BirdObserver

Oh yeah, it’s incredibly immersive. Got a lot of mileage out of an iPad with a pencil taking screenshots, scribbling out patterns and puzzles and working them out even when I didn’t have the game on. Even after figuring out everything in the manual and getting all the trophies the game still has a ton of mysteries and that rabbit hole goes deep.

This game looks like a lot of fun, but who in marketing approved that disaster of a title? It sounds like a straight to VHS children’s Christian video tape your grandma surprised you with after a visit to the dollar store in 1992.

Man, some of those old movies just look absolutely incredible in their 4K remasters. Lawrence of Arabia is another “holy shit” kind of movie that always looked good but I’ve never seen it look this good.

There’s a lot of newer movies that definitely just are lazy Blu-ray upscale transfers or just have an HDR layer applied with no thought at all (the worst example I’ve seen is The Bourne Identity), but thankfully there’s still an audience and publishers out there that understand that people still buying disc players are doing so because they want the best picture possible at home, so they do put some effort into it.

Another odd example I have is The Witch - the original 4K release had a basic HDR layer slapped onto it that blasted up the brightness and contrast and totally killed the mood (and was blasted by the director who actually told people not to buy it), but a later release had director oversight which had thoughtful HDR applied that preserves the tone. It really shows how important it is to actually adapt movies to the format to really get the intended effect.

2001: A Space Odyssey looks quite a bit different from the theatrical version, but damn if it doesn’t look incredible in 4K HDR on an OLED. Real showcase for those deep blacks and incredibly immersive.

Just being a nerd but LotR’s 4K release is technically a 2K upscale with a lot of DNR applied to smooth out the grain and make the overall package look more “digital.” Some of the VFX are lower resolution because that’s just what they had to work with, but they blend in better now and it totally makes sense why they did it this way for 4K. I still think it looks really great and I think it’s the best way to watch these movies outside of the theater, but I definitely understand why a lot of people don’t like it, given that the DNR actually removes detail and makes faces look pretty soft. Generally I’m opposed to messing with film grain, but LotR is already a hybrid of visual mediums so it makes sense here, but it also is understandable why it was a bit of a controversial release.

The first Blu-ray release definitely looked like washed-out crap, but there was a later version that rectified it, so I still think there’s some merit to that one. I haven’t seen it myself though.

Nerding aside, I agree with all your suggestions - I own all of these in 4K UHD and all look fantastic. And totally agree with surround sound - even a cheap home theater in a box is a massive upgrade to TV speakers and often better than a pricier soundbar.

No thanks mom, I saw how you made the syrup.

Not an issue I’ve seen with LG at least. Their OS is bad for the reasons I mentioned (apart from perfectly good standard “dumb” TV controls), but the hardware is great.

A TV just bricking basic functionality because it’s not on the internet would probably be grounds for a class action lawsuit here.

You can use pretty much any smart TV dumbly. The most obvious way to do so is to just not connect it to the internet, but if you want it on the network for certain things (like home automation), just don’t agree to the bullshit when you first power it on, create a login, or enable any of the ad-tracking junk disguised as features like “live TV plus” (which is often hidden across multiple menus). The Home Screen for it will forever look like a generic menu begging you to configure your TV, but if you have other stuff plugged into it you’ll hardly ever have to see it.

To really be sure you can use a raspberry pi running a pi-hole server to see if it’s phoning home at all. My LG does nothing online except when I have it pull an update in the rare instance that one comes out with an improvement I care about.

Using a digital signage screen is an interesting suggestion that comes up often, but if you’re a home theater junkie you might have trouble finding one of those at the same level of quality as the best smart TVs at a comparable price. There’s always a trade off to find between what you’re looking for, what you’re willing to deal with, and what you can work around.

As gross as the business is, I do appreciate all the people who blindly agree to all the data mining, privacy violating agreements on their shiny new TVs because they’re a lot of the reason why I can get a 77 inch OLED for so cheap. Manufacturers like LG, Sony and Samsung make some great hardware but their software is worse than Bonzi Buddy.

But yeah, I disable every bit of “smart” and AI functionality (replace it with an Apple TV or something that isn’t loaded with ads and constantly phoning home) and set the location to Albania (which also has the benefit of fully blocking some other “features” from even appearing as an option.

Man, I haven’t imported many games but that game and its sequel were some of the best gaming purchases I ever made.

Really tried to get into Osu (even looked into some of those digital drawing boards artists use, just to try to make it feel like the original) but to me the game just isn’t anywhere near the same without a stylus and a resistive touch screen - two things which are outdated tech now - so I don’t think I’ll ever get something that really recaptures it. I’m glad that the basic gameplay is still being kept alive though, even though what I really want I can never have.

Nothing’s dissuading me, I’m definitely gonna watch it. I’m just a bigger NIN fan than a Tron fan.

I HAVE broken discs in similar sets (Mr. Robot, Planet of the Apes) taking them out of those awful cases, and also had them arrived scratched up. Definitely check them closely when they arrive so you don’t realize (like I have) when you get to disc six a month later and realize it won’t play past 40 minutes. So many cheap box sets now have the same horrible packaging that ruins the discs.

When possible with those kinds of cases, I just rip out the horrible center disc holders, put the discs in sleeves and then put those in the case.