Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Motion Smoothing

6 Comments

…is ruining cinema.

When we rented a place down in Julian a few months ago, I noticed that the movies on the large-screen television looked like soaps. It was an interesting effect, but now I wonder if that’s what I was seeing. I haven’t noticed it on our newish LG, but I think I’ll look at the settings and experiment. Sounds like it’s good for fast-action sports, but bad for drama.

6 thoughts on “Motion Smoothing”

  1. I once watched a Star Trek TOS episode at a friend’s house on their big screen TV that had motion smoothing on. I immediately thought something was wrong because it looked like it was shot on the same gear as “All My Children” or “General Hospital”. I asked my friends about it and they thought it had something to do with flat-screen TV’s, saying they had gotten used to it. I went home, did some internet searches, and told them which settings to change.

    1. Yeah, pretty much. I got a new TV last year–prices have come down so much I got a 55″ 4K Samsung for under $600–and it had motion smoothing set on. I watched some live action TV and noticed the same thing–at first it looks sort of hyper-realistic, but then it’s annoying, so I turned it off.

  2. I honestly haven’t noticed anything, except a willingness to watch less TV. Except fast-paced sports, oddly enough.

    Not sure that’s a bad thing.

    1. “Not sure that’s a bad thing.”

      Given the material being offered, I’m sure it’s not.

  3. I bought a 55″ LG about 6 months ago (replacing a 20″ analog TV I bought in the late 90s). I try to remember to turn motion smoothing on or off, depending on what I’m watching, but it doesn’t matter if I forget. I don’t watch sports, but newish TV shows “judder” a bit with it off. Movies and upconverted old TV shows are better with it off. I don’t have cable (not available in Deplorabland) or satellite, and my DSL is too slow for most streaming (non-4G YouTube is about the limit), so it’s just the increasingly sluggish Netflix-by-mail and bought DVDs.

    1. Sounds like you’ll be a camping-out-in-line first-nighter when SpaceX finally starts selling retail Starlink subscriptions. As a current denizen of the L.A. suburbs I fear the local population density may be too high to allow me to be an early adopter.

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