Little Things that Annoy You on the Screen?

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If it's not a cable box or DVD or Blu-ray player, what content are you watching?



Since the vast majority of content being produced is in widescreen, you're going to get black bars on pretty much everything. Otherwise the TV will be zooming in on the image and cutting off the sides to get it to fit on the square screen, and that's when text and other stuff starts going off-screen. Even if you get a widescreen TV, a lot of movies are still going to have black bars since a lot of different aspect ratios (film sizes) are used.

Has a filmmaker myself I find 4:3 or Square images or Pan&Scan an insult to the art form. Everything is shot in wide-screen, but so that people didn't feel cheated when they still had square TV films where cropped, losing a big portion of the image just so it could fit TV. But today that technique almost doesn't exist anymore and because most people have wide-screen TV's and those who don't need to either deal with the black bars on top or bottom or lose a big portion of the image.
Here is an example

Jory: I'm just tryin' to watch regular TV----like, say.... a documentary on PBS. That's why I said I checked my TV's "Menu". Now, there are other shows where the writing isn't half-off the screen. I don't have a Blue-ray player.

Like I said before, I really don't think widescreen TV owners are the majority, and it really stinks!! ! Once-upon-a-time, the majority ruled----not anymore!! !

^ Some channels basically just take the widescreen version and chop off the sides to make it fill a square TV screen. I've noticed the same problem when I visit my parents and I see the TV set in their kitchen. If the news is on, for example, the headlines appearing next to the reporter's head will go off-screen. There really isn't much that can be done about that since the signal they're sending is going to look wrong no matter how your video settings are configured.

Jory: Okay. Thanks, anyway!!

Mine are a bit more specific:

Stupid weaknesses:
Daleks and Stairs: Were there NEVER stairs on Skaro? I mean they would have HAD to have had stairs at SOMEPOINT! I know they fixed this in the new series but STILL!
Green Lantern and Yellow/Wood: Taken down by a Yellow 2B pencil is PATHETIC.

Classic Doctor Who cliff-hangers: They ALWAYS cut out on a really dangerous moment and then the next episode/part they resolve it in like two seconds... Here's an example: The Doctor is attacked by a Dalek out of it's case (he's being strangled) it cuts out and the next episode he just pulls it off with the help of Sarah-Jane. LAME!

Easy Superpowers and Solution Gadgets: You know when your hero has this superpower/gadget that solves EVERYTHING? They use it ALL the time and EASILY get out of DIFFCULT situations? This annoys me for 2 reasons:
One: they get out of scrapes too easily
Two: They always FORGET they have this solution (sometimes they remember at the LAST MOMENT)

Lame/Winey Hero's/Heroines
You know that hero that's always complaining? "Oh, pity me!"
Often they wine because they "Don't want to have an amazing power that we ALL WANT IN REAL LIFE"
Sometimes they wine because of something stupid, like a partner breaking up with them, or a situation with an obvious answer.
Perhaps there in a situation where they have to do something bad (like kill a friend who has become a Zombie) when you just want them to GET OVER IT AND DO IT!
No one likes a winey hero...

Shows with Lame titles: Overused or so irrelevant to the plot. Or perhaps is so lame people won't watch even though the show is great!
Try this awesome British drama that only had 5 episodes; it was called Strange and was named after the shows main character John Strange. It was a brilliant supernatural drama that was interesting and still was quite realistic. But because of the name (and a cock up regarding the time schedule) the show never went past its first season. TITLES ARE IMPORTANT.

Now let's be really specific
Beauty and the Beast, don't get me wrong; I like this show but he's a few things that bug me...

Firstly, how believable is it that there is two attractive female cops in New York who lead cases all the time?
And why do they always wear high heels and designer clothing?
Plus why is there two females together? Usually cops are paired One Female, One Male; look past the feminist point and you see the practicality of having someone much stronger in the team.
And they don't once get the "boy's club" deal or anything. I'm no feminist but I find that another hard thing to believe.
Okay, now why do ALL her cases have SOMETHING to do with Vincent? I mean it's NEW YORK, there is bound to be a case that was simply just a gang thing or an accident...
Okay now here's my pet peeve, it's called Beauty and the BEAST...Where is the beast? I mean he's not very "beast-like" is he?
They're edging into it all now, but come on I'm like 6 episodes in and he's barley done anything beasty (except kill a few guys...).

So that my peeves for now.

Yeah, that one annoys me too.

When one character says something bad/shocking/unexpected, to which the other person immediately spits out whatever he or she is drinking. I have never seen anyone do this in real life.

Women and girls in horror/suspense movies who run and ALWAYS fall.

Someone is in danger and runs to their car, which suddenly decides it does not want to start. After trying repeatedly as the danger draws nearer, it gets into gear just as the person is thisclose to biting the dust. Ugh!

The watermark on the screen annoys me, I know what channel I'm watching I don't need a watermark.

Pop up ads telling you when a show is coming on while you're watching a show, Do we need ads while we're watching something?
Do they think we don't have a TV guide.

