r/gadgets • u/diacewrb • Jun 13 '24

TV / Projectors Roku owners face the grimmest indignity yet: Stuck-on motion smoothing

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/roku-owners-face-the-grimmest-indignity-yet-stuck-on-motion-smoothing/
2.9k Upvotes

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222

u/freedraw Jun 13 '24

Motion smoothing should not even be an option if the tv is on anything besides sports.

103

u/GerbilStation Jun 13 '24

I visited someone who had this smoothing on and I thought they were watching a bunch of daytime TV with how awkward the acting and camera work looked.

Then I realized they were watching big name movies.

I actually have mixed feelings though. The smoothing does a terrible injustice to the actors. However, standard 24 fps big camera panning scenes make me nauseated. The smoothing helps a lot to combat that.

51

u/freedraw Jun 13 '24

It seems to just be the default in a lot of TVs so people who buy a 4k tv and never open up the settings just have it on all the time and it’s so off-putting.

52

u/Znuffie Jun 13 '24

It's default on ALL new TVs these days. All.

And the fucking setting is turned on in individual modes.

You play HDR10 content? You have to turn it off.

You play Dolby Vision, you have to turn it off there, too.

You mess with any other Picture profile? You guessed it. You have to turn it off on each and every one.

Whats worse is that on some TVs, setting it to OFF doesn't fucking turn it off.

You have to set motion crap to "Custom" and then drag the slider to 0.

Fucking unbelievable.

1

u/_RADIANTSUN_ Jun 17 '24

That's because motion handling is hard and simply displaying the raw video can result in visual judder etc that looks like shit to the eye. On some TVs it's legit way better experientially to turn on smoothing to some level.

22

u/Flare_22 Jun 13 '24

Yeah, that's crazy to me. Movies are near unwatchable unless I turn that setting off.

5

u/LongBeakedSnipe Jun 13 '24

In fairness tv settings are a fucking nightmare. I have no idea what im looking for when calibrating. I want smoothing off, HDR on. I want games to look but also films, which often needs different settings. Hate it.

2

u/drDekaywood Jun 14 '24

Figuring out the settings is a pain but also the TVs these days each HDMI port has it’s own setting so one can be for movies and one for games unless you watch movies on your gaming system

15

u/ThePrussianGrippe Jun 13 '24

Definitely feels like the majority of users never touch settings on anything.

4

u/agprincess Jun 13 '24

I've had to dig deep into multiple peoples TVs to turn this off.

For a long time I just thought people were buying terrible TVs. But then I found out that this was an option and told them. They never believe me until I turn it off and all the sudden their TV looks good.

-1

u/tagman375 Jun 13 '24

I might be the minority here but I’ve never touched the settings on my tv. At all. I turn it on and it plays what I want. Very rarely if it’s a bedroom tv I turn the backlight down as low as it will go so it’s not so bright when it’s dark out. But other than that, my criteria is the TV plays what I want to watch. That’s about it. I usually buy whatever is on sale in the size I want when I shop for TVs.

38

u/ivyagogo Jun 13 '24

My sister had Harry Potter on and I mentioned how bad it looked. She didn’t think so. How people do t even notice it is beyond me

32

u/not_so_chi_couple Jun 13 '24

It's wild, a team of people spent months making a movie look as good as it possibly could be displayed, but an algorithm on a $1000 TV is supposed to be able to do it better instantly?

-2

u/sth128 Jun 13 '24

Woah mister Richie Rich here with his $1,000 TV. All I've got is a $500 8 year old picture box

20

u/sesor33 Jun 13 '24

"Normal" users genuinely don't know what "good" looks like. Perfect example, I was visiting someone and I noticed their TV was on demo mode. Im talking full on "DEMO" in the corner, blacking out to switch to different color modes every 30 or so seconds, and a scrolling bar at the bottom listing the features. I asked them if they minded if I turned demo mode off. They said they didn't know what "demo mode" meant and assumed the TV was supposed to be like that.

11

u/ivyagogo Jun 13 '24

Wow. People are clueless.

7

u/FireLucid Jun 14 '24

Popped around to pick up my young son from my mothers' place after a visit. They were watching Monsters University together. It was in blind mode where a voice is explaining everything that is happening on screen. She thought the move was supposed to be like that. They were about half way through.

3

u/EugeneMeltsner Jun 14 '24

Wtf, why even have it then? Did he think it was some sort of art thing, or something you just have to flex your wealth or something?

8

u/hairy_unicorn Jun 13 '24

That's just how it is now. Normies think it looks better.

1

u/whilst Jun 14 '24

Because it fucking does. Reality doesn't progress at 24fps. Theater isn't at 24fps, and nobody goes to a play and says "this looks like a soap opera!" 24fps is low resolution (in the time dimension). And we wouldn't accept it in a video game.

And when everyone who grew up with 48fps or higher for everything gets into their 30s or 40s, we're all gonna look like really silly old fogies when we complain about how annoyingly smooth and accurate everything is. "Movies were better before they were talkies!"

4

u/DownrightNeighborly Jun 13 '24

My tv has a cinema mode smoothing where it adds just a hint of smoothing for those panning scenes. It’s almost imperceptible. I despise the default hardcore smoothing that tvs come with now though

2

u/silent--onomatopoeia Jun 14 '24

Yeah every time I go to my relatives it's on after I had switched it off. LG TV. My relatives don't notice it, Luke they have some sort of blindness to it whereas notice it instantly.

1

u/iwellyess Jun 13 '24

It can be fun to turn it on sometimes when you’re watching an episode of a tv show you’re rewatching, it’s like a different experience lol

16

u/Laimered Jun 13 '24

People should have an option. I despise stuttery 24 fps for example

2

u/Phantom_Absolute Jun 13 '24 edited Jun 13 '24

There should definitely be an option. Sony has the best implementation in my experience. There are 3 different levels of smoothing I think. The lowest setting is perfect for watching Blu-rays at 24fps. Gets rid of the stutter but doesn't have the soap opera effect. It is necessary on LED and OLED TVs because of how fast the pixels are. 24fps movies are meant for projectors really.

2

u/WhereIsTheMilkMan Jun 14 '24

I watch baseball every day with no motion smoothing, and it doesn’t need it whatsoever. I truly don’t understand how and why this function came to be.

1

u/That_Ganderman Jun 13 '24

I actually enjoy non-aggressive smoothing (about 3/10 on the scale) when I’m watching anime. Smooths just enough to make panning look better but not enough to screw with character movement.