I’m currently 35 years old and I’ve had eye floaters since my teenage years. They appeared almost suddenly and caused me a great deal of fear and anxiety. I was examined by ophthalmologists at the time and no problems with my vision were detected. Most of the floaters were always circular, semi-transparent, with a slightly darker dot in the center. Because of that, from my early 20s until around 33/34, I gradually learned to live with them without thinking too much about them. They were always there.

But for the past 7 months or so, they seem to have entered a somewhat worse phase, specifically in the more central area of vision in my right eye. They are larger or more filament-like now and cast a bigger shadow. They are no longer those small, circular, semi-transparent floaters, but more like dark cloudy shapes.

The amount of floaters doesn’t seem to have increased. They appear to have simply changed position inside the eye and are now more centrally located, which prevents my brain from filtering them out as effectively because they constantly move through my central vision. As a result, I’m inevitably much more aware of them.

And this brings me to my biggest fear: will they always keep getting worse? Will there come a point, as I get older, where they become unbearable?

That’s why I’m curious to know how your floaters have evolved over time, especially for those of you who developed them at a young age and are now much older. How have they changed throughout your life?

I’m a 35-year-old Spanish guy who suffers from VSS (Visual Snow Syndrome), tinnitus, migraine with aura, and floaters. Over time, I’ve realized this combination is far more common among people with VSS than most people think. After reading studies and hundreds of personal experiences, it seems like there’s usually a mix of neurological predisposition together with a trigger related to stress, anxiety, or a hypervigilant nervous system. In my case, looking back, everything started during my teenage years, around 15 or 16 years old. 

The first symptom I clearly remember was visual snow itself. It didn’t appear suddenly or in an extreme way. I just started noticing a kind of visual static or noise in my vision, especially on single-color surfaces: walls, the sky, bathroom tiles, ceilings… It felt like the image was never completely clean. Kind of like the static from old televisions, but much subtler. It was especially noticeable at night or in dark environments. At the time, though, I didn’t think too much about it. The real turning point came when the tinnitus appeared.

For people who don’t know what tinnitus is, it’s basically that ringing or buzzing sound many people experience after a concert or after listening to very loud music, except in this case it never goes away. It’s there constantly, 24 hours a day, every single day of the year. Everyone experiences it differently. Some people have it at unbearable levels, while others, like me, have it relatively mild. In my case, I mainly notice it in silence. If there’s a TV on, my computer running, or background noise around me, my brain can mostly mask it. But the first time I experienced it, it terrified me.

I had already been a very nervous person since childhood, and at that time I was also severely overweight for my age, around 110 kg  (242.5 pounds) as a teenager. The tinnitus hit me like a truck, and I became completely obsessed with it. I entered a period of very intense anxiety that, in my case, mostly manifested at night. I remember suddenly waking up in the middle of the night with a brutal feeling of not being able to breathe, as if my body had stopped breathing for a few seconds. It felt extremely physical, not just psychological. Almost like sleep apnea or a massive adrenaline surge. I would sit up in bed gasping for air while my heart was racing. The strangest part was the visual sensation that came with it. Even in complete darkness, I had the feeling of “seeing red,” almost like there was some kind of pressure or very strange visual distortion happening during those moments. Not long after that period, the floaters started appearing too, along with occasional small visual flashes.

At the time, I genuinely thought something serious might be happening to my eyes. My parents took me to an ophthalmologist, and I went through several tests: retinal exams, dilated eye exams, scans, and different machines. Thankfully, they didn’t find anything dangerous. In the end, everything was simply labeled as anxiety, and for a while I was prescribed medication for it. But even though the anxiety became more manageable over the years, the symptoms never truly disappeared.

The visual snow stayed, the tinnitus stayed, and the floaters never left either.

Not long after that, the third major symptom appeared, something I now know is also strongly associated with VSS, migraine with aura.

My aura is the typical kind many people describe with visual migraines. It starts as a small bright distortion on one side of my vision, almost like psychedelic lights or shimmering zigzags that slowly expand until seeing normally becomes very difficult. Then it fades away, and the headache begins. Over time, I realized that a huge number of people with VSS experience this exact combination: visual snow, tinnitus, and migraine with aura. It almost feels like the classic VSS triad.

Nowadays, there’s more and more information available about VSS, and everything seems to point toward the problem not really being in the eyes or ears themselves, but in how the brain processes and filters sensory information. The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that our brains fail to properly filter certain internal visual and auditory “noise.” Almost as if the sensory filter is too open. There also seems to be a kind of involuntary hyperawareness of our own bodies that makes us constantly focus on symptoms most people would probably ignore automatically. And I think many people who suffer from this have experienced something similar:

there are days when you’re distracted, entertained, happy, or deeply focused on something else, and you barely notice the symptoms at all. That doesn’t mean they’re gone. They’re still there. But your brain stops focusing on them so intensely.

Sometimes it feels like learning to distract yourself and coexist with it is the only real way to recover some degree of peace of mind.

# Basic guide to transcoding 4K movies to fit on a 50GB Blu-ray (maximum possible quality)

After a lot of trial and error, here’s a simple method to convert 4K remux files into BD50 discs while maintaining very high quality (well above streaming) and ensuring compatibility with standalone players.

