Ask The Tech Expert

James O'malley

Q: Why does the picture on my TV look weird and how can I stop it?

- Justin

A: If you've bought a new TV in the last six or seven years, you've probably noticed something strange: the picture is weirdly… smooth?

This is what most people call “motion smoothing”. It's an effect that will make Hollywood blockbusters and serious dramas look every bit as cheap and cheerful as a shopping channel. But TV manufacturers seem intent on inflicting it on us, because it makes for more dramatic images on the screen, especially when you're walking along the TV aisle in a branch of Currys.

The reason it doesn't look quite right is because it's an attempt to use computer trickery to make smoother pictures: typically, TV is broadcast at 25 frames—or images—per second in the UK. Your TV tries to make it smoother by running at 50 frames per second, and using clever algorithms to guess what the in-between frames might look like.

For example, if a car is driving across the screen, motion smoothing will analyse two frames with the car in a slightly different position on each, and then it will attempt to generate the inbetween frame, with the car half-way between the two positions. The results are, in my correct opinion, horrible.

How can you fix it?

Annoyingly, each TV brand calls the mode something different. Samsung calls it “Auto Motion Plus”, LG calls it “Trumotion,” and Sony calls it “Motion Flow,” for example.

But if you dig into the picture settings menu on your TV, you should be able to find a button to turn it off. It might be hidden inside a further “Expert Settings” or “Additional Settings” menu if you can't find it.

Or, if you have a slightly newer TV, there's a much better way: simply look through your “Picture Mode” options, where you'll be able to pick different modes like “Sport”, “Movie”, or “Videogames”, and make sure that you pick out “Filmmaker mode”.

The idea with this latter mode is that the TV will switch off any “postprocessing” it performs on images— giving you the picture as the people who made the show or film you're watching originally intended. Phew! ■