I'm generalizing here, but why does everybody on popular comedy shows act like a spaz? I don't like that. Overreaction is funny, but only if used in moderation with the right characters. When it's overused, the audience gets numb to it. The more excited the characters are, the more bored I get.

And then there's those shows. The ones that were always on WB in the 90s and continue today on CW. The ones where all the young actors look like underwear models from the Sears catalogue and deliver silly, unrealistic lines. Dawson's Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Smallville. Joss Whedon shows. No one exemplified the chick-baiting, faux-goth, sterilized "darkness" trend of 90's entertainment better than Whedon...at least on TV. In movies I'd have to go with Tim Burton.

Car and lite beer commercials during football games. Why do they assume everyone who's watching wants an oversized pickup truck and weak, tasteless beer? I don't need the TV to tell me which kinds of cars and alcohol are the best for me. I can think for myself. And if I can't decide I'll ask my brother, who is a connoisseur of both.

Conan O'Brien is not funny. "[Self-deprecating joke], uhhhhhhh...anyway, [perverted joke], errrr, just kidding, uhhhh...[more self-deprecating humor], uhhhhh..." How did he ever get popular with this schtick? I mean he seems like a nice enough guy but I just feel so uncomfortable watching him. Conan and David Letterman both inspire me to dizzying heights of irritation. Letterman with his smirking, superior demeanor and how he'll never ever get over the Tonight Show thing. My favorite highlight of his was when he asked Anne Heche some questions she didn't like and, instead of getting angry, she politely reduced him to a stammering boob. Now that was entertainment. Jay Leno was at least inoffensive, and Jimmy Fallon is far more watchable as a host than on SNL when he spent entire skits laughing at his own jokes.

Oh, and widescreen. Please give me something that fits my TV. I don't care if the bits on the end are cut off. And Blu-Ray. I don't need it for crying out loud. I don't need to analyze in detail every pore of skin on an actor's face. And the discs are so sensitive and easily damaged they make DVDs look sturdy. It's a bad trade-off.

I've ranted long enough here. There are some things on TV I do like, just not those things.

On the contrary, Blu-rays are a hell of a lot more durable than DVDs. They're made with a scratch-resistant coating that makes it practically impossible to inflict the kinds of scratches and scuff marks that interfere with playback, at least through normal use. When I heard about the scratch-resistant coating, I thought it was just marketing BS; but after buying, owning, and using a couple of hundred Blu-rays, I can tell you it's true. I had one where glue from the cardboard packaging had stuck to the surface and I scrubbed the hell out of it to get it off, and there wasn't a scratch to be seen on it. If it had been a DVD, it would have been ruined beyond repair. I've had countless problems with DVDs, but none with Blu-rays.

Also, the improved picture quality has less to do with seeing every tiny detail and more to do with the vibrancy of the image. It's hard to describe in words without getting into technical stuff like interlacing vs. progressive scan and color palettes, but a well-produced Blu-ray "pops" off the screen much better than a DVD, at least on a decently-sized HDTV with an HDMI cable.

Having said all that, I'm not really a Blu-ray snob; I'm usually perfectly content with a DVD if a movie isn't available on Blu-ray. But if I have a choice, it's Blu-ray every time.

As for widescreen, you may want to consider investing in a widescreen TV since that's what pretty much all content is being made for these days. A lot of movies will still have black bars at the top and bottom of the screen since different movies use different aspect ratios (film sizes), but just about all TV programming is 16:9, which is exactly the same as every widescreen TV; which means that every show you watch will fill your screen and nothing will be cut off, so you won't be missing 40% of the picture.

People that shoot indoors without protection and can still hear afterwards.

My one time and I was deaf for a good hour (and with painful ears and crazy loud tinnitus), and I'm not sensitive to loud noises.

It's not as bad outdoors, but firing more than several rounds in rapid succession will have the same effect.

-completely unrealistic physics
-characters who trip too often for no apparent reason
-characters who always act helpless and/or put themselves down over their faults
-people not following proper firearm safety guidelines (or wearing ear protection; like Dillogic said, that'll make you deaf pretty quickly)
-people in commercials for credit cards swiping their card upside and backwards

Re: Watermarks: They're always obstructing something important. If they MUST have them, at least make them non-colored; they're not as bad.

Re: Pop-up ads: Again, if they were all the non-colored ones / non-picture ones----just text----it wouldn't be as bad; but, I've seen some that were really quite big, colored, and terribly annoying!!

Oh, that reminds me of a lame commercial that was aired here. I can't even remember what it was for, but it featured a young couple in a living room, playing console video games. The guy was wearing sun glasses (doesn't look dumb indoors at all) so he must have had a very good view of the screen, and he was hitting the controls with his fingers in a way no gamer does, regardless of what game they play, and while clickng randomly on the buttons, he half turned to the girl and smiled.
I sure wouldn't go as far as to call it annoying, but it looked really lame.