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For years new TVs come with a feature called frame interpolation, or motion smoothing, which is enabled by default. By creating new frames between those encoded in the film, it makes the movement clearer. But it also makes it look almost artificial, like the movie is shot like a soap opera on cheap video. So moviegoers – including a lot here at Wired– have raged against this feature for years, to the point where it has become same with Tom Cruise. As a tech writer who reviews TVs, I’ve mostly kept my feelings a secret, but it’s time to be clear: I actually use motion smoothing at home.
Before you bring out the forks and tiki torches, listen to me: this isn’t as bad as it sounds. I still hate how original it looks on most TVs. I use it at its lowest setting and only on TVs that can do the job well. In other words, I wouldn’t say that Tom Cruise was 100% right on motion smoothing– but maybe he’s 80% right.
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Modern TVs are not very good at producing clear movement
When the first filmmakers were shooting the first movies, they tried a variety of frame rates, finally focusing on 24 frames per second. It wasn’t a magic number that created a certain “filmic” effect, as we think today – it was, in part, a cost-cutting measure. The film does not grow on trees.
That’s enough to give the illusion of movement, but it’s not really continuous, says Daniel O’Keeffe, who performs extensive display tests at RTINGS.com. He uses the example of a tennis ball flying through the air: “If you were watching the game in person, you could follow the ball smoothly and it can still appear in the center of your vision. This results in clear movement. and fluid. “
But on a movie, you don’t see movement, you see a series of still images displayed at a rate of 24 per second. This isn’t a huge problem in a movie theater, where typical projectors use a shutter to darken the screen between frames. During these times of darkness, he says, “Your eyes” fill the “intermediate image due to a phenomenon called persistence of vision.” This makes the movement appear smooth, despite its relatively low frame rate. Older CRT and plasma-based displays had inherent flicker which resulted in a similar effect.
But modern LCD screens use what is called sample and hold: they draw the image very quickly, then hold it until the next image. (You can see it in action in this video from The Slow Mo Guys). So your eye tries to follow a moving object on the screen, but that object is not always where your eye expects it to be. It’s still held in its previous position, and there’s no black flicker to give your eyes a chance to “fill in” the missing information. The image therefore appears to stutter and blurry, especially in shots that move too quickly in the scene. You can see a more visual representation of this in RTINGS ‘motion video series, embedded below.
Some people don’t notice or care about this stuttering. Other people, like me, are more sensitive to it and find it uncomfortable to watch. Some TVs are also more prone to it, depending on their response time – their ability to change color quickly. Cheaper TVs with low response times seed less, causing moving trail behind objects instead. TVs with fast response times, like high-end LCDs and especially OLEDs, have less ghosting but will stutter more. Neither is really ideal, and neither will give you movement as clear as a CRT or plasma screen. So dweebs like me can’t watch a movie on modern settings without silently cursing in their breath how much the movie looks like a slow, messy flip book.
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