With season 8, HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on George RR Martin’s bestselling books, finally comes to an end. Join The Verge as we navigate the character deaths, the battles for the throne of Westeros, the arcane politics, and the grotesquely complicated family dynamics of America’s favorite fantasy soap opera. From wild fan theories to books-vs.-show connections to creator conversations and controversies, we’re tracking the most compelling parts of this unprecedented cultural phenomenon.
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Last week’s episode of House of the Dragon featured a scene that was shot in full daylight and darkened in post-production to make it look like a night scene. As a result, a full 17 minutes of the episode was virtually unviewable, regardless of how nice the TV you watched it on was.
Vincent Teoh from HDTVTest has done some measuring and comparing of the scene on various screens, including a $30,000 reference monitor, to see just how dark that scene got. The result? Most of it was well below a single nit of brightness, which is why it was so difficult to watch.
Teoh has some tips for those hoping to get a better experience, including turning off HDR entirely, but the only real fix would be for HBO’s directors to actually master the show for screens people watch it on, not just the reference monitors they are using while editing.
House of the Dragon is a grim remix of an already gruesome song you’ve heard before
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Game of Thrones: the final season
As HBO airs season 8 of its hit show based on George R.R. Martin’s novels, we’ll be following every development