February 18, 2018 – A few years ago, I was in a Best Buy, and an HDTV was playing a movie I’d seen recently at the cinema. The problem was, it didn’t look like the same movie I’d seen in the cinema. In fact, it didn’t look like a movie at all. It looked more like raw video, like an episode of Saturday Night Live, the local news, or a soap opera. What was happening?!
It turns out that HDTVs have a new feature, called motion smoothing. This technology removes the motion blur that occurs on LCDs and LEDs (motion blur that occurs if something is moving quickly and laterally across the screen).
To solve motion blur, the new HDTVs add in new frames that aren’t in the original program. (A “frame” is one image, like a movie still. With a typical movie, your eye sees 24 pictures (frames) per second. For more on the technical side of this, see “For further investigation” at the bottom.)
Surprisingly, some people like this new motion smoothing. But most do not. They prefer their HD movies and shows to have a beautiful film look, not a raw video look. I’m in agreement. For me, it’s okay for the news, SNL, and reality shows to look like raw video. But I want Game of Thrones and The Crown to look like film, like cinema.
If you have a newer model LCD or LED (plasmas don’t have this problem), the motion smoothing will be “on” by default. But hopefully you can turn it off if that’s your preference. Below are the names that motion smoothing goes by on various HDTVs, and you’ll usually find them in the Advanced Settings area on your TV.
LG: TruMotion
Sony: MotionFlow
Samsung: Auto Motion Plus
Sharp: AquoMotion
Toshiba: ClearScan
Vizio: Smooth Motion
JVC: CrystalMotion Pro
There was a time when most TV and cinema dramas were shot on film (or a combination of film for outdoor and raw video for indoor scenes). Nowadays, for ease and lower budget, most are captured instead on HD video. But the push with HD video has always been to produce digital media that looks like film.
The irony is clear. The people producing high-quality movies and TV dramas want their products to look like film, even if shot on HD video. But the new motion-smoothing technology on modern HDTVs takes their film-ish work backwards to looking more like raw video.
For further investigation:
What is the ‘Soap Opera Effect’?
What Is the Soap Opera Effect (and How to Make It Go Away)