Your very petty pet hates

[PC66]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

Another hate of mine is people who watch TV at the wrong Aspect ratio!

Definitely! Engineers spent a lot of time in the development of television perfecting designs to ensure good picture geometry with perfectly linear scanning, etc. And now so many people seem to work on the principle of "I have a wide screen, so I must have a picture which fills the entire width," even when the source material is 4:3, and deliberately distort the picture in order to achieve that.

The broadcasters aren't always too careful either. Sometimes you'll see a format change for, say, a commercial break, then after the return to the show it's in the wrong format for a minute or so until somebody eventually notices and switches it back. Or on the digital feeds they sometimes set the format flags incorrectly; I've seen instances in which 4:3 material was showing correctly on the analogue broadcast, but with a digital receiver coupled to a conventional 4:3 TV and set for letterbox widescreen mode, the format flags resulted in seeing a 4:3 image set within the widescreen frame which was itself then letterboxed into the 4:3 display, i.e. a 4:3 picture of the correct aspect ratio, but not filling an entire 4:3 screen leaving blank areas all around.

And then there are the widescreen-produced shows (not 16:9, but often a compromise widescreen) which include clips of older 4:3 material which has been expanded in order to fill most of the width, cropping off large amounts of the top and bottom of the original picture.

It's really become an absolute mess.

[Sly]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

I've seen TV shows where not only are the tops and bottoms have been chopped, but also the left and right.

Really anything made after the late 00's should be full widescreen with 1080p. High Definition has sort of standardised the format globally so we'll have hopefully seen the back of the old 4:3 or lesser scan lines making stuff look like a mess. Well, that's how I understand it anyway. The NTSC and PAL cause a few problems I can fathom, especially in games where they couldn't be bothered to port right so they ended up running slower on PAL machines.

[Wirral Writer]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

I've seen TV shows where not only are the tops and bottoms have been chopped, but also the left and right.

Really anything made after the late 00's should be full widescreen with 1080p. High Definition has sort of standardised the format globally so we'll have hopefully seen the back of the old 4:3 or lesser scan lines making stuff look like a mess. Well, that's how I understand it anyway. The NTSC and PAL cause a few problems I can fathom, especially in games where they couldn't be bothered to port right so they ended up running slower on PAL machines.

Another thing that I hate is the sound on today's DVD movies. The sound of the dialogue is so disproportionate to the actual sound effects, being too low in comparison to the excessively loudness of the sound effects. Why the hell should we have to keep raising the volume of our TV sets to hear what the actors are saying - then suddenly jump out of our skins at the sound of, for example, gunfire, explosions etc.

Isn't it about time DVD film producers started doing about the terrible sound quality on today's DVDs?

[Sly]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

The sound mixing is terrible in most things. I think they should do away with the 1 to 100 volume scale and replace it with a decibel scale. Make it a standard. 1 to 100 can mean anything. If you are outputting xxdb then you are outputting xxdb, it's an actual measured unit.

Also, casting should stop bringing people who mumble on films and tv. If you cannot control the words that come out of your mouth as an actor you're not worth my time.

[PC66]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

If you are outputting xxdb then you are outputting xxdb, it's an actual measured unit.

The decibel is actually a measure of relative power, so saying that something is so many dB without specifying the reference point doesn't actually give an absolute measurement of level.

For example, you could compare two signals and say that one is 6dB higher in level than the other, which would mean that the higher signal is four times the power of the lower one (in round figures). But to just say something like "the level is 6dB" is meaningless by itself without a reference point. There are standard reference points which are commonly used though, such as 1 milliwatt, to which other levels are compared using dBm (i.e. decibels relative to 1mW). So 6dBm means 6dB above the 1mW reference point, or 4mW, while -6dBm means 6dB below 1mW, or 0.25mW.

There was a trend in the 1980's for home audio equipment to start putting meaningless scales on both volume controls and on the LED power indicators which suddenly became the "in thing" for a while. And some resorted to putting dB scales on them which weren't actually calibrated in decibels at all - Clearly attempts to make it "look more technical" but which in reality were equally as meaningless as the arbitrary 1 to 5, 1 to 10 or whatever.

