CAGcast #522: The X Factor

CheapyD

CheapyD

Head Cheap Ass
Staff member
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Cheapy gives his hands-on Xbox One X and iPhone X impressions, Shipwreck will basically play any Sonic game, and Wombat gets a free bucket of chicken.

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Show Linkage/Notes:
Intro - Dj Jean- The launch (yomanda remix)
Outro - Kool Aid Guy Commercial - 1980s
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Great show as always guys.

I'm flummoxed by Wombat's RT argument.  A "great" movie that is hated by 50 percent of the people and liked or loved by the other 50 percent doesn't sound great- it sounds like the first Transformers movie. (57%)

RT for Smurfs 2 is 13%.  Wombat watched it anyways, and hated it.  I don't think RT is the issue....

 
Thor Ragnarok is the ultimate crowd-pleaser. I think rotten tomatoes is the perfect measure of this. And I prefer this score for big, dumb, fun comedies and/or action movies. These movies don't need to be original or particularly artistic in anyway, just fun and well executed.

I consider Metacritic to be a better measure of movies that are more artistic, polarizing, or have more niche appeal. You can actually parse through the blurbs and figure out if there is a review that matches your taste.

 
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I am so sick of Rotten Tomatoes. My wife and I saw Daddy's Home 2, and it was such a fun movie. Funny scenes and good jokes. We both had an enjoyable time watching it. Of course, I look at the score on RT and... 16%.

Meanwhile, we see movies like American Hustle and Manchester by the Sea that get raving reviews and a high % on RT, and we just do not like the movies for either being boring or just depressing.

I know that RT is a collaboration of reviews, but what are the critics looking for? Not every movie has to be Schindler's List. There is always room for a movie like Daddy's Home 2 that are enjoyable to watch that has laughs. I don't need to see a movie that makes me evaluate my life as a human being afterwards.

Basically, I just can't use RT as a measure of movies anymore.

 
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Rottentomatoes will give you a general idea of what percentage of people liked it, but not how good it is. But really, sites Metacritic and RT work best if you at least read a couple of the reviews to get a sense of where they're coming from. Different critics use scores differently, after all. Roger Ebert would say movie scores are relative, not absolute. If a horror movie get 75% and a Pixar movie gets 90%, it doesn't necessarily mean the Pixar movie is better. 

 
apathylad said:
Rottentomatoes will give you a general idea of what percentage of people liked it, but not how good it is. But really, sites Metacritic and RT work best if you at least read a couple of the reviews to get a sense of where they're coming from. Different critics use scores differently, after all. Roger Ebert would say movie scores are relative, not absolute. If a horror movie get 75% and a Pixar movie gets 90%, it doesn't necessarily mean the Pixar movie is better.
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I understand your point, but I think people just perceive a higher score would indicate one movie is better than another - it's just easy to think that way.

 
It's possible that the reason why Cheapy isn't impressed by the Xbox 1x graphics ability is because it's broken.  Forbes has an article about how the 4k Blu-ray player in the 1x is the worst on the market.  He even calls it broken.  Is it possible that it's not just 4k Blu-ray but any games that are being played from a disc will experience the same issues?  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2017/11/12/the-xbox-one-x-4k-blu-ray-player-is-a-disaster/#57fc4ca12bde

We’re not just talking about a small difference here, either; the Xbox One X’s 4K Blu-ray playback is off enough to be considered more or less broken if you’re any sort of home cinema enthusiast

The problem is raised black levels when playing high dynamic range images (which are the star attraction of pretty much all 4K Blu-ray discs) into HDR-capable TVs.

 
Hey Cheapy

I just wanted to remark on your anecdote about your theatre trip, especially the part where you say:

"you can argue about whether it's appropriate to take mentally challenged kids to see action movies..."

You should be 100% free to speak your mind about this, so don't read this as a request for you not to say what you really think. It just seems like you had a real failure of compassion. Do we really need to argue about whether it's appropriate to take "mentally challenged kids" to the theatre? I understand it severely affected your enjoyment of the film, but what is the alternative? That people who cannot control the noises they make don't get to go to the theatre - not even in the middle of a weekday? That they have to set up special showings so that regular people don't ever have to deal with them?

