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Many shows I purchase from iTunes TV shows app are in SD!
- Thread starter nickdalzell1
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Are you sure about that?
There’s even an article about why Babylon 5 looks bad.
‘Babylon 5’ is great, so why does it look so bad?
When the histories of this golden age of television are written, they will likely begin with The Sopranos. But that would be a mistake because the template a lot of modern-day TV copies was instead created by Babylon 5. A decade before The Wire would be hailed as a "novel for television," B5 was...
www.engadget.com
As has been pointed out, SD content is never going to look at good as native HD/4K content. Especially on today’s large 4K TVs. It simply isn’t possible to add quality that isn’t there. I know it isn’t what you want to hear, OP, but you just have to get used to that. I do have a suggestion for you to try to get the best viewing experience you can.
What I would suggest is to stop futzing with the TV/ATV settings all the time. Get the settings to a point where you are mostly happy with them and leave them. Now... for the older content that was shot in 4:3 aspect ratio it is going to have black bars on the sides. So instead of stretching it using your TV settings, use the ATV’s zooming feature. When watching 4:3 SD content if you double tap on the ATV remote track pad it will zoom in the picture on your screen. Keep in mind, though, that this will cut off the top and the bottom of the frame. But at least it won’t be distorted.
The settings I’d suggest for your ATV are Format = 4K HDR; Chroma = 4:2:2; Match Content = OFF for both options. I think this might give you a pretty good picture when viewing SD content.
As for the quality of Babylon 5... there are no HD sources available for this show. It hasn’t been remastered, nor will it ever be. Refer to the article linked to a few posts up. The digital version available on iTunes, Amazon, etc. are all transfers taken from the original DVD releases, which were also terrible. Farscape, though, is available in HD. Since it is an upscaled remaster, though, it won’t look as good as content originally shot in HD.
As I mentioned, I know this isn’t exactly what you want to hear because you want all content to look like new 4K HDR content on your TV. But hopefully these settings suggestions will help you get to the best picture you can with older content.
What I would suggest is to stop futzing with the TV/ATV settings all the time. Get the settings to a point where you are mostly happy with them and leave them. Now... for the older content that was shot in 4:3 aspect ratio it is going to have black bars on the sides. So instead of stretching it using your TV settings, use the ATV’s zooming feature. When watching 4:3 SD content if you double tap on the ATV remote track pad it will zoom in the picture on your screen. Keep in mind, though, that this will cut off the top and the bottom of the frame. But at least it won’t be distorted.
The settings I’d suggest for your ATV are Format = 4K HDR; Chroma = 4:2:2; Match Content = OFF for both options. I think this might give you a pretty good picture when viewing SD content.
As for the quality of Babylon 5... there are no HD sources available for this show. It hasn’t been remastered, nor will it ever be. Refer to the article linked to a few posts up. The digital version available on iTunes, Amazon, etc. are all transfers taken from the original DVD releases, which were also terrible. Farscape, though, is available in HD. Since it is an upscaled remaster, though, it won’t look as good as content originally shot in HD.
As I mentioned, I know this isn’t exactly what you want to hear because you want all content to look like new 4K HDR content on your TV. But hopefully these settings suggestions will help you get to the best picture you can with older content.
See now I’d recommend 4K SDR with both match options set to on as that way you won’t need to mess with settings at all when watching different content.
The double tap on the track pad though didn’t even occur to me, I’ve enabled it by accident once but I’d much rather see what I’m watching in the correct ratio so double tapped back again pretty sharpish.
With chroma one could argue setting to 4:2:0 would be fine.
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Your suggested settings would work also. My settings on my ATV are what you suggest. The reason I suggested 4K HDR and both matching options off, is because on my 50” Samsung I can actually tell a very slight difference when watching Babylon 5. The OP wants to get the best quality he can, so that’s what I suggested. I can’t really tell a difference between 4:2:0 and 4:4:4 on my TV, but perhaps it might give the OP a bit of extra clarity.
I’m with you on the zoom feature. I much prefer to watch any video content in it’s original aspect ratio as that is how the creators intended it to be seen. But, some people don’t care about that. They just want the video to fill the screen.
I’m with you on the zoom feature. I much prefer to watch any video content in it’s original aspect ratio as that is how the creators intended it to be seen. But, some people don’t care about that. They just want the video to fill the screen.
Yeah usually you’d want to avoid having a forced HDR on SD content, but if it works in Babylon 5’s favour then worth a try I guess.
