I can write a quick list of examples of information that's missing from synthesia:
Starting with
They both tell you where and for how long to put your fingers.
The "how long" is not displayed accurately whatsoever. Reading a whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth etc, they're very clear values. As opposed to a bar that's X pixels long on the screen. Also reading a polyrhythm is pretty fucked on synthesia. It's much easier to just see "okay this is 4 against 3" on sheet music than it is to try to measure it from the bars on the screen.
Time signatures. On these videos you have to know how to count the time yourself. Same goes with feeling where the pulse is.
Dynamics information is entirely missing. Crescendos, diminuendos, piano, forte, accented notes, etc. Sure you can listen to it, but 1. I'm not sure how well these are usually done in those videos and 2. A beginner might not have the ear to hear a very slight, over time crescendo for example.
Different voices, especially with pieces that have more than two. On sheet music this is marked clearly with ties or up/down stems on the notes.
Accidentals and key changes. On sheet music the composer can clearly notate their intention for these. On glowing bars you don't even know if you're playing, say G# or Ab. Of course if you're really good at theory you can probably figure it out on your own, but sheet music has this information and can help you learn the theory by getting you asking the right questions of why something is notated the way it is.
Repeats. If a sheet music has a repeating section you don't need to read carefully through it, inspecting every single note, since the sheet clearly says "now play this again". On synthesia videos you'll hear "hmm this sounds similar" but then you need to manually verify, note by note, if it's an identical repeat or a slight variation of the section
Written instructions like cantabile, en animant, rubato etc. Words and phrases that explain how the section should be played, what the general feed should be.
I'm sure there's more that I'm not thinking of. Some of these are more important than others, some can be figured out by listening to the music etc., I'm just listing stuff that's clearly there on the paper on sheet music, but that's not included in the glowing bars.
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