I'm glad that my son, who has pervasive developmental disorder – a kind of autism – gets to go to school with regular kids. I'm glad that he isn't kept back from school trips because he might make too much noise. And if I take him somewhere myself, I hope that those around me won't hold it against me for taking him there, because I want him to be able to enjoy himself like anyone else. I will do my best to pick times when it causes as little disturbance for others as possible, but some people's enjoyment will probably still be affected. That is the cost of letting people with disabilities and disorders live their lives among regular people. I hope that on reflection you do not mind very much. And if you respond in any way, please don't waste time on the woman taking the pictures – she's not relevant to this.

I'm a long, long-time listener. Thanks for spreading joy through your podcast.

 
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Is there a Patreon set up to pay for some Xanax for Cheapy? The last few episodes, he seems to be in deep turmoil about everything around him.

 
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GOTA said:
It's possible that the reason why Cheapy isn't impressed by the Xbox 1x graphics ability is because it's broken. Forbes has an article about how the 4k Blu-ray player in the 1x is the worst on the market. He even calls it broken. Is it possible that it's not just 4k Blu-ray but any games that are being played from a disc will experience the same issues?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2017/11/12/the-xbox-one-x-4k-blu-ray-player-is-a-disaster/#57fc4ca12bde

We’re not just talking about a small difference here, either; the Xbox One X’s 4K Blu-ray playback is off enough to be considered more or less broken if you’re any sort of home cinema enthusiast

The problem is raised black levels when playing high dynamic range images (which are the star attraction of pretty much all 4K Blu-ray discs) into HDR-capable TVs.
Click to expand...
The issues with their blu-ray player have already been fixed in the preview build - going live soon.

 
GOTA said:
It's possible that the reason why Cheapy isn't impressed by the Xbox 1x graphics ability is because it's broken. Forbes has an article about how the 4k Blu-ray player in the 1x is the worst on the market. He even calls it broken. Is it possible that it's not just 4k Blu-ray but any games that are being played from a disc will experience the same issues?

We’re not just talking about a small difference here, either; the Xbox One X’s 4K Blu-ray playback is off enough to be considered more or less broken if you’re any sort of home cinema enthusiast

The problem is raised black levels when playing high dynamic range images (which are the star attraction of pretty much all 4K Blu-ray discs) into HDR-capable TVs.
Click to expand...
All Xbox games download to the hard drive even if you have a disk copy. It just checks the license, so I doubt that is causing the games to look bad in any way. That being said, while Cheapy is not impressed, I most certainly can tell a difference in enhanced games, and non-enhanced games run way way better. I just finished Mass Effect Andromeda and that was a night and day difference with the better texture filtering, and the drastically reduced load times really made that a better experience. The sharpness of 4K and better textures in my opinion really does make a difference, but not everyone is going to see it that way, and that's fine. I will say that HDR is one of the biggest improvements in games I have seen, and Cheapy doesn't have a 10bit panel so that may be part of it.

 
1080p tv X1X owner here: the differences for me are huge in games like Forza 7 and Assassins Creed. I was playing them both a bunch leading up to installing my 1X on my 1S: there’s no way I can go back. Perfect or improved frame rates, better textures, less jaggies.

The supersampling thing is real. I went back to my other 1S on a 4K tv in my living room, and Forza looked like shit in comparison (on my much better Tv). Mind you, it was fine on my 1S before I saw the 1X light, but now I can’t go back.

Also, I traded in my 1S to gamestop for $150, so it’s only a $350 upgrade.
 
The X is flying off the shelves in European and supposedly doing really well in the US. I think MS is fine even with the $500 price tag.