Amazon Prime did indeed have Babylon 5 in 2018--the date those screenshots are listed. That was when I got into it. But I definitely remember it looking far better than it does on my ATV. Yes, the CGI is horrid dated, about like watching 'The Last Starfighter' these days...but it wasn't nearly as pixelated and slide-show style frame rate as it is now. I just hope it improves in Season 2 or 3. A lot of later seasons have more exterior battle scenes and it'd be a crying shame to have to see them look worse.
Right now it's like literally VHS quality. When it was on Amazon in 2018 it appeared more 720p. Now it's literally 480p--the same resolution of a VHS cassette.
I've tried the double-tapping the remote to zoom and it is worse than what I've been doing. My TV allows fine-tuning of the top/bottom/left/right width/height and that way it's not over-zooming or cropping anything, it's just doing what they tried to do with Bab 5, basically turning a 4:3 image to a 16:9 image.
But Babylon 5 already shows in 16:9 meaning I never have to muck with the aspect ratio. I can leave my ATV set at 4K and my TV set to 'normal' (TV won't allow adjustment when it's viewing 4K) and it still looks like a VHS cassette. The only show looking far worse is Saved by the Bell, which is SD and 4:3.
I don't mind letterboxing which is how widescreen pictures and movies are intended to be seen, but I literally cannot STAND 'Pillar-boxing' which makes my TV look more akin to a 25" console from the 1970s. If I wanted to view shows like that, I'd just lug in the Zenith...
I wonder if anyone makes 720p 65" TVs? at least then it won't be so jarring to view. I'll try your suggestions for match content being off, but there is no 4:2:2 option under Chroma, just 4:2:0 (where it's set now) and 4:4:4 which just makes my TV say 'no signal'.
BTW I just updated to tvOS 14.0.1 and both the password issue during purchase is finally fixed (the setting actually sticks like it should at 'never') and the HD tag and info part has returned to viewing when I click menu. Before it just went back or showed the subtitle settings. I've only so far decided to watch Stargate: Atlantis and Star Trek: Enterprise today, but even they look better than the same offerings on Hulu. Hulu's version felt SD as well, or at least, less than 1080p. I've also adjusted some settings on the TV for the color, contrast, sharpness, judder reduction/noise reduction as well as fine-tuned the zoomed in mode for aspect ratio to make it more 'correct' which has a noticeable visual improvement. At least for those two shows. I had my TV in 'game mode' for some reason, and forgot about it. Probably when I was last playing Fallout 4 on my PC connected to it.
Right now it's like literally VHS quality. When it was on Amazon in 2018 it appeared more 720p. Now it's literally 480p--the same resolution of a VHS cassette.
I've tried the double-tapping the remote to zoom and it is worse than what I've been doing. My TV allows fine-tuning of the top/bottom/left/right width/height and that way it's not over-zooming or cropping anything, it's just doing what they tried to do with Bab 5, basically turning a 4:3 image to a 16:9 image.
But Babylon 5 already shows in 16:9 meaning I never have to muck with the aspect ratio. I can leave my ATV set at 4K and my TV set to 'normal' (TV won't allow adjustment when it's viewing 4K) and it still looks like a VHS cassette. The only show looking far worse is Saved by the Bell, which is SD and 4:3.
I don't mind letterboxing which is how widescreen pictures and movies are intended to be seen, but I literally cannot STAND 'Pillar-boxing' which makes my TV look more akin to a 25" console from the 1970s. If I wanted to view shows like that, I'd just lug in the Zenith...
I wonder if anyone makes 720p 65" TVs? at least then it won't be so jarring to view. I'll try your suggestions for match content being off, but there is no 4:2:2 option under Chroma, just 4:2:0 (where it's set now) and 4:4:4 which just makes my TV say 'no signal'.
BTW I just updated to tvOS 14.0.1 and both the password issue during purchase is finally fixed (the setting actually sticks like it should at 'never') and the HD tag and info part has returned to viewing when I click menu. Before it just went back or showed the subtitle settings. I've only so far decided to watch Stargate: Atlantis and Star Trek: Enterprise today, but even they look better than the same offerings on Hulu. Hulu's version felt SD as well, or at least, less than 1080p. I've also adjusted some settings on the TV for the color, contrast, sharpness, judder reduction/noise reduction as well as fine-tuned the zoomed in mode for aspect ratio to make it more 'correct' which has a noticeable visual improvement. At least for those two shows. I had my TV in 'game mode' for some reason, and forgot about it. Probably when I was last playing Fallout 4 on my PC connected to it.
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Did you ever figure out why your thumbnails were blank with 3 dots? All my purchased TV show episodes look like this. The show itself has a thumbnail, but each episode of each season is just blank with 3 dots. Ugh!
I just checked and mine are normal too. Shall I assume it was an issue on Apple's end?