Planet Earth ll

whyone said:
Whilst the photography is often stunning and David Attenborough's commentary as compelling as ever, I am surprised that no-one in this thread has mentioned the dreadful 'sound effects' that have been dubbed onto much of the footage. This really grates with me and is spoiling my enjoyment of the series.

Agree with Ben - whilst the 'diaries' section was very interesting, I thought I was going mad and had missed a significant section of the 'Grasslands' episode!
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I do find it annoying that I keep having to turn the volume up to hear the commentary and down again for all of the ancillary noise!
 
The problem with HDR is that it looks nothing like the real life colour. Even the amoled displays on phones render everything entirely wrong and awfully. It's just the general public that think that because the contrast levels are massively out and the images looks vivid that it just be better. (Stupidity covers this explanation well too). The same has happened with audio where masses of muddy base and frighteningly off balance levels up high makes music sound more powerful to the masses because of the stupid link in their minds that tells them "omg that's loud and deep, I'm slightly shocked so it must be the best right? #lulz".
Still can't beat a good quality plasma for colour rendition. It may look boring by the side of some LED or AMOLED gimmick TV but as soon as you watch a film like avatar or the life of pie you realise that only the Plasma really does any justice with colours and the others tend to burn everything out to a point where by your focus moves from the story combined with the vividness and punchy colour to instead seeing nothing more than a wash of over saturated, high contrast, eye destroying trashy imagery. The cinematic intention of the production as such gets lost and what's the point in that?
 
Andrew Moore said:
The problem with HDR is that it looks nothing like the real life colour. Even the amoled displays on phones render everything entirely wrong and awfully. It's just the general public that think that because the contrast levels are massively out and the images looks vivid that it just be better. (Stupidity covers this explanation well too). The same has happened with audio where masses of muddy base and frighteningly off balance levels up high makes music sound more powerful to the masses because of the stupid link in their minds that tells them "omg that's loud and deep, I'm slightly shocked so it must be the best right? #lulz".
Still can't beat a good quality plasma for colour rendition. It may look boring by the side of some LED or AMOLED gimmick TV but as soon as you watch a film like avatar or the life of pie you realise that only the Plasma really does any justice with colours and the others tend to burn everything out to a point where by your focus moves from the story combined with the vividness and punchy colour to instead seeing nothing more than a wash of over saturated, high contrast, eye destroying trashy imagery. The cinematic intention of the production as such gets lost and what's the point in that?
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Surely this is a problem of bad calibration? These glaring screens, set up by guff-spouting marketers are not representative of what HDR and WCG (and indeed HFR) are supposed to be able to do, which is to allow a rendition which is closer to what the eye sees. I'm right with you about the benefits of plasma, having calibrated my own, though OLEDs are also emissive tech and AIUI better for black level (but not for motion). Then there's the complication of what the source material is--the spec for UHD 1 phase 2 has only just been settled, which is where these new technologies kick in. (I know there's 4K blu ray as well but I've not researched that yet.) So God knows what hardware is built into current screens and whether it can reproduce specs properly. Anyone buying one up to this point is entering the wild west as far as I can see. I'm waiting to see a properly calibrated, properly specced OLED showing UDH-1 phase 2 material before I reach a verdict but I'm very hopeful it will be wowing, in a proper not overblown way. Then if it all still looks overcooked it will be the director's fault!
 
Andrew Moore said:
The problem with HDR is that it looks nothing like the real life colour. Even the amoled displays on phones render everything entirely wrong and awfully. It's just the general public that think that because the contrast levels are massively out and the images looks vivid that it just be better. (Stupidity covers this explanation well too). The same has happened with audio where masses of muddy base and frighteningly off balance levels up high makes music sound more powerful to the masses because of the stupid link in their minds that tells them "omg that's loud and deep, I'm slightly shocked so it must be the best right? #lulz".
Still can't beat a good quality plasma for colour rendition. It may look boring by the side of some LED or AMOLED gimmick TV but as soon as you watch a film like avatar or the life of pie you realise that only the Plasma really does any justice with colours and the others tend to burn everything out to a point where by your focus moves from the story combined with the vividness and punchy colour to instead seeing nothing more than a wash of over saturated, high contrast, eye destroying trashy imagery. The cinematic intention of the production as such gets lost and what's the point in that?
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Having seen the footage in question at IBC, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
 
