Motion smoothing on TV — anyone get annoyed by it?

I’ve always found it off-putting and somewhat disorienting. Am currently staying in a hotel, and when casting from my phone, it seems to have kicked in automatically. Haven’t thought about this for ages prior to this, but it does really ruin the experience for me.

I'll be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. Yes, I'm that old now.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’m even calling it the right thing so it’s probably me.

I literally had to Google the terminology for the phenomenon I’m describing, so… for what it’s worth, I distinctly remember this being a thing even when I was a kid, so it’s clearly not from ‘the last few years’ as Variety suggests.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/m...235176633/amp/

Omfg, I hate that shit.

Worst part about staying in hotels is damn near every TV has that feature turned on and you can’t turn it off with the provided remote.

So yes, I feel your pain. I’ve started traveling with an extra LG remote just in case. As I tend to see more LGs in the hotels I use.

Thank you! Exactly. Finally, I feel seen.

I’m staying in a hotel now (only until tomorrow) and it’s driving me up the wall. (Thank you for the brilliant LG remote tip, will take on board).

I’ve been watching Paul Schrader films and feeling this rage that they get ruined by this beastly idiotic thing. Who on Earth even came up with it, what is the point? (I’m not being sarcastic, it just feels like it’s making everything worse, so just… why?)

@AgrippinaX: The feature has a use, but it’s primarily for sports and any video content that was shot in 30/60fps, which is why it makes 24fps content look like ass.

But yeah, it’s really only good for sports. The feature was invented so LCDs could compete with plasmas. I just turn all that shit off. I don’t care if my action scenes blur. And I don’t ever watch sports.

That makes sense — good to know.

Yeah turn everything off if you want the cinematic feel. The motion smoothing is called Soap Opera effect as it makes everything daytime tv.

It also makes subtitles judder.

Soap opera indeed. Will try the remote trick as per above as this truly is intolerable.

I always found this very weird whenever I would see it on display TVs in stores. I never knew that it was a setting, though---I always had assumed that it was the standard for higher-end TVs...

Likewise!

I deep calibrate my tv, but if I were to fix one thing only when getting a new tv it would be to turn that sh*t the F off… one of the most awful features to be invented.

But how do you describe it to someone? That's what I have trouble with in trying to explain it to people that don't notice it.



Just went and got the old man a Roku (cuz they still have cable and pay for "HBO" but miss out on all the MAX content) and it seems baked in. Showed him the first scene of Gangs of London and it had that "floaty/ephemeral" look to it. Almost like, "Hey we want this brilliant picture to look like a crap SciFi show from the 2000's."

Doesn't bug me that much.


I have had moments of watching in which I started feeling that what I'm seeing is playing back too fast, but that sensation has largely passed. By brain seems to now translate the frame rate. I am good with either.

I've genuinely never noticed this. Either I now will and be eternally annoyed by it or still not see it and wonder what the fuss is all about. Of course, it could also be how few films I watch, especially new ones.

Some people just don’t really care/notice. I kept trying to explain it to my dad last time he was in town and we were watching Pacific Rim. I’d be going all “see, right there, they look like robots” and he’d be all like “that’s because they are robots”.

This is hilarious. To be fair, I’ve somewhat struggled to describe it too.

I’d say perhaps describe it by starting with the actual technology behind. If simplified that could perhaps make them understand the further explanation.

What happens when turning “motion smoothing” on is that the tv will insert extra frames between the actual real frames. The standard for movies is 24 frames per second. That’s what gives it the “cinema look” instead of the more “video cam dad” look. Or, the “soap opera effect”, since those were filmed at higher frames.

The thing is, those extra frames doesn’t exist. It’s guesses made by the tv so you add to something that isn’t there. This can cause weird artifacts on screen in motion, especially on subtitles since they are motionless while the actual image might move behind them.

But apart from the occasional artifacts, what people don’t like about it including myself, is the image you get when “extra frames” is added. It takes the film from cinema to a cheap video look. It makes the image seem to move faster, or ironically, even seem like weird slow motion or something. That’s because the natural blur/judder coming from cinema standard 24 frames is removed.

It makes the movie seem fake, unnatural and just plain weird. I don’t like any of the features that does this, however, there are some smaller features that can perhaps help a little bit to reduce an overly juddery image. Because TVs handle judder and motion differently. It all depends on the tv, LCD or OLED and stuff. So yeah.

Obviously this doesn’t have to be the entire explanation given every time to someone haha. But it was just for those who perhaps didn’t even know what the feature was and what it did.

Personally, I just really miss plasma TVs.

EDIT: OLEDs make me feel like i’m staring at the sun. no thank you. i’ll stick with my free 60” LCD TV that i replaced the backlight LEDs in for $60. and no, i am never doing that again

This is super-interesting and in-depth — thank you! Properly enlightened here