recording capability and again, most home sets didn't really show the improved quality. I test recorded a few laserdiscs on ED Beta and while the quality was close, the difference was noticeable on my PVM2530 presentation monitor.

When DVDs and HDTVs were introduced and CSS was cracked, super compressed single and double CDs (700MB and 1400MB) XVID files were popular. Again, probably acceptable because many people still owned SD TVs.

Now that Blu-Ray and UHD discs and 1080p and 4K HDTVs are available, some people still insist that super compressed 720P files are "good enough" for viewing on their <55" HDTVs and phones/tablets.

Which brings us back to the question on of my topic. It seems to me that this is first generation who has truly (at least in general terms, I'm still hoping for true 4K cinema graded releases) high quality media and the displays to match, yet many insist that "good enough" is the order of the day. Whether it's an overly compressed version of an already overly compressed (compared to the 2TB+ masters) or watching on a tiny screen.

A couple of notes.

I don't consider myself a true videophile, since I've never had access to professionally shot videos and what I consider excellent for the home may only be considered very good by professionals. I just have an interest in what's the best available for the general mid to high end consumer.

A friend introduced me to Running Man , described as [a Korean] urban variety show which is largely unscripted and at its core is a sophisticated version of tag with mini games. I used to try and discuss the latest episode with him, but because he usually casually watches on his phone, we're unable to discuss the subtle actions and facial expressions of the cast members and guests that make the show so popular.

[dellsam34]

People are for convenience nowadays, Quality is a distant second except for the videophiles. Also this generation takes video quality for granted, I remember when I use to look forward for the next VHS-C or Video8 camcorder model to see what's the latest in terms of video quality, the same for TV's, from a classic tube to cylindrical Trinitron, to flat tube and then 16/9 and HD, those were the fun days. Now everything is done through the phone, taking videos and photos, watching movies, checking the surveillance cameras....etc.

[lingyi]

I just thought of a possible sad future for theaters. We already have Silent Library dance clubs where the music is fed over individual headphones and I foresee (maybe they're already a thing) theaters without big screens, but instead individual screens on the backs of seats or VR type headsets. The audio can be fed piped over the audio system or though individual headphones. *SIGH*

I just had another thought. Arguably, some YouTube and other streaming videos are intended to be viewed on a small screen, so they are being viewed as intended. However the quality or lack of it is still an issue IMO.

[teodz1984]

It is still a different experience watching a movie on a fullscreen movieTheater

[lordsmurf]

Quality requires effort. Never underestimate how lazy the general public can be.

Quality requires investment. Never underestimate how cheap the general public can be. (This means anti-China rhetoric is largely hot air, verbal farting, as people love their cheap Chinese crapola.)

Another problem is that people are also often duplicitous. Their own video quality can look like garbage, and "it's fine". But video done by others are criticized to hell and back, even where the quality may have only minor flaws (as perfection is rarely possible). Never underestimate the buffoonery and bile of keyboard warriors.

My issue with viewing on a phone is actually not with the video quality, but rather audio quality. Phones sounds like garbage, the end. Same goes for headphones/earbuds, quality is tinny crap. I don't need my guts rumbled by obnoxious 3/5/7/etc.1 subs, but I also prefer that the audio (bass especially) doesn't sound like a squeaky kid in the midst of puberty. I detest watching tiny screens, but audio is often the real dealbreaker. Rarely do you have low video quality with good audio.

[ChapmanDolly]

Lordsmurf, I think your analysis is spot on.
Barrythecrab, I, like you shoot in HD. Yes, 4k is nice to have but not something you "need". Though I have a YouTube channel, first and foremost I am making
videos for me. I am then sharing them for others if they are interested.
What I do do, is upscale my HD to UHD for uploading to YT. This combats a lot of the artifacts that are introduced by YTs re-encoding. It also means that the VP6 codec is used for replay. Again, though, I am doing this for me first.
I would say don't be discouraged from making good content to the best of your ability just because you haven't got the latest gear.

