OMG, remember when some cable broadcasters had some stations with PROGRESSIVELY SCALED stretching or SECTIONAL stretching? I kid you not. Some stations would keep the center 1/3 of the screen in correct aspect and then progressively stretch the 1/3 on either side to fill the 16:9 screen. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I could deal with just flat out [even] stretching 4:3 content to 16:9 because my equipment could force-horizontally scale it back most of the time. But that stupid trick, there was no undoing that.

Oh, and this still happens- take old 4:3 programs and ZOOM IN to fill the 16:9 width, cropping off the top and bottom! So things shot in 4:3 for 27" TV's now shown on a 60+" TV, ZOOMED so you see ONE FACE filling the ENTIRE screen back and forth.

>"Something that looks like real life is unnatural? "

I never said that. In fact, I said the EXACT OPPOSITE.

>"Stop being a Luddite."

Stop being someone that doesn't read and/or comprehend what is written, and then comments about it stupidly.

>"I agree that full control is the ideal, but I also don't really get the appeal of 24 fps film effect."

Honestly, I don't quite "get" it either. It should and objectively does look better at higher rates, but somehow it just ruins the mood. It is psychological, and probably just due to a lifetime of what is expected and many of us are contaminated with it.

They can improve the color, contrast, resolution, size, even add 3D and I love all of it. But as the frame rate is increased, either for real or simulated, it trashes it for me.

I wonder if, in the future, when movies finally do go to 48 or 60 or whatever framerate, if there will be device viewing options to actually CUT the framerate back down to 24 or 30? Seems crazy, but might be popular.

>"To bring back an old meme, "Ok boomer".

I am not old enough to be a "boomer". So you might have to change that to "OK X".

>"For the record the same was said about colour TV."

I was young during the transition to color. But I watched both B&W and color at the time and remember both well. Color did not have any such effect. HOWEVER, it is true, at least back then, that B&W was considerably sharper. But color was worth the decrease in sharpness. And HDTV was waaaay overdue by the time in came on the scene and I loved it. So, no, it is not the same thing.

>"So I don't think the high framerate "soap opera effect" is the issue, I think it's the crappy realtime conversion."

I think it is both. Remember The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was filmed at 48 frames per second (instead of 24). It looked artificial/fake/bad to me, even at the cinema, as well. And it was wildly and widely criticized as a major detraction. So it isn't just the fake smoothing processing that causes issues, there really is an important component to lower frame rates in the traditional feel and suspension of disbelief.

Now, young viewers who are much newer to video can probably get used to anything and not have as much problem with it. But we older people often find higher frame rates to be really horrible.

>"Critics, including some big names in Hollywood, argue that motion smoothing looks unnatural and deviates from the creator's intended vision."

No, it makes things look TOO NATURAL/REAL, like they were shot with a webcam or cell phone. It breaks the cinematic experience and expectation that a lot of us have had our entire lives and we detest that. Others hate that it messes with their "suspension of disbelief mode". And, still, others hate the artifacts it creates.

>"Intelligent FRC takes a more nuanced approach to motion smoothing by letting content creators dictate the level of motion smoothing used in each scene"

I generally don't give a F about what the "content creator" wants. *I* want control over my own equipment and its settings and what I watch, thank you very much. I want to turn off *ALL* motion smoothing. And I want everyone to have that ability AND the ability to turn on FULL motion smoothing, or whatever they want in-between. If you want to add another option for "content creator mode", fine, as long as it is optional and my preferred setting is available and never has to be reselected again.

Sorry, some of us are really passionate about this issue. And I am tired of devices/sites/software/whatever increasingly betraying the user's wants and needs.

>"Do I understand you see Arch and Gentoo as crazy? Presumably then also NixOS?"

Maybe what I wrote is a bit too extreme/sloppy. I wouldn't call Arch, at least, crazy. I meant corporate-controlled Linux distros but neglected to include that qualifier. Wish I could edit...

>"Congress needs to do away with DST"

I think you mean, make DST full-time/always/permanent.

>"but they can't do their job now !!"

They haven't been able to do their job in decades.