Goal

* Keep quality as close as possible to the original remux
* Avoid stuttering / buffer issues on Blu-ray players
* Use a simple, repeatable setup without overcomplicating things

# Technical setup

I use FFmpeg + NVENC (HEVC 10-bit):

ffmpeg -y -i “4Kmovie.mkv” 
\-map 0:v:0 -map 0:a -map 0:s? 
\-c:v hevc\_nvenc -profile:v main10 -pix\_fmt p010le 
\-rc vbr\_hq -b:v XXM -maxrate XXM -bufsize XXM 
\-spatial\_aq 1 -temporal\_aq 1 -aq-strength 3 
\-c:a copy -c:s copy 
“outputConvertedMovie.mkv”

In this line, you replace the XX values depending on your needs:

\-b:v XXM -maxrate XXM -bufsize XXM

* \-b:v → target bitrate (the average bitrate you want the video to aim for)
* \-maxrate → maximum bitrate allowed for complex scenes (peaks)
* \-bufsize → buffer size

# The buffer is especially important for Blu-ray players. If it’s too high, you will get microstutter or playback hiccups even if the file is correctly encoded, so it’s best to keep it aligned with maxrate.

This is also the reason why a simple 2-pass encode targeting file size is NOT suitable for this use case. While 2-pass is great for maximizing efficiency and hitting a specific file size, it does not properly constrain instantaneous bitrate peaks or buffer behavior in a way that is compatible with standalone Blu-ray players.

# Main rule (bitrate)

I use a simple system based on movie length:

Short movies (< 2h15)
👉 45 / 50 / 50
Maximum quality within BD50

Medium-length movies (2h15 – 2h45)
👉 40 / 45 / 45
Very good balance between quality and size

Long movies (> 2h45)
👉 35 / 40 / 40
To make them fit within BD50 without killing quality

# IMPORTANT

Length is not everything. The type of movie matters.

Don’t lower the bitrate too much if the movie has:

* heavy film grain (Nolan, analog film, IMAX, etc.)
* dark scenes with noise
* fire, smoke, rain
* chaotic or fast-paced action

In those cases, try to keep -b:v at ≥ 40 Mb/s if possible.

You can lower the bitrate more if the movie has:

* clean digital image
* sci-fi with smooth backgrounds
* low texture complexity

With this method you can convert a 4K remux into a BD50-compatible size, keep very high visual quality, and avoid playback issues on real hardware. It’s not a remux, but in many cases the difference is barely noticeable.

Blu-ray is still one of the best formats for long-term storage. In particular, Verbatim MABL 50GB discs (HTL) offer good long-term stability, are more resistant to degradation than older organic discs, and have an estimated lifespan of 30–70 years or more depending on storage conditions.

Basic guide to transcoding 4K movies to fit on a 50GB Blu-ray (maximum possible quality)

After a lot of trial and error, here’s a simple method to convert 4K remux files into BD50 discs while maintaining very high quality (well above streaming)

and ensuring compatibility with standalone players.

Goal

• Keep quality as close as possible to the original remux
• Avoid stuttering / buffer issues on Blu-ray players
• Use a simple, repeatable setup without overcomplicating things

Technical setup

I use FFmpeg + NVENC (HEVC 10-bit):

ffmpeg -y -i “4Kmovie.mkv” 
-map 0:v:0 -map 0:a -map 0:s? 
-c:v hevc_nvenc -profile:v main10 -pix_fmt p010le 
-rc vbr_hq -b:v XXM -maxrate XXM -bufsize XXM 
-spatial_aq 1 -temporal_aq 1 -aq-strength 3 
-c:a copy -c:s copy 
“outputConvertedMovie.mkv”

In this line, you replace the XX values depending on your needs:

-b:v XXM -maxrate XXM -bufsize XXM

• -b:v → target bitrate (the average bitrate you want the video to aim for)
• -maxrate → maximum bitrate allowed for complex scenes (peaks)
• -bufsize → buffer size

The buffer is especially important for Blu-ray players. If it’s too high, you will get microstutter or playback hiccups even if the file is correctly encoded, so it’s best to keep it aligned with maxrate.

This is also the reason why a simple 2-pass encode targeting file size is NOT suitable for this use case. While 2-pass is great for maximizing efficiency and hitting a specific file size, it does not properly constrain instantaneous bitrate peaks or buffer behavior in a way that is compatible with standalone Blu-ray players.

Main rule (bitrate)

I use a simple system based on movie length:

Short movies (< 2h15)
👉 45 / 50 / 50
Maximum quality within BD50

Medium-length movies (2h15 – 2h45)
👉 40 / 45 / 45
Very good balance between quality and size

Long movies (> 2h45)
👉 35 / 40 / 40
To make them fit within BD50 without killing quality

IMPORTANT

Length is not everything. The type of movie matters.

Don’t lower the bitrate too much if the movie has:

• heavy film grain (Nolan, analog film, IMAX, etc.)
• dark scenes with noise
• fire, smoke, rain
• chaotic or fast-paced action

In those cases, try to keep -b:v at ≥ 40 Mb/s if possible.

You can lower the bitrate more if the movie has:

• clean digital image
• sci-fi with smooth backgrounds
• low texture complexity

With this method you can convert a 4K remux into a BD50-compatible size, keep very high visual quality, and avoid playback issues on real hardware. It’s not a remux, but in many cases the difference is barely noticeable.

Blu-ray is still one of the best formats for long-term storage. In particular, Verbatim MABL 50GB discs (HTL) offer good long-term stability, are more resistant to degradation than older organic discs, and have an estimated lifespan of 30–70 years or more depending on storage conditions.