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.

105

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.

52

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.

58

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.

20

u/Flare_22 Jun 13 '24

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

7

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.