I’ve been testing an HD projector here at the house and, in its initial, out-of-the-box setting we found that the picture was ridiculously “sharp.” The picture, I suppose, looked like an old Dr. Who episode where the action on screen is smoother than the background, creating a jarring disparity when watching movies with lots of movement. It’s sometimes called the “Soap Opera Effect.” We decided to do a little digging to figure out why.
Most film is recorded at 24 frames per second, but your LCD TV probably either displays at 60 fps or 120 hz (hertz is just a measurement of frequency per second). There are three main ways to cope with this.
First is to simply display each frame longer, this is the oldest technique in LCD tech. However, its undesirable side effects include the possibility of motion blur, or of judder. Judder is an artifact of adjusting the framerate and it looks like a sort of stutter in movement that would otherwise be smooth (a slow pan, for instance).
The second technique is one used on Plasmas and CRT TVs. Instead of showing a bright image the whole time, they display the frame, then a short frame of either darkness or a very dimmed picture. This alleviates much of the issue with judder and motion blur as it allows your brain to fill in the gap faster than you can consciously notice. It is also an old technique, and is used in theaters. It provides the traditional cinema feel.
The most recent and advanced technique is motion interpolation. Motion interpolation is a process by which your TV analyzes the current frame, and the next frame, then creates an average. It inserts these averaged frames in between. The result is extremely smooth motion with no motion blur and judder becomes almost non-existent. There are a few technical issues with this, including the possibility of ghosting or artifacts in rare cases. Also the smooth movement this creates is slightly disconcerting.
This extremely smooth motion has earned the name the “Soap Opera Effect,” after the way those shows looked, having been shot on cheaper 30Hz video instead of regular broadcast equipment or film. Although it might be technically superior it seems it is disconcerting to me. The movement looks like a digital video, not like film. This problem is exacerbated by the high definition. I’ve seen this happen in standard definition video as well and you essentially see the “moving” objects on a different plane than the background, as if they were cut outs moving on a painted background.
Cinematographers and video experts have had techniques for hiding “telecine” video artifacts for years, but the increase in interpolation frames (from 30 to 60 to 120 or more) has reduced the need for such techniques. Instead, the increased framerate minimizes the video glitches at the cost of looking a bit weird. There are a lot of complaints out there over how 120Hz looks “too smooth” or unrealistic. This is probably mostly due to people just not being used to it and wanting to home films to look like the cinema they are used to. The rub here is simple: HD content looks incredible, on the aggregate, but these interpolation problems pull us out of the uncanny valley and into a strange new way of seeing motion. It isn’t quite what we expect and it upsets us.
Maybe TV makers will solve this problem or maybe we’ll just get used to it. Either way, something you can simply turn interpolation off and get the old, juddery picture you know and love.
With Berkeley Beyers
I recently bought a 42″ Vizio HD LCD tv thats 240 HZ. I’ve been asking around about this “Weird” effect it has while watching movies through my super old DVD player and noone has an answer. My first thought was I need to get a new DVD player, because when I play dvd’s thru my XBOX360 its way better. It literally made Grand Torino look like the worst quality film ever.
Well, on the upside – with 240 Hz you’ll be able to use 3D glasses with your current TV – no need to upgrade.
You can turn off the motion interpolation.
In truth, I think the motion interpolation was created as a way to upsell from 60 Hz sets to 120 Hz sets – otherwise no consumers would see a difference in the store between the two sets. Unfortunately for the TV industry, the solution is horrible.
Tons of DPs shoot in 24p even when the only deliverable is going to be on 60i@30fps TV because capturing motion at 24 frames looks more “film-like.” Creating extra frames – even if the algorithms worked like a charm – it would still look lame to a consumer’s eye.
