HOW TO TURN OFF MOTION SMOOTHING

Hisense Ultra Smooth Motion

Hisense TVS suffer more than most with judder when motion smoothing (called Ultra Smooth Motion) is switched off entirely, so we generally opt for the Medium setting. Doing that often results in a slight, unnatural over-sharpening of movement, of which Mr Cruise would disapprove. For us, it’s the best (or least bad) compromise.

Some Hisense models, including the recently reviewed AE6100UK models, have no motion smoothing options at all, in which case you get what you’re given.

LG Trumotion

The motion smoothing setting on LG TVS is called Trumotion, and you’ll find it buried deep in the picture setting menus. It’s set far too high by default (Clear is usually pre-selected), and many people will find simply switching it off gives them the most satisfying motion.

That said, others will appreciate the User mode, which allows for subtle tweaking of both the ‘dejudder’ and ‘deblur’ settings. Two to three points on each of these delivers motion that some people – some of our reviewers included – prefer.

Panasonic Intelligent Frame Creation, Black Frame Insertion, Clear Motion

On most new and recent Panasonic TVS you’re looking for the Intelligent Frame Creation option in the picture settings menu. Again, this is set too high by default – but, rather than turn it off entirely, we usually prefer it switched to Minimum setting. This offers a little bit of judder reduction without the introduction of unsightly artefacts or artificial sharpening. You may, of course, prefer simply to disable Intelligent Frame Creation entirely.

You might find that your TV also has a Clear Motion or Black Frame Insertion option. If so, it’s probably already disabled, and we’d recommend leaving it so.

Philips Motion Styles, Perfect Natural Motion, Perfect Clear Motion, Natural Motion

Most Philips TVS in the past couple of years have a simple Motion Styles setting towards the end of the options in the picture settings menu. This will give you a number of options to choose from, such as Standard, Smooth, Movie and Off.

In most cases we’ve found that off is the best bet for natural motion, but with the company’s new OLED models – the OLED803 and OLED903 – we prefer the Movie option, which is far more natural than the overly aggressive, default Standard mode, but still reduces judder sufficiently.

Some models will give you a Perfect Natural Motion (or simply Natural Motion) option. In most cases, we prefer this turned off, but with some models, particularly more premium ones, switching to Minimum increases the quality of motion without making it look artificial.

Samsung Auto Motion Plus

Motion smoothing on a Samsung TV is called Auto Motion Plus, and is usually set to Auto by default. Left like this, motion looks over-processed and unnatural, so for many models the best solution is simply to turn the mode off entirely.

However, some of our reviewers prefer the company’s recent QLEDS with Auto Motion Plus set to Custom, which opens up the option of manually tweaking ‘Blur Reduction’, ‘Judder Reduction’ and ‘Clear Motion’. Setting these to 10, 3 and Off respectively reduces blur and judder without adding the dreaded ‘soap opera effect’.

Sony Motionflow

Sony is the odd manufacturer out here, because its motion smoothing is generally so good it’s worth leaving switched on. The setting is called Motionflow, and in most cases is set to Standard by default. In our experience, the result is a degree of sharpening and smoothing that retains the image’s natural look without introducing artefacts. There are exceptions, of course, and some lower-end models will be better served by switching it off entirely – but with most of Sony’s models, even Maverick would be happy with Motionflow.