Game of Thrones ... because why not

[SR]

A lot of complaints of the latest episode being too dark for a lot of viewers. Hopefully not for this crowd. Watching it on my monitor in a darkened room, It wasn't much of a problem. But I can't remember the last time a color grade became the news. I do love the often painterly quality of the light in this show (although I do wish there was a bit more punch with the contrast).

 

 

[thebrothersthre3]

My sister complained about it. I don't watch the show so I don't know though. I do hate stuff that is difficult to see. Works for some situations but for action I like to see everything well.

[AlexTrinder96]

Biggest problem for me was the compression; Sky Now made it look crap tbh! Should look gorgeous on blu ray though...

[IronFilm]

NO SPOILERS PLEASE

[SR]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

NO SPOILERS PLEASE

The BTS will spoil it for you, if you haven't watched it. Best to avoid the thread until you do.

[Anaconda_]

The cinematographer is defending his work.

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/4/30/18524679/game-of-thrones-battle-of-winterfell-too-dark-fabian-wagner-response-cinematographer

"people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly” .... “We tried to give the viewers and fans a cool episode to watch,” he said. “I know it wasn’t too dark because I shot it.”

Well... I tried to give my wife a 4 course meal. I know it tasted great, because I cooked it. If she didn't like it, its because her tastebuds are wrong.

[thebrothersthre3]

I've found out outside of theaters its better to have more contrasty shots in the dark. Otherwise compression and bad quality screens kind of ruins it. 

[no_connection]

I don't watch game of thrones but I could definitely watch the bts.

I would guess the biggest problem of it being too dark is clipping to video level that many phones do, even tho it should have been viewed in full range.

I really don't think the guy can pull the "they have badly calib..." it just means he don't understand how ppl view the content or don't care.

The source material on a good screen probably looked great tho even it it was dark, after usual compression (that murders anything dark by design) probably not so much.

[Geoff CB]

I disliked  it in Arrival and Solo, and it grated me here. Not everyone has great screens, or watches the show in the dark, or on a Dolby certified HDR monitor.  Contrast is your friend.

[Video Hummus]

I heard if you max your contrast and brightness you can see the ghostly specters of long dead characters eating popcorn during the battle scene.

[thebrothersthre3]

14 minutes ago, Geoff CB said:

I disliked  it in Arrival and Solo, and it grated me here. Not everyone has great screens, or watches the show in the dark, or on a Dolby certified HDR monitor.  Contrast is your friend.

I only saw both movies in theaters, but didn't notice anything unusual. I did notice that in Captain Marvel a lot of scenes were really dimly lit to the point where it was annoying. Action scenes mainly.

[Kisaha]

It was definitely dim. I was waiting for a very big file to show up (5GB) and even that was too dark.

I watched on my OLED on a custom day profile (it is brighter than my usual night custom) with dim lights and it was very difficult to follow at times. The dragons fight also, that was a mess. They should have used some colors or something to make the dragons stand out, same for the soldiers.

The strategy on the battlefield was a complete mess also. I read about history and historical battles, and the whole thing was disappointing. 

They didn't do any reconnaissance, they send their shock troops (cavalry) first without even knowing the enemy (cavalry never utilized with such a way in history), they had only one line of defense just a few meters from their walls, they had their machines in the second or 3rd line(wtf!), while the dead were at the ring of fire they were just looking at them (wtf2!use your arrows!), totaly mis-used their tactical advantage of 2 dragons (air support), the strategy in the walls was subpar, at best e.t.c

The whole thing was impressive though and the director kept the rythm very well in my opinion. Certainly great television.

Took them 55 nights to shoot, by the way. 55 for a TV episode must be somw kind of record.

What happened to the Direwolf?! It was there for 333 frames, and then gone as a Ghost!

 

[AlexTrinder96]

Interesting that they shot a decent amount with a 90° shutter. There are a few Steadicam scenes where it seems more noticeable. Great BTS

[Andrew Reid]

Sounds like HDMI black levels are wrong on quite a few displays out there.

And perhaps on computers too.

Display calibration has always been borderline fucked on Mac OS.

[UncleBobsPhotography]

HBO Nordic stream in 5Mbps while Amazon Prime is supposed to have considerably higher bit rate. My HBO subscription is through a 3rd party which relies on HBO Nordic. They have never released an episode on time, and for the second episode it seems like they completely forgot about it because it was a public holiday. In other words, I don't trust them to provide an ideal viewer experience, and the 3rd episode was a dark porridge on my screen. It's a shame they're investing so much into visuals when the last leg of delivery ruins the results, but I also partly blame whoever decided to only use 20% of the histogram for the entire episode. Maybe we need video codecs that normalizes the gamma and adjust it after compression, a bit like how GIF chooses the colour palette based on the picture.

EDIT: I downloaded the 5GB version of the episode now, and that version is perfectly fine as long as you ignore the banding and watch it in a dark room. It's completely different from whatever I streamed the day after release.

[sanveer]

I could be wrong but the cameras were too noisy for the night shots. Either they were conservative with lighting or poor choice of lenses or something else. 

[graphicnatured]

Speaking of dark, but unrelated. My buddy and I bought tickets to see The Passion of the Christ, but by the time we entered the theater the movie had already started. The beginning of that movie is pitch black so we couldn't find our seats. I didn't even know if I was standing in the aisle or in front of someone. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. It was both uncomfortable and hilarious for a very inconvenient amount of time. First world problems, considering the film we were trying to watch.

[chadandreo]

I had no issues watching it on my Vizio 4K TV which is calibrated using the HBO Go App on my Apple TV 4K. Most people set their TVs to a Vivid high contrast profile with HFR on and wonder why some shows and movies dont render properly.  I had no issues watching it on my Vizio 4K TV which is calibrated using the HBO Go App on my Apple TV 4K. Most people set their TVs to a Vivid high contrast profile with HFR on and wonder why some shows and movies dont render properly.  

[SR]

Most folks don't even realize calibrating their screens is a thing. So I'm all of a show like GoT pushing people to realize that. It comes off as elitist, but I don't think everything should be egalitarian just for the sake of it. Hell, because of this show, I even got a chance to explain to my friend (who wouldn't bother otherwise) to turn the motion smoothing effect on her TV, something that would have never happened otherwise. Because she really wanted to experience the show as it was meant to be.

[KnightsFan]

I don't watch GoT so maybe the few images I've seen online are misleading, but it looks unnecessarily dark to me. Compare the screenshot at the top of this page

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/4/30/18524679/game-of-thrones-battle-of-winterfell-too-dark-fabian-wagner-response-cinematographer

With another nighttime battle:

https://images.app.goo.gl/3wP5kc7T9JKKCi7m7

The LotR image is obviously nighttime: it's dark, bluish, and moody, and yet the faces are bright enough to see without any trouble, and there are spots of actual pure white in the reflections. It's the job of the cinematographer to give the impression of darkness while keeping the image clear and easy to understand.

If it were an end-user calibration problem, everyone would be complaining about every other movie as well. It seems like something was different here.