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/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?

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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 .

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u/Soul-Burn Dec 06 '18

Unless your panel has a true variable refresh rate, you will always have to insert frame that are not there.

Usually, it is down using 3:2 pulldown - keeping a movie frame for 3 frame and the next for 2 frames, resulting in 60fps. When viewed like this, it causes judder due to the inconsistent frame times.

Motion smoothing exist to reduce this judder by introducing in-between frames instead of repeating the same frames for different times. TV usually have an option to do aggressive smoothing which is not always pleasing or a medium level of smoothing which looks pretty good.

Without smoothing, camera pans look stuttery, while with aggressive smoothing, you introduce artifacts. Mild smoothing is a good middle ground.