There's no doubt that Apple TV+ is absolutely sailing along with the best sci-fi shows available right now. Despite being late to the party, I've recently started counting down the days for each new episode of Severance – which has just broken viewing records – but it's my also late-arrival to Silo that marks my new obsession with the streaming services' other best sci-fi series.
But there's a problem: Apple TV+'s streaming quality just isn't good enough for me. Sure, Silo season 2 is labelled with '4K' and 'Dolby Vision' badges within the best streaming service's interface. But just because there's the resolution and the HDR metadata there, doesn't mean that the file size and bitrate are good enough to transmit that towards the higher-end of available viewing quality.
For Silo this is a particularly big issue because – unsurprisingly for a show that's set underground in a giant bunker full of people – it's a really dark show. Its cinematography and colour palette utilise a lot of blacks, greys and browns. Now, I don't doubt there's nuance in the way it's shot, and the capacity for it to be stunning in presentation, but that's just not carried over in the way Apple TV+ transmits its data.
And here's the thing: I'd actually pay more for an Apple TV+ 'Premium' level, with the guarantee of even higher quality, if it cost a couple of extra quid (or dollars, or whatever your local currency happens to be). Apple's streaming service is already more affordable than its main competition – Netflix is a fortune at the moment, with recent price hikes – and I fully think it's worth paying for.
This is definitely a limitation of the best streaming services, too, as I possess one of the best OLED TVs on the market right now – and a 2024 model, so it's up to date – and have made good of all the various Filmmaker Mode and other settings for the best possible visuals. But the amount of banding and artefacts on show in Silo is simply troublesome – to the detriment of the show's enjoyment sometimes.
I was chatting to family over the weekend and my brother had ceased watching it because it's "too dark" and he "couldn't see what was going on". Which reminded me of that infamous episode of Game of Thrones (season 8, episode 3, 'The Long Night'), which was so dim that many viewers complained of not being able to see what was even happening.
With Silo there's a semi-fix – and one I had strongly considered just a few days ago. It's available on international Blu-ray, but it's very difficult to obtain – unless you import from Hong Kong. Noting, of course, that a 1080p disc is lower resolution and lacks the HDR formats – but, with two 25GB discs, meaning up to 5GB per episode, I'm willing to bet it'd look better upscaled. Still, I'd rather just pay Apple more for a larger file size to stream...
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