The"Smooth Motion" setting...

[Paul MacLean]

Here's an interesting article by cinematographer Reed Morano discussing (and condemning) the “Smooth Motion” feature which is now included on most TVs...

http://filmmakermagazine.com/88128-cine ... FG7gBwviPT

[AndyDursin]

A lot of these TVs come with this setting "on" from the factory and it's just ridiculous, because people who won't know better will leave them on.

It's one of many adjustments you want to make when you buy a new set and want to break it in...plus turning off any filters, "color" or "brightness enhancements", etc. that also might be toggled on. Unless you want everything to look like a Pixar movie!

[Paul MacLean]

It's disheartening to me how many people just go with the factor presets, and don't even care if the screen is adjusted correctly. I STILL see TVs where 16:9 broadcasts are vertically squeezed with black bars on the top and bottom of the frames!

What is more troubling is that manufacturers make it extremely difficult to disable the smooth motion setting.

[AndyDursin]

Every TV calls it something different but it's amazing to me how many filters these TV manufacturers use. I did a search over at the AVSForum when we bought our first DLP because I didn't like the picture -- it turned out there were all kinds of "picture enhancements" in use in that I could toggle off...but a few of them were in the factory menu, which required the kind of work most consumers wouldn't bother with. The result WAS worth it, but when I go over to someone else's house and they're not looking, I almost always fiddle with the picture settings for them!

[DavidBanner]

Motion Smoothers are horrible if you want movies to look like, well, MOVIES. They make everything look like some sort of HD video. I regularly turn them off. When I visited my father and he had that setting still on his new 3D HDTV, I immediately disabled it.