Does the average media consumer not care about image quality?

[Jdiesel 1431]

I have several non-techy family members connecting to my server remotely. Due to the way the default "Auto" quality setting works on my network "Auto" equates to 1Mbps even though my users and my server connections are capable of much higher bitrate. Needless to say every new device connected to the server and the occasional bug results in those devices defaulting back to the "Auto" setting.

 

 

So it has been approximately 2 months since a minor bug in the beta Roku apps caused all the Rokus connected to my server to default to Auto (1Mbps) quality and not one of my 5 users has complained about quality. All 5 users have their Roku's connected to 4K displays. I have tried getting them to switch the quality to 10Mbps manually which was tested by me to be the best balance of quality for our setups but after 2 months nobody has made the change. When I watch something at 1Mbps on my 4K display it looks like a blocky mess. I can understand the acceptance on a mobile device but not on your $1000 TV. Does the average person just not care? Or is my family just strange? They can be bothered to take the 10 seconds to make the switch and I have given up on trying to convenience them. /Rant  

[mastrmind11 722]

1Mbps on a large screen is very noticeable.  Perhaps a family trip to the ophthalmologist is in order?

[Jdiesel 1431]

1Mbps on a large screen is very noticeable.  Perhaps a family trip to the ophthalmologist is in order?

 

This might explain my parents....

[kanipek 230]

I was thinking about similar to this recently.  It seems like I am the only person that I know of that doesn't give a darn about - 4K, HDR movies or shows in my collection. I have ZERO. But what I do have are well encoded movies and shows that direct play everywhere and are crystal clear yet don't take up a butt-load of storage space.

 

I just don't understand that mindset of needing to have the highest bit rate on the planet.  I do have some vision difficulties, but that mostly is a problem with contrasts not clarity. 

 

Maybe I am just weird in this way.

[Jdiesel 1431]

I was thinking about similar to this recently.  It seems like I am the only person that I know of that doesn't give a darn about - 4K, HDR movies or shows in my collection. I have ZERO. But what I do have are well encoded movies and shows that direct play everywhere and are crystal clear yet don't take up a butt-load of storage space.

 

I just don't understand that mindset of needing to have the highest bit rate on the planet.  I do have some vision difficulties, but that mostly is a problem with contrasts not clarity. 

 

Maybe I am just weird in this way.

 

I had trouble finding an episode in HD of a TV series that I missed a few weeks back and settled for an SD version. The media info was:

Video
Title480p H264
CodecH264
AVCYes
ProfileHigh
Level31
Resolution720x404
Aspect ratio16:9
AnamorphicNo
InterlacedNo
Framerate23.976
Bitrate826 kbps
Color spacebt709
Bit depth8 bit
Pixel formatyuv420p
Ref frames1
NAL4

Audio
TitleEng AAC stereo Default
Languageeng
CodecAAC
ProfileLC
Layoutstereo
Channels2 ch
Bitrate192 kbps
Sample rate48,000 Hz
DefaultYes

In all honestly the quality was perfectly reasonable and after a minute or so I didn't even notice the difference anymore. Granted this was by no means a cinematic TV series where the visual/audio experience was crucial to enjoying it. 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Jdiesel

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

I do not consider myself "average" but I do not care much about image quality as long as the image is clear and without a lot of artifacts. That is I watch for content not for pretty pictures.

 

Of course I prefer a solid picture but I will not go out of my way to get it and I will not waste a lot of space on what, to me, is no more than marginal improvements.

 

Of course some of that is due to me being over 70 and therefore somewhat weakened eyes and ears. I do watch on a fairly large TV (55") from a pretty close position (my eyes are about 8' from the screen) but in normal viewing, even sports, I see nothing really wrong and none of my files exceed 2.8 GBs for a 2 hour movie, most are 1.3 to 1.5. (I know file size is not the only criteria for quality but there seems to be some correlation.)

 

4K, HDR or anything above good 1080p is meaningless for me and most of the time 720p is more than enough and for TV 480p is good. It takes something visually special for me to see any important difference between 480p and 1080p.

 

For me if the visuals are what makes a movie/TV show good/great then I have almost no interest in that show. For my enjoyment I require content with good acting and good screen play and good directing.

