Sanctuary Discussion (Spoilers for the most recent episode)

[scarimor]

/dusts off keyboard

Right. Watched the sneak peek, the trailer, the credits, etc. Groovy, great, good, gradiose, groundbreaking, etc. More to the point, I've been waiting since the Sanctuary website went live for things to change, but the bottom line is that I can't see ****. It's all dark. I can't make anything out even though my eyesight is better than 20x20. At first I thought the folks up there in Vancouver just had some bugs to work out. Now, however, I can only assume, as all of you fine folks out there have seen things with relatively no difficulty, that my monitor is totally busted and retarded. No doubt it's a little dated, no doubt it lacks some variety of modern accoutrements to make it ubertechnocool. OK, it probably sucks the high hard one.

So, am I the only one who can see hardly anything on the Sanctuary website, not to mention any of the streaming media there? Anyone else have this problem? Anyone know if I need a new monitor, some sort of software, to learn the secret Sanctuary handshake? Help, please. If you're so inclined, that is.

I can see the media fine. However it is worth saying that light text on a dark background is notoriously difficult for some people to read. Even if you don't have dyslexia (and I don't, not remotely) light on dark can be a strain on the eyes. I find it hard work reading the Sanctuary forum for this reason. It's not so bad if you're trying to follow a short menu, but any significant body of text will start to cause problems for some people.

And if you do have a certain type of dyslexia it can make reading impossible.

[minigeek]

The business card is sort of a chameleon, it seems to respond to contact with living DNA. Very cool.

[Skydiver]

even lcd monitors are dark. i've found here at work, that if i'm adjusting the video level of stuff, i can't use my lcd monitor as a guide, i need to output it to a regualr tv, cause if i make it look 'right' on the lcd, it'll be washed out on tv. and it it looks right on tv, it looks dark on the lcd

[minigeek]

I can see the media fine. However it is worth saying that light text on a dark background is notoriously difficult for some people to read. Even if you don't have dyslexia (and I don't, not remotely) light on dark can be a strain on the eyes. I find it hard work reading the Sanctuary forum for this reason. It's not so bad if you're trying to follow a short menu, but any significant body of text will start to cause problems for some people.

And if you do have a certain type of dyslexia it can make reading impossible.

The site requires a fairly significant contrast-ratio to be seen correctly. Even with most modern LCDs, you're not getting the full effect. If you look at it on a super high end system with a high contrast monitor, you can see elements in the textures that you'd never noticed before. It's a controversial design choice for that reason, without question. If I were them, where the forum is concerned, I might consider going with a light tan background for the forum message area (similar to the way gateworld's is almost white here) and use dark text on that, rather than using black background and white text. The default font choice is also a serif font, which makes it doubly difficult to follow on a dark background. I'm sure they'll evolve it. But we should post about it in the forum suggestion area there - in fact, I think I will head over and do just that. Can't win the game if you don't play!

[BruTak]

The business card is sort of a chameleon, it seems to respond to contact with living DNA. Very cool.

That's how I interpreted it as well. Kind of half Men in Black carte noir, half Dr. Who psychic paper.

[ForeverSg1]

Well I've watched the trailer about a dozen times now and I have to say that this is one of my favorite scenes.

Helen: You've spent eight years of your life studying medicine. For what?
So you could practice a profession that has almost nothing to do with the reality of the world around you.

Will: Woah! How about a little context with that character assassination?

Helen: That... I can provide.

And by the way she smiled while saying it you could tell that Helen wasn't trying to come off as rude or snobbish, but rather extremely confident. I liked that. I also like that we saw glimpses of her dark sense of humor. The exercise comment while humorous, gave Helen a hint of wickedness ( wicked is good ) that I find very intriguing.

So where do I sign up for a season pass? Because I'm sold and I want more! NOW!

[sofie]

Well I've watched the trailer about a dozen times now and I have to say that this is one of my favorite scenes.

Helen: You've spent eight years of your life studying medicine. For what?
So you could practice a profession that has almost nothing to do with the reality of the world around you.

Will: Woah! How about a little context with that character assassination?

Helen: That... I can provide.

And by the way she smiled while saying it you could tell that Helen wasn't trying to come off as rude or snobbish, but rather extremely confident. I liked that. I also like that we saw glimpses of her dark sense of humor. The exercise comment while humorous, gave Helen a hint of wickedness ( wicked is good ) that I find very intriguing.

So where do I sign up for a season pass? Because I'm sold and I want more! NOW!

I loved that part too!! Her facial expression is just awesome, very good!!
The whole sneak peek was amazing, the dark humor is fantastic
My favorite part was the last line "Good doctors come and go, but the really great ones...the great ones dare to believe in the unbelievable!!" That line gave me goosebumps, she just looked gorgeous, and the way she said, it was amazing!! I was blown away!!
I'm also very excited to see the whole season *squeee*

[tsaxlady]

I can see the media fine. However it is worth saying that light text on a dark background is notoriously difficult for some people to read. Even if you don't have dyslexia (and I don't, not remotely) light on dark can be a strain on the eyes. I find it hard work reading the Sanctuary forum for this reason. It's not so bad if you're trying to follow a short menu, but any significant body of text will start to cause problems for some people.

And if you do have a certain type of dyslexia it can make reading impossible.

This is one of the reasons I don't go to the Sanctuary forum much - to read it I have to cover the screen with special colored transparency - I don't even try to read long posts

Dark background, light print and small font = no read for me

[the dancer of spaz]

Well I've watched the trailer about a dozen times now and I have to say that this is one of my favorite scenes.

Helen: You've spent eight years of your life studying medicine. For what?
So you could practice a profession that has almost nothing to do with the reality of the world around you.