The real advantage of a 120 Hz set is 24p HD. With 60 Hz, the TV has to do a telecine on the fly, where it shows a frame for 3 refresh cycles, then a frame for 2, in a pattern to account for the fact that 60 doesn’t divide by 24. At 120 Hz, each frame can just be displayed for 5 refresh cycles, and the TV doesn’t need to perform a telecine, which means the 24p is a more “true” representation.
But most people can’t notice the difference between the two.
In my opinion, the motion interpolation should just be turned off by default, as I’ve heard more complaints about it than people that like it. They should have just created a marketing term like “Tru 24p ™” and been done with it.
don’t forget, the xbox 360 I believe also upscale Standard Definition stuff so that’s probably why it looks better when played through the xb360.
Seriously, an entire article about Soap Operas? What a terrible piece of journalistic garbage.
Completely disagree. This is an informative article about technology that’s relevant to most people. You did notice the title of this blog is TechCrunch?
The entire article also isn’t about soap operas. Perhaps you should read something before commenting on it.
Did you read the article? It’s not about soap operas. It’s about video interpolation. I can’t believe I’m even replying to this. Your ignorance is contagious.
Alan – “Your ignorance is contagious.”
You were right about that part, at least.
TechCrunch comments are the new twitter! Pass it on.
apparently you didn’t read the article Jackass
Apparently you don’t have a sense of humor “Jackass”
Awesome.
Legen – wait for it – dary!
Lol
Apparently, you don’t have a sense of humor if you thought that comment was funny.
It’s funny – I’ve had this same gripe about the “soap opera look” – and it can cause some heated debates. My former roommate works at Pixar and got his Masters in film. . . and he loves 120hz. I, on the other hand, am a no-talent ass clown, and I can’t stand the way the motion on the screen looks in 120. I’ve complained about the jerkiness of telecine before. . . but I’ll take it any day over what 120hz does to my viewing experience!
I know, it’s weird how some people don’t notice it at all, and some people almost can’t watch it.
Well, I guess its similar to Mp3s. I cannot stand how you can hear the artifacts in 320Kbps & it only gets worse the lower the bit rate. Maybe, these TVs have become so good at reproducing the signal that it is now showing the inferior quality of the cameras being used to capture the footage. Or maybe, I just don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about??
Just to chime in on your 320kbps MP3 comment.
It’s pretty much CD quality. What artifacts are you talking about? The standard that most people use is 128kbps and you start to get more quality loss when you go down to 96kbps, then 24kbps.
Audible artifacts in 320kbps MP3s? Are you using an old version of Xing or something? Some friends and I have done double blind testing with lossless and 196kbps MP3 and CAN NOT reliably pick out the lossless one. I encode in VBR @~256kbps and would never hear the difference between that and lossless.
AYFKM? There is no way you could hear artifacts at 320kbs unless you started with a crap source to begin with when you encoded it. I think your last statement was right on!
I can hear the difference between uncompressed WAVE or CDDA and LAME 256kbps VBR, like most of the MP3s that Amazon sells. Now I just buy the MP3 then torrent the FLAC files.
And yes, I do think this issue is analogous. It’s also similar to how some people love subpixel rendering on LCDs (ClearType/Font Smoothing) and others hate it and others still don’t notice the difference.
FYI, Mp3 is no where close to CD quality. WAVE(.wav/pcm) streams @ 1440Kbps, FLAC @ 900+ Kbps & Mp3(standard maximum) 320Kbps. When I’m playing Mp3s through my Diamond digital audio card to my Marantz receiver using Jamo speakers, I can most definitely hear a difference. Mp3 compresses the file by scrapping the supposed “unimportant” information,so, I could understand the argument for FLAC but for Mp3 it doesn’t hold any water. The artifacts I hear are from the cymbals and the lack of depth of the instruments, I mean, the fullness is missing.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Mp3s for portable devices but for my home stereo they plain out suck and I was mainly using it as an example.
Mark, are you using $2,000 studio-quality headphones?
Because anyone with consumer-grade equipment isn’t going to be able to tell the difference as stated above in the blind tests.