[lordsmurf]

first and foremost I am making videos for me. I am then sharing them for others if they are interested.
I am doing this for me first.

But you're not. So you can't have that attitude. You're making it for others. That's like studios saying video is "for them", and they're just sharing, so you'll have to accept whatever quality they do. Obviously that won't fly.

The only time you're "sharing" something is when you didn't make it, and are simply passing on what you found -- without making it worse, which is another huge problem, always has been in tape/DVD/download sharing scenes. Youtube has never been about "sharing", as that tends to run afoul of their (sometimes draconian) rules. Anything that is truly shared is flying under their radar.

Creating isn't sharing.
Consumption isn't sharing.

Lordsmurf, I think your analysis is spot on.

To add to my post, another issue is education.

Video has a learning curve, and some degree of education is required to perform the tasks. Self-taught or school-taught. Never underestimate how anti-education a large % the general public can be, especially in the past decade. Embracing stupidity and shunning "book learnin'" seems to be a pasttime for a segment of society. Facts, truths, and science just get in the way of their head-in-sand worldviews. It isn't just politics, but infests every aspect of those people's lives. From what they eat, to what they drive, to hobbies and tasks in which they partake. They'll do whatever they want to do, and misunderstood concepts are ignored or ignorantly addressed. Any attempt to correct them is met by defensiveness and stubbornness. Anti-education igoramuses always seem to find each other online, herding together on sites like Youtube.

[_Al_]

lordsmurf - they are being distracted. I remember going into a library decades ago and browsing thru books with different topics, it used to be so exciting, find a book, bring it home and learn and be amazed. Point was we could stay on subject in relaxed pace. Today you start to do something, anything, and distractions would just block it. No relax approach to stay on subject and learn it slowly. I can see it what kids do now. That term "slowly" is important. Because relationship is built at the same time to a particular subject.

[ChapmanDolly]

Lordsmurf, I am making them for me. I get the pleasure of going out and shooting them, editing them, and doing audio post. In other words, it is the creative process that is my hobby. So, instead of the word "sharing", let's say that I have made them available to view by others who are interested in the subject matter.
I was trying to give encouragement to barrythecrab as he was feeling a bit disheartened by not having a 4k camera.

[lingyi]

To add to my post, another issue is education.

Video has a learning curve, and some degree of education is required to perform the tasks. Self-taught or school-taught. Never underestimate how anti-education a large % the general public can be, especially in the past decade. Embracing stupidity and shunning "book learnin'" seems to be a pasttime for a segment of society. Facts, truths, and science just get in the way of their head-in-sand worldviews. It isn't just politics, but infests every aspect of those people's lives. From what they eat, to what they drive, to hobbies and tasks in which they partake. They'll do whatever they want to do, and misunderstood concepts are ignored or ignorantly addressed. Any attempt to correct them is met by defensiveness and stubbornness. Anti-education igoramuses always seem to find each other online, herding together on sites like Youtube.

A big part of this is because of The Paradox of Choice available through the internet. People read your video capture guides and recommended hardware articles, then watch Youtube or read other articles and come here asking for yet other opinions, choosing to ignore everything except what's cheapest, easiest or fits their preconceived idea of how things should be done.

Right now there's yet another thread (which is what inspired this thread) https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395300-For-same-bitrate-which-looks-better-between...720p-and-1080p. The answers given so far are the same at their core, 'it depends' and 'it's subjective', the only answers that can be given without seeing samples of the encoding of the original source. What really gets me so often in these types of posts is that the OP isn't new to this forum, being a member since 2017 and you would think he/she knows how to perform a search on this site before making his/her post.

As is typical for for this type of thread, the OP will either give up because he/she's confused or not satisfied by the answers given, or wait until someone posts "720p looks great on my cheapa$$ 32" HDTV" and thank the poster and go on his/her way.

On another recent thread, the OP was going back and forth with the members about video quality (I think it was about encoding settings) before revealing he was watching the videos on his 19" laptop saying the quality was good enough since he didn't even own a HDTV!

