Movies and TV Shows

First, my comment, though directly in response to yours, was addressed to what seemed to be the general nature of these sorts of discussions. FWIW I upvoted your comment and replied to it specifically because it was the most substantial. There’s nothing personal, directed or venomous from me here. I liked your response and should have opened with “thank you!”

Second, “technicalities” are not limited to the data transfer details, or generally, IT. Visual perception is incredibly technical (more so than than the IT details involved I’d wager, FWIW). In calling for a breakdown of the technicalities, that can and should encompass all that is relevant to the issue. And that’s the point of my critique.

Data transfer rates on their own mean fairly little, and yet they seem to be the go-to description of what’s going on here with matters like color depth and spatial detail handled with a hand wavy mention. I suspect it’s because a bitrate is a single easy number to communicate, and that’s fine. But it’s not a breakdown or explanation.

We don’t need side by side comparisons for this, though that could be nice. And I think this is at a point above defining jargon terms. I think what would be helpful for many here is an explanation of what they see and why. In my particular case, and I suspect many others, you’d be surprised at how much of the components of the issue are already understood, at least to some extent. It’s the complete picture of the process that leads to the differences that is incomplete.

For example, I’d bet many find it plainly unintuitive how a higher resolution could possibly look worse and would somewhat dismiss claims of lower bitrates being important on the basis higher resolutions should just trump that. Why are they wrong, and by how much? Many probably know something of compression and bit/color depth, but don’t grasp how impactful they can be to an image compared to resolution which they’ve clearly seen demonstrated to them repeatedly over time.