[Sammy 790]

How many 10Mbps streams can you do simultaneously? I have my server set to transcode at 4Mps for out of network and have 450/20 on Spectrum. Wish they'd give more on the upstream side.

 

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

[arrbee99 1815]

I like to think I care, well to some extent, but guess getting into 4K and HDR we're heading into the realm of diminishing returns. I finally got a decent 4K / HDR tv a month ago, and its very nice, but I haven't got any media to show it off properly, except for the odd 4K stuff you see on YT about Norwegian Fjords and gently waving flowers. The best I've got is compressed (hopefully nicely compressed) blurays. The new TV makes them look good as it apparently upscales well and adds its own HDR nicely.

 

The only thing we're really stuck with is OTA TV via dvb-s which is standard def, and at the bitrate they send it, does look pretty lousy.

[Jdiesel 1431]

How many 10Mbps streams can you do simultaneously? I have my server set to transcode at 4Mps for out of network and have 450/20 on Spectrum. Wish they'd give more on the upstream side.

 

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

I have a server colocated in a datacenter with a guaranteed 100/100 connection. My home connection is a pathetic 25/2 but they are building out the fibre network in my neighborhood as speak which with allow for an 120/40 connection at a very reasonable price Edited January 29, 2019 by Jdiesel

[Sammy 790]

Nobody cares much.. My family and friends never say a peep about PQ. I, OTOH seek perfection.

[clarkss12 304]

I have a 65 inch Samsung 4K TV, I said approximately 12 feet from the screen. The majority of my viewing media is the old TV shows from the 40s 50s and 60s, with a lot of them black and white. It took a while to get used to the poor quality, I thought about dragging my 19 inch CRT and put it next to my 4K TV, and watch that instead of the 4K TV.

 

I have gotten used to the low quality on my 4K display. I am now upgrading some of my movies to Blu-ray and 4K.

 

My sound system is far more important to me then the video quality.

 

My granddaughter and I usually have a movie night a couple times a week. She loves to crank up the sound, so it shakes the house.

 

So, video quality it's not that important to me, except for special occasions like movie night.

[StewieGreen 160]

I think if people cared the DVD sales wouldn't be as high as they are in relation to Bluray.  In the UK 2014 DVD sales were 124.9m, while bluray were 17.3m - and both were down from the previous year (thanks to streaming, likely).  And the difference in quality between 480 and 1080p is pretty striking (to me at least).

 

Another thing that really highlights to me that people don't care is the use zoom or stretch to get rid of black bars because of aspect ratio (my dad used to use it, drove me nuts).  It's my pet-peeve and I've berated people who have asked that (insert media server here) should add a stretch or zoom feature.

 

And from being on various forums and reddit I get the impression that a lot of people who download movies are getting really low bitrate ones because they see it's '1080p' and I guess that's good enough.

 

I think there's a consumer trend downwards not only in video quality but also in the quality of content.

[Jdiesel 1431]

I switched my parents TV over from Vivid to Movie back this fall because the neon green football field turn hurt my eyes

[jachin99 88]

I agree with the consumer quality downtrend. I think a lot of that can be attributed towards the move towards streaming without bandwidth infrastructure improvements from ISPs. From my personal experience convenience will almost always win over quality. I try my best to configure my software for both but there's almost always some sacrifice

[Luke 42077]

Another thing that really highlights to me that people don't care is the use zoom or stretch to get rid of black bars because of aspect ratio (my dad used to use it, drove me nuts).  It's my pet-peeve and I've berated people who have asked that (insert media server here) should add a stretch or zoom feature.

 

@@adamstewiegreen

The Emby web app will have aspect ratio adjustment in the video player in the upcoming Emby Server 4.3 release. Thanks.

[StewieGreen 160]

Thanks Luke! Look forward to it

[miniliQuid 94]

Honestly for me this all comes down to multiple aspects.

I used to watch like the lowest kind of qualities, and I am pretty close to my TV.

My TV however was pretty small so it wasn't easily visible how bad it actually was.

 

Now that I have upgraded to a large 4K TV, the first thing I noticed was that I had to redo my whole library cause it looked terrible.

My internet isn't that great though and I am still close to the TV so sometimes with lower quality files the problem is still there.

However when watching on the smaller TV, or when adding distance the lower quality is much less of an issue.