Edit: The OP in this thread https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395153-Ripping-VHS-tapes-to-MP4#post2567356 really got my goat when after pointing him/her to your guides and explaining why his equipment and $50 budget wasn't enough to do the job properly, stated after getting all but two of his macrovision protected tapes captured: "Moral, it you really just want to convert home movies there is no need to spend big bucks.". I don't care about the quality of his/her captures are, but it bugs me that someone is going to read the "Moral" and expect high quality output.

[lordsmurf]

Lordsmurf, I am making them for me. I get the pleasure of going out and shooting them, editing them, and doing audio post. In other words, it is the creative process that is my hobby. So, instead of the word "sharing", let's say that I have made them available to view by others who are interested in the subject matter.

I still vehemently disagree. I enjoy my work as well, but it's not "for me" unless nobody else watches it (literally nobody, not even family or friends). If anybody else will watch it, it is not, and never was, just for me.

I was trying to give encouragement to barrythecrab as he was feeling a bit disheartened by not having a 4k camera.

I don't even have an HD camera, just SD DV cameras. My dSLR has HD 1080p60, though I rarely use it. Shooting isn't my main video skill, my work begins after others have shot it.

No relax approach to stay on subject and learn it slowly. .

This is a problem for folks of all ages. It actually gets harder to focus/concentrate as you age, so kids these days are probably screwed later in life. Alzheimer's is on the rise, and may one day become an epidemic. And it has no real overlap with the age skewing (more Boomers). Trouble concentrating is often a precursor to the disease. Scary stuff.

On another recent thread, the OP was going back and forth with the members about video quality (I think it was about encoding settings) before revealing he was watching the videos on his 19" laptop saying the quality was good enough since he didn't even own a HDTV!

Such a cop-out excuse. The garbage quality looks "fine" because the viewer/screen is also garbage.

I used to joke that certain scarce hobby videos (VCDs, nth gen tapes) were only fine to watch in my kitchen on the 13" SD TV set. But at no time would I have been dumb enough to argue the quality was "fine" because the crappy TV acted as a filter. Unfortunately, not everybody has such restraint, choosing instead to argue.

The OP in this thread https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395153-Ripping-VHS-tapes-to-MP4#post2567356 really got my goat when after pointing him/her to your guides and explaining why his equipment and $50 budget wasn't enough to do the job properly, stated after getting all but two of his macrovision protected tapes captured: "Moral, it you really just want to convert home movies there is no need to spend big bucks.". I don't care about the quality of his/her captures are, but it bugs me that someone is going to read the "Moral" and expect high quality output.

Great example. That goober poster was giddy as a puppy when he found an article that gave in to his preconceived cheapskate notions.

But look deeper.

The author is one Whitson Gordon, a self-described "tech writer" for places like Lifehacker and iFixIt. The "article" in question is a sparse overview lacking in details that matter, details that make or break quality, or even capture-ability.

In other words, not somebody truly skilled at video, and his video skills are obvious BS to anybody that actually knows about video. He simply parroted/rewrote something (terrible) found all over place, as has been rewritten for at least a decade now. He'd never work at a video publication, he'd be laughed/chided out of the building.

I was already teaching video to others when he was in elementary school.

I used to relish talking to "experts" like this, as I could confuse them with a sparse sprinkling of jargon terms that made their eyes glaze over and shut them up. Like a monkey wrench to their voice box: "Uhh, uhh, uhh."

The sites he does write for, by contract, often aim for lowest acceptability, in terms of quality or methodology. Lifehacker is place were you find both excellent and awful advice in one location. Sometimes the "articles" (mind vomit?) are downright ridiculous nonsense. It's also a pseudo content mill, where anybody with a pulse, and coherent non-gibberish writing (ie, paying attention in HS English class, maybe even JrHS Engish class), can be a "writer".

Information: bogus.
Author: unqualified.
Reader: gullible, unable to vet sources.