Will: Woah! How about a little context with that character assassination?

Helen: That... I can provide.

And by the way she smiled while saying it you could tell that Helen wasn't trying to come off as rude or snobbish, but rather extremely confident. I liked that. I also like that we saw glimpses of her dark sense of humor. The exercise comment while humorous, gave Helen a hint of wickedness ( wicked is good ) that I find very intriguing.

So where do I sign up for a season pass? Because I'm sold and I want more! NOW!

I'm totally sold, too. It's great being able to attach substance to a theory - seeing AT at work as Helen for that brief time was great.

And Chuck Campbell was so cute: "Hey! New guy!"

I think it was a smart (maybe business?) decision to have SG locals in the pilot episode. For one thing, it's going to be free, so the fans of DH or anyone else can check out their faves without having to pay if they don't want to yet. And, in the mean time, they're given the opportunity to check out a really cool series that just might get them wanting more down the road.

Once again, I must assert that Robin Dunne is gold. There's just something about his portrayal that makes his character very earnest. I know a lot of people have compared him to Michael Shanks, but he seems to be a great talent in his own right, and I look forward to seeing him and Emilie Ullerup, too.

[samcarterrules]

This is one of the reasons I don't go to the Sanctuary forum much - to read it I have to cover the screen with special colored transparency - I don't even try to read long posts

Dark background, light print and small font = no read for me

I know the feeling tsaxlady I have mild/moderate dyslexia and I have trouble reading the forum too cause of the colour it kinda dances in front of my eyes maybe we can ask the Sanctuary Team to look at changing it or something *hugs my PC spell checker tightly* LOL

Julia(samcarterrules)

[tagger]

I know the feeling tsaxlady I have mild/moderate dyslexia and I have trouble reading the forum too cause of the colour it kinda dances in front of my eyes maybe we can ask the Sanctuary Team to look at changing it or something *hugs my PC spell checker tightly* LOL

Julia(samcarterrules)

This is one of the reasons I don't go to the Sanctuary forum much - to read it I have to cover the screen with special colored transparency - I don't even try to read long posts

Dark background, light print and small font = no read for me

And if you do have a certain type of dyslexia it can make reading impossible.

What is the best set-up visually for most people? Black on white? Other?

[jckfan55]

The show and the website are rather dark in comparison to other websites and series; however, I do believe that is a look that was/is desired. I'm not sure if you watched Batman, but it's very dark as well. In fact, I often have to turn up the brightness on my television to be able to watch it. It's only my opinion but you should be able to see the actors faces well enough, but things in the background and surrounding them will look very dark.

I'm all for moody and dark, (I love film noir for instance) but I do want to be able to make out the character's faces in most instances. Sometimes a shadow across a face is stylistic, sometimes when it seems completely obscured, it's annoying.

[Melora]

I'm all for moody and dark, (I love film noir for instance) but I do want to be able to make out the character's faces in most instances. Sometimes a shadow across a face is stylistic, sometimes when it seems completely obscured, it's annoying.

I have a fairly new laptop with a LCD screen and was disappointed that the picture was so dark. There is so much detail that just gets lost in the background.

But antoa over at the SAGC thread had some good tips for the darkness problem and it worked wonderfully for me. It has to do with your monitors color settings.

http://forum.gateworld.net/showpost....ostcount=69331

I went into my control panel and changed the gamma color setting to 1.8 like antoa suggested and watched the preview again. Everything was much more distinct and I could make out most of the details that I missed before. The 1.8 setting is too bright for my regular computer viewing, so I might experiment and see if there is a setting between 1.0 and 1.8 that will be a good compromise. But it does work.

So thank you antoa!

[antoa]

I was thinking about posting that info here, but Melora beat me to it!

I have my set at just 1.2 here at work and there is enough of a difference to see more detail without washing everything out.

You will just have to experiment and find out what setting works for you.

*fyi - on a PC the gamma settings can be found if you right click on the desktop and choose 'Properties' the 'Settings' tab. Click on 'Advanced'. Here there should be a tab for your Graphic Driver. From that tab, click on 'Graphics Properties' and the 'Color Correction'*

*for Mac you can adjust it with your Display calibrator in your utilities folder or the ColorSync utility - more details when I get home to my Mac if needed*

[MerRu]

Folks who have trouble with the color/text schemes on either of the Sanctuary forums - http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/forum/index.php or http://forum.sanctuaryfans.com/ may want to consider tinkering with the defaults on their browsers if they really want to read or post therein.

In FireFox, click Tools on the menu bar, then Options... in the resulting drop down. The Options window opens. Click the Content icon in the icon bar. In about the middle of the resulting page is Fonts & Colors. One can set the default font right there. To keep pages from using their own fonts, click the Advanced button. A new window opens. Unclick the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above" check box to force pages to use the fonts one specifies above on the same page. Click OK as usual to go back to the Content page in the Options window. Then, in the same Fonts & Colors area on the same Content page, click Colors. Another new window opens. Specify something readable for the text and background colors one wants on the left side of the Colors page, then uncheck the "Allow pages to choose their own colors, instead of my selections above" checkbox to force pages to use the specified colors. Again, it's the usual OK button thing to save.

True, these settings will affect all pages one visits. Still, it might help. My Coke-bottle-bottom glasses usually take care of the font size for me but I hate serif fonts, so I force FireFox to show me Arial everywhere all the time, and then occasionally use Ctrl + (show fonts larger) and Ctrl - (show fonts smaller) to have FireFox adjust the font size as required.

I'm guessing that IE can do the same sort(s) of things, but, I don't use it enough to suggest how. Sorry.