I have a friend who always downloads the smallest (by file size) copy of any video he can find. He has a 75" 4k TV, 5.1 surround speakers, the whole setup but he downloads 720p in stereo almost exclusively. He says he just doesn't care about the video or audio quality. It blows my mind, but some people are just weird.
Edit: Also, Paul is just a funny movie, if you're into goofy movie references.
I have just plain stereo and wouldn't change it for the world. Have had all sorts of setups throught the years... it's so much easier when I don't have to worry about speaker mapping or what the player/browser would do with a plain stereo signal on a 5.1 or a 7.1 setup. Sometimes, everything's kosher, most of the time it's a mess.
Like it or not, stereo has been the default way to record audio for the last 80, 90 year, and it has proven that it's simple, yet effective at making the music "come alive" in the listener's mind. Sure, surround does it better, but there is too much maintenance into it, plus mastering albums in surround is a real PITA, especially electronic music (not real instruments, so how are you gonna map that effect/sound 🤷). Most TV stations also air plain stereo. Cameras, phones - plain stereo. Most series - also, plain stereo. Movies are basically the "odd ball out" because they're a combined multimedia experience (video and audio) and they're usually just shots of real world stuff happening in front of a screen, so it's not that difficult to surround map the sound on them (i.e. the video tells the story of how the auido should ”move").
stereo has been the default way to record audio for the last 80, 90 year
No it hasn’t been. 70yrs would be a stretch. Even in the 60s you’d still have Mono albums released regularly, as well as alongside Stereo releases. Stereo television broadcasts weren’t introduced until 1984 in the United States. For reference, the first Dolby Surround cinema release was Apocalypse Now in 1979.
Meeh, doesn't really bother me 🤷. I usually just use the default settings in whatever DE in Linux (I usually use xfce, but I've switched when I felt like it, if I'm getting bored and wanna try something new 😂), or change a few font sizes here and there and all is good 🤷. Regarding Windows (I dual boot), I don't really care that much to be honest, I rarely use it the past few years. I only use it for work and only when I have to do some things from home or when I need to use some obscure piece of software that just doesn't work in Wine.
So.. no, I don't really see a reason to buy a bigger monitor. Actually, I haven't bought a monitor for ages, like probably 20 years 😂, all of the ones I currently use are salvaged from one person or another - they wanna trade up, they give me their old monitor 😂. I don't complain, they're still usable for me 🤷.
I appreciate you for preventing eWaste by reusing 🤩 that is awesome! I myself use the old macbookpro and iMacs from my father running Linux :D it’s great to live in a time where one can get such powerful computing devices for free 😇
But for watching movies and series, I really appreciate higher resolution and don’t feel satisfied if it is less than 1080 (more if we talking 25" plus)
To be honest, I just love reusing old stuff and giving it new meaning ☺️. And fixing stuff too. Sure, they will eventually be worthless, but I try and extend their life as much as possible ☺️.
Regarding the movies thing, each to his own 🤷 😉. I don't judge. Hell, even I sonetimes download 1080p and watch that on my TV, but it's mostly a special case scenario, like some good movie I've wanted to watch for a long time, but never got around to it, or something like.
I've used my 3090 with Nvidia super resolution just watching old shit I downloaded back in the LimeWire days that for some reason I was still holding on to and the result is not perfect but it is pretty decent.
For instance I had a copy of chobits that was probably in hell 240i resolution or something, and with Nvidia super resolution it looks only vaguely indistinguishable from the 720p stuff you can stream online.
Of course, when you use Nvidia super resolution with the 720p stuff it looks stellar, so higher resolution by default wins over AI up resolution but it works in a pinch
It's the same general thing as DLSS in games. Saying 720p > 4k upscaled is comparable to 1440p is pushing it a bit, but overall the tech's pretty impressive.
Have no idea what DLSS is 😂, don't really play games (meeh, an oddball here and there, every 7, 8 years or so).
But I did read about this new tech Nvidia had and I thought it was just BS to be honest. Turns out it's not. Good for us. If it's that good, I guess it could be used to process old SD recordings to make them look at least 720p, which of course is a lot better than plan SD.
This could also come in handy when processing archived material in TV.