To me as a person who plays his XBox everyday of the week It's totally worth it.  Every game looks and runs better. The biggest gripe I have is waiting for titles to get X enhanced. Excited with the Overwatch news today that It's getting a 4k patch but hope It's not the UI BS Patch that the Pro got. Lots of new games that came out already don't have a 4k patch (Ben 10, Lego Super Marvel Heroes, de Blob remaster, Sims 4, Skyforge) but I'm not expecting the indie games to. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a PS4 Pro situation where companies half ass patches or don't do them at all.

 
iunder said:
Hey Cheapy

I just wanted to remark on your anecdote about your theatre trip, especially the part where you say:

"you can argue about whether it's appropriate to take mentally challenged kids to see action movies..."

You should be 100% free to speak your mind about this, so don't read this as a request for you not to say what you really think. It just seems like you had a real failure of compassion. Do we really need to argue about whether it's appropriate to take "mentally challenged kids" to the theatre? I understand it severely affected your enjoyment of the film, but what is the alternative? That people who cannot control the noises they make don't get to go to the theatre - not even in the middle of a weekday? That they have to set up special showings so that regular people don't ever have to deal with them?

I'm glad that my son, who has pervasive developmental disorder – a kind of autism – gets to go to school with regular kids. I'm glad that he isn't kept back from school trips because he might make too much noise. And if I take him somewhere myself, I hope that those around me won't hold it against me for taking him there, because I want him to be able to enjoy himself like anyone else. I will do my best to pick times when it causes as little disturbance for others as possible, but some people's enjoyment will probably still be affected. That is the cost of letting people with disabilities and disorders live their lives among regular people. I hope that on reflection you do not mind very much. And if you respond in any way, please don't waste time on the woman taking the pictures – she's not relevant to this.

I'm a long, long-time listener. Thanks for spreading joy through your podcast.
Click to expand...
Listening to this portion I felt uncomfortable. I think Cheapy was right to be upset about the person taking pictures, but people should be able to see a movie. I think Ty speaks some truth when he tells dad to let people live their lives. Ty still needs to do his homework though.

 
iunder said:
Hey Cheapy

I just wanted to remark on your anecdote about your theatre trip, especially the part where you say:

"you can argue about whether it's appropriate to take mentally challenged kids to see action movies..."

You should be 100% free to speak your mind about this, so don't read this as a request for you not to say what you really think. It just seems like you had a real failure of compassion. Do we really need to argue about whether it's appropriate to take "mentally challenged kids" to the theatre? I understand it severely affected your enjoyment of the film, but what is the alternative? That people who cannot control the noises they make don't get to go to the theatre - not even in the middle of a weekday? That they have to set up special showings so that regular people don't ever have to deal with them?

I'm glad that my son, who has pervasive developmental disorder – a kind of autism – gets to go to school with regular kids. I'm glad that he isn't kept back from school trips because he might make too much noise. And if I take him somewhere myself, I hope that those around me won't hold it against me for taking him there, because I want him to be able to enjoy himself like anyone else. I will do my best to pick times when it causes as little disturbance for others as possible, but some people's enjoyment will probably still be affected. That is the cost of letting people with disabilities and disorders live their lives among regular people. I hope that on reflection you do not mind very much. And if you respond in any way, please don't waste time on the woman taking the pictures – she's not relevant to this.

I'm a long, long-time listener. Thanks for spreading joy through your podcast.
Click to expand...
Clap clap clap!

Well stated. We go to special showings because my daughter not only can't control her noises, but has sensory issues (they don't turn the lights all the way down and keep the audio much lower for these showings), but I liked how you stated your response. It's ok, though, Cheapy--we still love you, man! Just maybe try to have some more compassion and you can always ask for a refund and come back another time if you're put into a situation like that again.

Second part, unrelated. The Overwatch victory screen seems to be one of the more GPU punishing parts of the game oddly enough. Before I got a better GPU for my PC, I always saw HUGE framerate drops on that screen. It may be that the way they handle that for the weak consoles is just to scale back the resolution/rendering making it look bad, but stay above 30fps. No idea why that screen is more challenging than the action in the game, but maybe that explains what you were seeing and why it looks better on the XBOneX.

 
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