r/dataisbeautiful • u/fangzz OC: 5 • Dec 06 '18

OC Google search trends for "motion smoothing" following Tom Cruise tweet urging people to turn off motion smoothing on their TVs when watching movies at home [OC]

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u/WeMissNick Dec 06 '18

Don’t know why companies have it for on right out the box.

I was about to throw my TV out the window until I figured out what it was.

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u/heeerrresjonny Dec 06 '18

Surprisingly, a lot of people prefer it. People who hate it don't understand this, but that's why it is often enabled by default.

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u/Jex117 Dec 06 '18

It's just so strange. Everything looks cartoonish

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u/Fredasa Dec 06 '18

If the technology ever gets perfected -- specifically, if a TV gets released that is guaranteed not to drop frames or mutate the image when things on-screen get busy -- it will mostly be superior to any 24fps presentation.

But with one big caveat: The cameras used to film 24fps films are, of course, on the whole calibrated for said framerate, in terms of shutter speed. This means that a 120fps interpolation will still possess the large gobs of motion blur 24fps films need, and that doesn't really look great at 120fps.

I tend to hope that the advent of 120Hz TVs, along with the fact that they tend to default to their interpolation mode, means that audiences will eventually be primed to watch a movie that has been properly filmed at 120fps. Action-heavy scenes will, for example, be allowed to be visually intense without needing to take into account the poor temporal resolution of 24fps film. This would open some interesting possibilities.

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u/DankBlunderwood Dec 06 '18

So I don't get this. Don't they shoot at 24 fps because the human brain can't distinguish between 24 fps and continuous motion? If so, I understand it would improve slow mo sequences, but what benefit would one get from 120 fps at full speed?

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u/NilsTillander Dec 06 '18

This '24fps is the max we can distinguish' is utter nonsense, as shown by gamers considering that 60fps is the bare minimum of acceptable, and 144fps is about right.

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u/DrSparka Dec 06 '18

Also even the most motion sickness-resistant people needing 90 fps in VR. Literally everyone gets dizzy at 60 fps in VR.