Barry Sonnenfeld is a director and filmmaker known for his work on Men in Black and a slew of television series. After his CEDIA Expo 2024 keynote, he is now known as a critic of a handful of home theater technologies that, according to him, don’t portray content the way its producers intended.
Although it was not the first time the acclaimed director has voiced his opinions on these matters, it may be one of the only times he’s addressed his audience directly, pointing the finger at newer technology trends like 8K, HDR, distracting lighting systems , and integrators that fail to provide a good home theater experience.
Sonnenfeld is a known home theater enthusiast, and he detailed the impressive systems in his homes, including 18-foot screens, tall ceilings, 33mm projectors, and even one that required an “Exit” sign from the local municipality due to its size. So, it’s safe to say that Sonnenfeld knows a thing or two about home theater tech.
However, he’s clearly not on board with all of the latest innovations, namely HDR and 8K.
“Technology is both good and bad, but here’s the evil: HDR sucks,” Sonnenfeld said plainly. “I don’t have to tell you how bad Motionflow and CineMotion are. I don’t even know why they’re on any television. They suck.”
Lightapalooza took place in late February, and the growth of the event has mirrored the rapid ascension lighting fixtures and controls.
In between jabs at complicated TV menus and smart TV operating systems, Sonnenfeld continued his offensive at new display technologies, essentially saying 8K has no business being used for watching anything other than sports.
“I admit that 4K viewing of sports is a game changer, and I’ll even grant you that the higher the resolution, the better it is, specifically as it relates to sports,” Sonnenfeld elaborated briefly before pivoting to an anecdote about filmmakers intentionally using older cameras or filters to lessen the effects of higher resolution.
“4K electronic resolution is not pretty,” Sonnenfeld says. “It’s contrasty super sharp and shows every pore on an actor’s face or layers of makeup covering those pores.”
Sonnenfeld also pointed his finger at marketing of streaming content, as streaming providers want to be associated with the highest possible resolution, and essentially demand that content be produced with the highest quality cameras.
HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is another of Sonnenfeld’s pet peeves. HDR was designed to enhance contrast and color in images by increasing the range of brightness levels and colors. It makes dark areas deeper to capture details in shadows, and enhances brightness of highlights.
On one particular show, Sonnenfeld and the show’s creators wanted the image to be muted and dull. However, HDR made the dull sky brighter and captured details in the shadows.
“We spent hundreds of hours in post-production trying to undo what HDR was doing,” the director said.
Sonnenfeld’s keynote essentially told the industry that these technologies are taking away from the content they want to show.
“It looks like the making of ‘Avatar’ instead of ‘Avatar,’” Sonnenfeld said about the effect of these technologies. “I don’t know why they do it. It’s because some engineer figured out they could, and then you’re stuck with it.”
Despite these criticisms of the industry and the manufacturers just down the hall from the ballroom in which he delivered his speech, Sonnenfeld did offer some very actionable advice to integrators, based on his own personal experience.
He suggested integrators scale up their service offerings and educate customers on how to use their systems.
“I want an installer who will teach every person who lives in a house with a home theater how to use the equipment,” Sonnenfeld advised, adding a joke about how his wife had been asking for help using their systems while he was traveling to CEDIA Expo.
He says he would “gladly pay an installer a monthly subscription fee” for guaranteed, timely service in the event of any issues.
“Then I can come here and not have my wife call me,” Sonnenfeld said. “She’ll call you.”
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