Not sure, but curious, myself. Debian seems to be the only "pure in spirit" and "non-crazy" distro left out there. It is just kinda unpolished... which is what Mint LMDE brings to it. I haven't tried it yet, since I am fine with "regular" Mint. But at some point I think that will change, when Ubuntu does something bad enough under the hood on Mint. That is, of course, why LMDE exists.

>"Debian is light years closer to freedom than Ubuntu or Mint. "

Mint is much better in many ways than Ubuntu, yet retains compatibility. But you also have the option of Mint LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition), which is much of the same Mint goodness (installer, tools, desktop options), but based directly on Debian instead of Ubuntu:

https://www.linuxmint.com/down...

>"Moving into the modern era it is becoming more and more clear that sports fans have been subsidizing other television fans for decades. As the needs and wants of these two groups grow further and further apart expect interesting things to happen."

I have absolutely ZERO interest in sports and have always resented how much I am paying to have those expensive channels that I NEVER use. Now there is such a tiny amount of content left that I like, and the prices are so high, it seems like nothing has much value. At this point, I would probably rather pay a small amount per program/time that I like and watch. Maybe $0.50 an hour or something. But they blew that model, too... like Amazon Video wanting $3 per episode of something.... insane.

The best value and satisfaction I ever had for content was Netflix Disc. Although it was slow and clunky, it was reasonably priced and had almost every movie or documentary ever made available, plus many of the better series as well. And the site worked really well. So of course that was all taken away.

>"It's 2025. Sane people watch pre-recorded stuff when they have time. The industry calls that Video on Demand. They stream these shows from someone that let's them watch when they want to watch, and that keeps track of where they are when the stop. They don't tune in every day at 3:30 PM and watch reruns of their favorite show. If you are old enough, like me, you probably remember sitting down with all of your friends every week to watch the newest episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, or whatever. Remember how terrible that was. You had to make an appointment to watch television or you missed an episode and you couldn't watch it until it was in re-runs. Well, those days are so dead no one even mourns them any more. "

You completely skipped the entire DVR revolution. I haven't watched commercials, or been forced to watch something "live", or missed any episodes of anything for 25 years. TiVo is (and about to be "was") very adept at tracking everything you want and everything you MIGHT want and keeping the drives crammed with stuff to watch however and whenever you want.

Even before that, like with your Next Generation example, I had a VCR recording everything I was going to watch. Far, far more primitive, but workable.

I still don't see streaming as a replacement for CATV + TiVo for me. It is a good augment, and probably OK for many. But it has tons of its own problems- like programs disappearing, lots of different "apps" and controls, lack of proper tracking, dismal interfaces, occasional quality issues, many not even offering AC3 sound, CATV "exclusives" that they won't bring to streaming, irritating overlays on pause that can't be dismissed so you can SEE on the screen what you paused it for, lack of fine-grained shuttle, etc.

Programming sucks a LOT more now than ever, regardless. It is harder and harder to find good stuff on any platform. I tend to watch more YouTube long-form videos now than anything else, and with CATV prices going crazy high and TiVo about to throw in the towel, I will be forced to make some radical change.

>"Is installing Windows 11 with a local account or on unsupported hardware harmful or dangerous?"

Installing MS-Windows is dangerous.

Having a local user for it is not.
Using it with so-called "unsupported hardware" is also not.

>"So YT does it, I've had news sites do it too."

Well, I have two or three Youtube tabs up in the mix, and very often with one playing for very long periods, and haven't seen that behavior. I don't use news sites very often, though (and never leave those up).

Most of my persistent tabs/windows are Slashdot, Hotmail, three different forum sites, a game, Yahoo mail, a few Youtube, sometimes a Rumble, often a Wikipedia, and then some misc ones that change a lot.

>"so my guess is a memory leak is triggered after FF runs for a few days."

I am sure that is possible. But I keep at least two windows and 12 tabs open with Linux Firefox running for several weeks at a time without encountering any problems. Once in a blue moon I will have some type of site that causes high CPU/memory. When that happens, I don't actually know if it is Firefox or UBO.