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Audio is great, iff you have a soundbar or a good set of headphones. The problem is that a decent portion of the audience don't and there is no fallback to more classic audio mixing.

This means that you either have to create for the lowest common dominator or accept that what they get is shit. As you said we would expect to be chewed out if we did that, but for some reason films are different.

To be honest I can see it both ways, as I don't have a soundbar or an oled display, but at the same time why should that hold back those who have paid 4 or 5 times the cost of my setup? If what I have is crap, shouldn't I expect that movies are not looking very good?

You can do some truly amazing things with just audio[0], but it does require a certain dynamic range on the receiver.

As an example: https://darkerprojects.com/lostfrontier/st-lf-season-1-ep-00..., which is a podcast radio play.

Audio is great

Some cases, yes the sound setup helps. Other cases, such as actors "mumbling", sound setup does nothing.

Gibberish is just gibberish.

I don't believe actors mumble in general. I am ESL, but I can follow along just fine without subtitles, as long as I use my headphones. The same show with just the speakers in my Macbook and the actors were heard to understand.

Of course there are a couple actors that makes it harder: Marlow Brandon or people who speak with a pronounced Southern Accent. But in general I keep hearing this complaint from people who are using the inbuilt speakers.

I think dynamic range is so foreign to people nowadays since music hasn’t had any in over 20 years. People aren’t used to it anymore.

And you’re right, many people don’t have the things you need to make it sound good. It’s almost like they should have a mastering for bad TVs with crap audio.

Of course they should. There’s lots of people out there who watch their movies on TV with the built-in speakers, or on their tablet or laptop. A TV mix used to be normal, not everybody has the money, space, or desire for a dedicated movie room with an Atmos setup.

>One would think that movies would be produced for the viewers but apparently the monopolistic landscape of modern entertainment allows film-makers to make insane, ego-driven choices without consequences.

Where is the monopoly?

> Where is the monopoly?

Disney, Netflix, Amazon and so on.

(And yes I am aware that technically they would be an oligopoly. I am purposely using the broader, more practical definition of monopoly that is useful for describing the real world.)

As a consumer, I currently have the option of consuming video media from ~9 large companies (Disney, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Paramount, WarnerBros Discovery, Sony), and then you have smaller ones like AMC Networks and whatever film studios there are, and then you can go all the way down to individuals who upload to Youtube or whatever website they want to host their media. This is just US media too, I am sure there are many more large companies around the world.

And there is zero or near zero friction in consuming media pretty much all of this media thanks to broadband internet and capable computing devices in everyone’s pocket, other than the price you are able and willing to pay.

I would not classify it as a "monopoly" or an "oligopoly", at least in the sense that anyone is restricting viewers from watching what they want or anyone is restricting media creators from making what they want.

People nowadays think "monopolistic" is a synonym for "something I don't like."

>film-makers to make insane, ego-driven choices without consequences.

Isn't that their job description? Which filmmaker doesn't fit this? The best art is often made by an 'insane' person.