Scott,
I think it’s clear that the equipment in question is either pro or audiophile gear.
With high-end gear you can tell the difference between 96/24 and inferior CD-quality audio, so if there’s *any* loss, it’s going to be glaringly obvious.
I have to agree that there is audible differences between CD and MP3’s. By the same token, records sound different than both mediums. Think about it, that old LP is the only analog recording of an analog source.
Compression affects music… there should be no reason to argue that point. MP3’s are going to sound different than CD’s due to sampling rates and missing nuances that mp3 encoding deems unnecessary. You don’t need $2000 worth of headphones. I purchased a pair of $200 Audio Technica studio monitor headphones and it is amazing the world of difference you can get. Audiophiles are called that for a reason… music is there passion… don’t tell me MP3’s and CD’s are interchangeable… get a good pair of headphones and something clean to play them on and any double-blind study will show you that.
If you guys really wanted to get stupid about it you could just take an oscilloscope and graph both output audio signals (44KHz is nothing to a scope). You could visually see the aliasing occurring. A visual picture is a lot less subjective than a sound to most humans.
Whether or not you could really hear the difference I suppose depends on your audio budget as stated above. However, even the most perfect sound drivers in the world don’t have a perfectly flat response curve.
I personally HATE 120hz & up Tv’s the “Soap Opera Effect ” BUGS the hell out of me, and i won’t buy a TV untill they fix the crappy look.
…and stay off of my lawn you damned kids!
the upsampling can be turned off.get an led lit lcd preferably a samsung the color space exceeds hdtv specs and has a 7,000,000:1 contrast ratio.beyond human perception.it suports 240hz and i agree 120 and 240 looks awful but only because the media was not designed for it the tech is here to stay and as movie and tv production addapts it will start to look amazingly sharp and more natural.you’ll need the tech to avoid obsolescence and 240hz works with 3d lcd glasses.to support 3d films at home.starwars lord of the rings scarface all are being redone in 3d.the up sampling shows flaws hidden by lower rez video.
I am with the other Travis – 120 Hz is awful and should be avoided at all costs. Oh, and it is Doctor Who – not Dr. Who!
Doctor Who cares.
Oh, snap.
Well, the fact remains that 120Hz is indeed remarkable, but ONLY in the right situation. Movies? definitely not. Sports and video games? Definitely YES!
thats the distinction. what makes a movie a movie is the LOOK of picture. the grain, the low depth of field, and most importantly, the motion blur!! When you take away that important aspect of film, it doesnt become film anymore. Its not a matter of people getting upset over something theyre not used to, its the fact that it really does change the overall effect any director ever had for his movie.
but thats the magic of the ability to SWITCH back to regular 60Hz. its still most likely an amazing screen. so keep it at 60Hz for movies and bump it up to 120Hz for some halo 3 action. problem solved. engineers just need to clue into this, and make the switch as easy as possible, IE just a single button.
Other than his horrible punctuation, Wren has the best post here so far. The solution, at least at this point in time, is not to force all industries (film, tv, videogames) into the same format. The solution is to simply add a remote button on new televisions that switches picture formats with one click. Most tvs can switch back and forth but the option is usually hidden down 3 or 4 menu levels making it frustrating.
The best technology is the one that easily lets the viewer experience the creator’s intent for his/her creation.
Two points to make:
1. The problem with motion interpolation is that it is having to create new frames that weren’t on the original film.
Imagine we have a football moving left to right on screen.
frame a:
O
and frame b:
O
but then we have to insert a new frame in between.
Then the ball should be in between:
O
Even this simple task is very tricky.
Firstly the software has to recognise the object that has changed position – the ball.
Secondly it has to cut out the ball and move it into an interpolated position – in the middle.
But it also has to not show the ball at the left-hand or right-hand position. It has to instead show whatever was behind the ball – presumably grass or something.
What a CG digital compositor would probably do is grab from frame b the bit of grass that was behind the ball in frame a, and grab from frame a the bit of grass that was hidden in frame b.
