

Whether you should simply turn the feature off is slightly less straightforward, though, thanks to the variation in the native refresh rate, response time and implementation of motion smoothing across models from each manufacturer. Thankfully, it is actually quite easy to turn motion smoothing off by flicking through the picture settings menu until you find an option with 'motion' in the name - we've listed the name (or names) each manufacturer uses below. If the motion smoothing isn’t good enough for movies, it’s not good enough for anything else as far as we’re concerned, including sport. Just one manufacturer, meanwhile, delivers its TVs with default motion settings that we usually recommend leaving as they are.Īnd for what it's worth, we don’t believe (as some seem to) that a TV’s motion processing should be turned on for some sources and off for others. In some instances, switching from the default mode to one that’s a little less aggressive can result in a useful reduction in judder or blur without harming the naturalness of the image.
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Inevitably, the TV often gets elements wrong, and that can result in the flaws described above.īut while we agree with Cruise that motion smoothing is often best switched off, it's not always the case. Consider everything that’s going on in every single frame of a film, and that’s a heck of a lot of processing. These problems are created because the TV is essentially predicting, at an exceptionally fast rate, what each next ‘real’ frame will be, and inventing a frame that’s half way there. It can be hard to put your finger on precisely why this sort of motion looks ‘wrong’, but there’s generally a feeling of over-sharpening, things moving artificially fast, and/or odd artefacts appearing around fast-moving objects. The crux of the case against motion smoothing is that it can result in unnatural motion, which in its worst instances is often referred to as the ‘soap opera effect’.
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How to set up your TV and get the best picture.The former choice can result in a bit of judder and/or blur, while the latter is the interpolation (motion smoothing) that Cruise warns about. Most sources designed to output 24fps actually slightly speed up the video to 25fps for better synchronicity with a 50Hz TV, but that still leaves the telly with two choices: display each frame twice, or add a frame in between those it’s receiving to bridge the gap. Many TVs now refresh each frame at double that rate, while others claim to triple it or beyond (though often don’t). In other countries such as the US, a mains frequency of 60Hz results in the display showing 60 frames per second. In fact, they naturally display 50 frames per second in countries such as the UK that have a mains frequency of 50Hz. Your eyes often perceive this as any combination of judder, blur, or weird artefacts around the subject in question, depending on the speed of the motion and the native response time of your TV.Īny TV is capable of displaying far more than just 24 frames per second, though. It's slow enough that with fast motion an object or person can jump from one point on the screen to another a few pixels away. It’s because the frame rate used for a lot of content is actually rather low: 24fps for almost all films and the vast majority of scripted TV shows. It's exceptionally clever when you think about it, but why would you want extra frames inserted into the video you’re watching? It generally works by introducing artificial frames of video between the actual frames provided by the source. Motion smoothing, also referred to as motion interpolation or motion processing, is technology built into most modern TVs that’s designed to reduce judder and blur from video sources.
