Change your TV settings says Cruise
Most people would have been confused when actor Tom Cruise recently made a plea to change an obscure setting on your television.
Why is one of the world’s most famous stars making a video about a motion smoothing, a tech term most people have never heard of?
The easy answer is because that setting makes movies and TV shows look wobbly and weird.
Part of the problem is that motion smoothing – also known as video interpolation or the
‘‘soap opera effect’’ – is turned on by default.
So when you first watch a movie on your new television, you may
think it’s some snazzy new effect, or you may not realise how bad it is until you compare it to a television which has the setting turned off. That’s why Cruise and several other Hollywood heavyweights such as Paul Thomas Anderson
(There will be Blood) and Christopher Nolan
(Interstellar) are making a push to educate people. In simple terms, motion smoothing is a digital effect that increases the frame rate as a way to remove blurring from a video. It can work well when watching sport but it can ruin movies.
That’s because films and many TV shows are shot at 24 frames-per-second and blur naturally occurs, so motion smoothing makes them look wobbly and weird, or like a daytime drama (hence, soap opera effect).
If you watch any movies at all, I recommend you turn it off.
Unfortunately, no manufacturer makes a television that automatically switches motion smoothing on and off depending on what you’re watching.
So you’ll need to dig into your television’s settings to adjust it.
This can be a wee bit tricky because each TV brand has a different name for the effect. Sony uses MotionFlow, Samsung uses Auto Motion Plus, Panasonic has Intelligent Frame Creation and LG calls it TruMotion.
Try going into the Picture settings on your television and see if you can spot the option to turn it off. If you can’t see it, then you may need to search online for the instructions or refer to the manual.
With more people watching movies at home (including Cruise’s Mission Impossible: Fallout which has just been released on DVD), it’s understandable why actors and directors are taking extra steps to speak out again motion smoothing.
If you appreciate movies at all, do yourself a favour by taking the time to turn off this weird setting so you can enjoy movies the way they were meant to be watched.