[amethyst]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

Feel like venting having a good old grumble
The national Lottery a £1 of hope for most people hoping for a decent win for a new life changing experience retire early and no financial worries!
if you cant get 3 numbers for £10 what hope do you have for getting the six,unless luck is on your side you have no chance it is like chucking your pounds down the drain think of how much you have spent since 1993 and add up your winnings of small prizes.

[Romany Jones.]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

Whilst we're at it......the BBC for loosing or scrubbing a lot of early TV shows......what on earth were they playing at.....oh I know....saving money.

[Wirral Writer]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

The sound mixing is terrible in most things. I think they should do away with the 1 to 100 volume scale and replace it with a decibel scale. Make it a standard. 1 to 100 can mean anything. If you are outputting xxdb then you are outputting xxdb, it's an actual measured unit.

Also, casting should stop bringing people who mumble on films and tv. If you cannot control the words that come out of your mouth as an actor you're not worth my time.

I totally agree. The sound quality on these modern dvd is appalling! The horror jump-scare movies are the worst, necessitating you having to raise the volume of your TV to hear what the actors are saying - only to be shocked out of your sking when a jump-scare moment comes. What idiot decided to mess around with the sound of the DVDs??

[DemonEyeX]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

Another thing that I hate is the sound on today's DVD movies. The sound of the dialogue is so disproportionate to the actual sound effects, being too low in comparison to the excessively loudness of the sound effects. Why the hell should we have to keep raising the volume of our TV sets to hear what the actors are saying - then suddenly jump out of our skins at the sound of, for example, gunfire, explosions etc.

Isn't it about time DVD film producers started doing about the terrible sound quality on today's DVDs?

I totally agree. The sound quality on these modern dvd is appalling! The horror jump-scare movies are the worst, necessitating you having to raise the volume of your TV to hear what the actors are saying - only to be shocked out of your sking when a jump-scare moment comes. What idiot decided to mess around with the sound of the DVDs??

This is just one of the many reasons that I refuse to watch modern movies (with a few exceptions).
I haven't watched a new Hollywood movie for over 10 years now, I spend my movie time catching up with amazing films from the past.

For those of you that do watch these silly loud explosion filled movies, a lot of home cinema amplifiers have a quiet/midnight/whatever mode which when enabled will level out all the sounds, making dialogue more audible & effects quieter.
However, this is far from the perfect solution.

[Wirral Writer]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

This is just one of the many reasons that I refuse to watch modern movies (with a few exceptions).
I haven't watched a new Hollywood movie for over 10 years now, I spend my movie time catching up with amazing films from the past.

For those of you that do watch these silly loud explosion filled movies, a lot of home cinema amplifiers have a quiet/midnight/whatever mode which when enabled will level out all the sounds, making dialogue more audible & effects quieter.
However, this is far from the perfect solution.

I could do with one of those noise-reduction functions on my telly! I hate these modern movies with their over-amplified sound effects and poor dialogue.

[amethyst]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

The end of the summer the nights getting darker earlier, autumn on the way then its all down hill:cry:

[PC66]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

Something that's been niggling me more and more recenty: Government departments referring to me as a "customer."

As far as I'm concerned, if I'm a customer that means I can choose to whom I give my custom. With the DVLA, DWP, local council, and all the other government bodies which are now using this term, I'm forced to deal with them. If I had a choice, I certainly would not give my "custom" to these incompetent and arrogant official bodies.

[victorbrunswick]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

People whose only cultural references are TV shows and characters. A friend of mine was admiring a mahogany bookcase that had been in my family for years and he called it an "Andy Griffith" bookcase. It seems that there was a similar bookcase on the set of that particular TV show. And, of course, I didn't know what he was talking about as I'm not a particularly avid TV watcher. On other occasions this same friend will attribute an expression I frequently use to a character on another one of his favorite TV shows, never mind the fact that I've used that expression for years and I've never seen the TV show in question!

[Richard1978]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

Me & my family have some odd nicknames for things & people, a bit like that.

[Powdered toast man]

Re: Your very petty pet hates

The word 'solutions' i.e 'Delivering sustainable logistics solutions, Building solutions, Glazing solutions, Renewable energy solutions, Bathroom tile solutions etc etc. Why? I once saw a van that said 'Seafood Solutions' on it's back door. I never new seafood had problems! Any kind of corporate/marketing jargon tends to boil my blood.