[lingyi]

I used to joke that certain scarce hobby videos (VCDs, nth gen tapes) were only fine to watch in my kitchen on the 13" SD TV set. But at no time would I have been dumb enough to argue the quality was "fine" because the crappy TV acted as a filter. Unfortunately, not everybody has such restraint, choosing instead to argue.

This is the crux of my starting this thread. It seems that this generation and probably the next don't know or appreciate quality since they don't have or [choose] to ignore those devices or locations (i.e. large screen theaters) that will properly display their movies and videos.

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I watched a few music performance clips from one of my favorite reality shows (1080p) on my 40" LCD. I usually casually watch them on my PC monitor (a 20" 5:4 Dell, I don't like widescreen for a monitor) and was surprised how good they looked on my HDTV. I then excitedly watched them on my 55" plasma and was disappointed as the artifacts that weren't obvious on the monitor or 40" HDTV were glaringly obvious on the big screen. If I didn't have the larger screen to watch it on, I would have said the video was fine. Someday when I upgrade to a larger set, I'll probably scale down the video size (I use a laptop for my media player) so the artifacts aren't so obvious.

[ChapmanDolly]

Lordsmurf, I think we will have to agree to disagree, let's move on.

[lordsmurf]

let's move on.

[ozymango]

Bottom line is a very small minority are viewing "Movies/videos the way they were meant to be seen" in the theater or at home and I wonder whether the next generation (or possibly already this generation) will have a very different definition what a quality movie/video presentation is.

It's always fun to complain 'bout stuff, and you'll get no argument from me contra to the statement that you'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the [shopping/viewing/average] public , but really there is such an amazingly positive number of quality options out there nowadays when it comes to audio/video/technology/etc that I'm not going to get myself too worked up about it.

In my own case, I grew up at a time when if I wanted to make a movie, I had to do it on very expensive (for me) 8mm cameras, where a 50-ft roll of film (about 5 minutes of screen time) and processing set me back about eight bucks (when I was making a little over three bucks an hour), and editing and sound and all that ... well, I could dream.

If kids today don't appreciate the mind-blowing quality options they've got, for so little cost, then that's because people take things for granted. People have always taken things for granted. You can just do it very loudly nowadays, thanks to social media.

I don't know what the general public think about much of anything any more because I don't think it would be possible for me to care any less about what other people think.

[johnmeyer]

If I ever write a book, it will be called "The Death of Quality."

The first chapter will be how those of my parents' generation (WWII) and my generation ("baby boomers") were obsessed with audio quality. There were many, many stores which had amplifiers, speakers, turntables, pre-amps, and more, all trying to outdo each other to produce the best sonic experience. The point isn't whether most people were able to achieve their goal, but rather that they wanted to get that quality.

It mattered.

The introduction of MP3, then the iPod, and then streaming changed all that. Convenience was all that mattered. People started spending more time organizing and tagging their music than actually listening to it. They no longer cared about audio quality and the sonic experience, and most tolerated the hollow rasping artifacts that are all-too-common with compressed music. To the extent they even thought about fidelity, they might get some Bose speakers which produce synthesized, fake bass, and provide a soundstage illusion rather than the real thing.

The next chapters would deal with video, movie film and then with things outside the range of things discussed in this forum.

The problem is not that many companies manufacture junk, because that has always been true. The problem is that the culture has shifted.

[lingyi]

It is still a different experience watching a movie on a fullscreen movieTheater

Absolutely! But so is an IMAX movie viewed at home, even in the most sophisticated home theater versus in an IMAX theater. People ooh and awe at how great the quality on their home screen is while ignoring the fact that it's not how it was intended to be viewed.

[dellsam34]

It's all now Alexa, bluetooth speakers, sound bars, smart phones and tablets. I walked in the Frys store last week and I was shocked to see all the AVR's, speakers, subwoofers, desktops, laptops all gone and replaced by so called smart devices, What a shame.