The original post: /r/television by /u/Trekkie_on_the_Net on 2024-05-18 21:47:30.
I’ve been watching some old Letterman (1980’s-90’s) on YouTube, and have been noticing something. His skin tone looked very natural. Also, the color saturation seemed very natural. I compared with one of his shows from 2015, and by then, it was very saturated, and his skin tone was orange.
I started clicking around, watching snippets of other variety/news/reality type shows from the past 10 years, and noticed that everything seems to be over-saturated. Faces aren’t always orange (although they often are), but they seem to be a lot more heavily waxy looking. On older shows, even in standard definition, you could see more of the small details on people’s faces. Now, everyone looks like a mannequin.
Also, those types of shows don’t seem to have the same level as detail as before, even though they are now in HD. They used to have more shadow, definition and clarity. Now, all those shows look so smooth, nothing pops out. Everything looks 2-dimensional. Maybe the lighting is too even. The detail should be more than twice as good as it was 40 years ago, yet somehow everything looks worse.
Watch a clip of Family Feud from the 1980’s, and compare to one of the new ones with Steve Harvey. The former looks like real people, on a real set. The latter show almost looks like a cartoon.
Does anyone know what has led to these changes?