But this simple task would take an effects artist a few minutes per frame at least.
Your TV is having to do this in 1/24 of a second.
Which is impossible.
So it cheats. It uses warping and other motion compensaton/interpolation techniques to create inbetween frames that sort of fool the eye.
But what we end up with is every other frame being a frame made up by the computer as a poor approximation of what that frame would look like had it ever been filmed – with all the errors, artifacts, and inaccuracies of a process done at incredibly high speed.
And not surprisingly it looks weird.
For half the film you are watching images that no camera ever filmed, that no editor ever saw, and no director ever intended for you to see.
But my second point is:
When we go the cinema to see a film, or even when we see a movie on television, we subconsciously are seeing characteristics and artifacts of the picture.
If you switch channels, I reckon most people could tell within a second whether what’s playing is a movie or a TV program.
Nowadays, as more movies are shot digitally, filmmakers are trying hard to work out what it is that makes a movie looks like a movie. Then they’re trying to alter the digital picture to replicate that look.
There are a number of things.
1. Depth of field. Simply put this means that in films, very often the foreground will be in sharp focus, whilst the background will be blurry/out of focus. TV camera lenses have traditionally been unable to replicate what we call that ’shallow depth of field’.
2. Grain versus noise. Both video and film picture are the combination of little dots. But film is made up from a random pattern of dots, whereas video is made up of absolutely square pixels. And it’s interesting that while stills photographers sometimes blow up grain, loving its natural texture, almost nobody ever loves video pixel noise. Some argue that it’s because the eye/brain prefers natural texture to artificial.
But certainly, when trying to make video look like film, one thing you can do is reduce the video noise, and actually degrade the picture a bit by adding a bit of sampled film grain. There are programs which can simulate the grain given by different types of film.
3. Gamma. It’s complicated but basically film and video react to light in different ways. Film still sees more detail in the brightest and darkest parts of the picture and sees colour in a different way. Another thing that filmmakers do to make digital images look like film is to alter the gamma, either in camera or in post-production.
4. Frame-rate. To bring this back to the original subject, traditionally the biggest give away that one is watching a video-originated image and not film is the frame rate. In the US, video cameras shoot 60 frames a second. They cheat a bit to do this. Imagine the picture broken down into horizontal lines. Then imagine that these lines are numbered 12345, etc. On the first frame, video cameras record lines 2,4,6,8, etc. Then on the second, they record 1,3,5,7,9 etc.
This is known as interlacing.
Nowadays, we can set digital cameras to not do this. We change them to film in what’s known as a ‘progressive’ mode, which shoots full 24 frames a second.
In the old days, filmmakers used to go to great lengths to get rid of this interlacing.
We would literally throw away all the information for lines 1,3,5,7,9 etc., and duplicate the information for lines 2,4,6,8.
Why?
It was clear that the higher frame-rate was a give-away that the image had been shot on video not on film. So even if we degraded the picture somewhat by throwing out half the data, it still sort of looked ‘better’.
Why would it be so important to filmmakers (most of us anyway) that we shoot something that looks like film, even if it isn’t?
I think the answer is because audiences react differently to video and film. They don’t know they’re doing it, and it’s working almost entirely on a subconscious level, but when someone thinks they’re watching a movie, their mindset is that this is something more special, bigger budget, more worthy of their attention.
So imagine the frustration of filmmakers when new TVs undo all of the work we have put in to making something look like film and make it look indeed like a ’soap opera’. Modern TVs can get rid of all the lovely ‘film grain’ we’ve programmed in – they brighten and alter the picture undoing all our work to match a film gamma, and worst of all, they increase the frame rate, adding digital artifacts at the same time.
I don’t know of any filmmaker who would want you to watch his film looking like that.
So, as a previous poster said – if you’re watching sports or video games, or indeed soap operas, fine.
