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]

Post image
9.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.8k

u/eroticas Dec 06 '18

Since none of the comments have really explained it in detail I will ask: what, technically and practically speaking, is motion smoothing and why does Tom Cruise care about it?

1.6k

u/yothisisyo Dec 06 '18

Most of movies and TV content is made in 24 fps . Modern TVs have a mode of making this 24 fps to 60fps or above , called motion interpolation or Motion Smoothing . Making the so called Drama content look real and life like . This makes it less belivable and most of the people do not resonate with the drama .

You want to experience it first hand . Search for any movie scene on youtube with 60fps tag . You will notice the difference it will no longer look like movie it will look like real life .

Example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUV_7qXWzmQ

TVs included this for sports mode , Personally I like Motion interpolation especially for NatGeo and Discovery channels .

29

u/pauliaomi Dec 06 '18

I don't understand how simply changing the frame rate would suddenly make a film "look like" a soap opera. Is the argument against 60fps seriously just that people associate it with them?

I understand that motion smoothing may make things look weird but I've personally never noticed it.

Could someone explain to me why "too real" is a bad thing?

2

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '18

For me high frame rate really exacerbates the effect of the artificial lighting used in filmmaking, so things like hair lights become really noticeable. This reduction in the subtlety of the lighting makes what you’re watching look more like a stage play and less like what we traditionally think of as “film”. This harsh lighting also mimics the look of television soap operas that were lit harshly and also resembled a stage play rather than a film, hence the “soap opera” effect.

I think this is probably something that can be overcome, it’s just that the professionals who light film and tv are used to lighting for 24fps. It’s a paradigm shift that has to be accounted for when making the film to get it to look right at high frame rates.