JayJay said:
It's the only thing I dislike about Planet Earth II - which even with the dubbed on sounds, is still the best thing on telly by a mile at the moment, but it isn't only on this series that they've done it. They've been doing it for a long time - it's certainly present on all the BBC's David Attenborough series for the last few years - probably longer and probably on many others.
I've tried my best to ignore it this time, as the stunning photography more than makes up for it.
At least this time, most of the sound effects are enhancements of what you'd hear if you really were as close to the animals as the camera gets you, but what annoys me more is when they add sounds to things that are silent, like shoals of fish.
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Glad everyone else finds musical background to documentaries irritating. The pictures are amazing without the musical doodlings. Just let us concentrate on the story being told without distraction. Grrrumpy old man[emoji35]
 
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It was. Although at the same trade show they were showing UHDTV with HDR and Wide colour gamut at 100fps.
 
Love the program. No matter what tv you watch it on.

Gaz
 
nigpd said:
BBC iPlayer have a UHD trial going using Planet Earth II stuff
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An update to this........... not as good as it first seemed. Only those with certain Panasonic TVs will be able to view the UHD content unfortunately :(

The following 2015 Panasonic TV ranges are supported: CX680, CX700, CR730, CX800, CR852 and CZ950.

And these are the 2016 Panasonic TV ranges supported: DX902 (screen sizes : 65, 58, 50in), DR852 (65, 55), DX802 (58, 50), DX750 (65, 58, 50), DX720 (58, 50), DX700 (58, 50), DX680 (55, 49, 40) and DX650 (55, 49, 40).

If you don't have a compatible Panasonic TV, there is one other option: Virgin TV's new V6 set-top box will be compatible with the BBC 4K/HLG footage after it gets an HDR software update early next year.
 
Well, I'm just watching this episode, Cities, having not seen the others.

I must be on my own, I guess.

I find it twee, cliched, anthropomorphic twaddle.

Sorry.
 
simon ess said:
Well, I'm just watching this episode, Cities, having not seen the others.

I must be on my own, I guess.

I find it twee, cliched, anthropomorphic twaddle.

Sorry.
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You're not on your own. The photography though is top notch IMHO.
 
You two are on your own, it's fantastic, the photography is amazing ... the monkey chasing scenes, the Peregrine flights and the final encounter for Gordon with the Leopard ... utterly enchanting stuff for the BBC Wildlife team! (y)
 
Cheffievrs said:
Tonight's episode was just fantastic, who'd of thought fish eating pigeons..! License fee gold.
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That was incredible, and I loved the way they built up to the reveal - I was guessing seals, who's have thought fish would eat pigeons?!


I don't know if it's just that we've been spoilt and got used to the amazing quality but for me, nothing has beat the racer snakes.
 
I found last night's episode a little harder to get in to initially, but really enjoyed it. I think the closing scenes, both the crew's comments and Attenborough's, really reenforced the episode's message about harmony between humans and wildlife, and wrapped it up nicely.
 
Was another great episode, - especially another great episode with regards photography/camera work.
As far as the negatives mentioned above - one thing that is perhaps relevant is 'The BBC has confirmed that the first three episodes of Planet Earth II have attracted more viewers in the 16 to 34 age bracket than The X Factor on ITV.'
I think having wildlife to film in the future is an important message from the series, and if the younger audience is being reached with the help of sound fx, hans zimmer and being 'twee, cliched, anthropomorphic twaddle.' then its got to be a good thing. :)
 
I did post a little cheeky tweet last night saying, how many togs will be booking flights to Rome for the "urban" starlings or India for "urban" leopards.. Haha
 
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