But if you’re watching a movie, and you want to watch it the way the director made it, switch as much of that video enhancing crap off as you can!
Paul Spurrier
“If you switch channels, I reckon most people could tell within a second whether what’s playing is a movie or a TV program.”
This reminded me of the Monty Python skit, the Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Thing, where the cast try to leave the building only to realize that they are on film ;)
Way too long. Posts that are too long are not read. They are met with ridicule.
That said, I think 120 is awesome for watching the NBA finals– or fast action programs that benefit from clarity.
Movies are different though. Too clear and they look like .. too clear and you lose that “dreamy” feeling you’re supposed to get from a movie.
The solution is to have two TV’s, one with 60 hz and one with 120 hz. Better yet, design a TV with a switch so that people can switch back & forth depending what program.
TL;DR
Speaking of way too long, how about that name you have there!
Too long, didn’t read ;)
How do you ever learn anything then? You can’t learn much if you won’t read anything longer than 140 characters. Grow up.
I’m telling mommy!
I think you wasted a lot of time writing that. I don’t read things above a ten year old level…
Not that TVs have access to this, even when playing back MPEG2 streams, but doesn’t MPEG4 compression calculate motion vectors and isolate moving subregions. Seems like this could do a better job of filling in those interpolated frames. Not that that wouldn’t also seem wrong for stuff that originated on film.
Paul Spurrier’s comment is not too long. Its explanatory. I’m incensed at the “soap opera effect ”
I don’t watch TV, only film. I want to know what flat screen we can buy for this, that does’nt turn it into a soap. I still want that magic. I want to see it the way the filmaker made it. Who the hell can watch Stronheim, kurosawa, Wilde,etc. with the same effect as a reality show! I hate reality shows,
Well said, John. Well said, Paul. Kudos to all commentators in-between. The experience of viewing (anything) is truly subjective and aside from the precise explanation of these clashes between technology and creation add to it the multitude of errors in delivery of the image signal to the consumer. How long before manufacturers add this as a display option that we can switch at will? My next purchase will have to wait until they do.
John, you sir are awesome for posting Luke and Laura from the great General Hospital, the soap opera that was bad-ass enough to have Baltar from the original BSG on trying to freeze the world with a freezing ray. (Bonus, Rick “Zac” Springfield was also on the show that season.) May your life be made of win from here on out.
If only you knew how important luke and laura were to my mom back whenever they were popular. i think my dad sent away for a photograph of the happy couple for my mom who had come over from poland I guess 12 or 13 years before and basically learned english from general hospital. That was the biggest media event of the decade in my house.
My mother (a Russian émigré) owes much of her English language mastery to The Young and the Restless. No wonder she became a shrink after watching the serial for 20 years!
You crazy wapanese, lol!
I’m glad it isn’t just me. I thought all of the HD movies looked unfinished. Like the out-takes we used to watch on VHS. Looks like it was all shot on HandyCam.
Animation looks PHENOMENAL, but live action looks incomplete.
(hertz is just a measurement of frequency per second)
Hertz is just a measurement of frequency. Frequency per second is redundant since frequency actually means 1/second.
“Frenquency” doesn’t always mean “per second”…
> Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time.
Frequency is defined as 1 / Time period so w/e time unit is present, the unit remains hertz and adding a “per second ” to it doesn’t make sense :/
Frequency per second is redundant since frequency actually means 1/second.
You could have avoided your pedantic repliers by using the right words here. “Hertz per second is redundant…”
I’ve never experienced that on my Panasonic 52″ Plasma! Fear the 480 Hz Sub-field Drive. LCD does not compare to Plasma yet with all this new 120/ 240Hz gimmicks
To be honest, it’s really the other way around, we’ve been used to crap and a 120Hz TV fixes it. The fact that frames were interpolated together on older TVs absolutely makes it worse than newer TVs (you’re fiddling with the picture more).
And if you don’t like the picture smoothing, you can turn it off. You will still get the benefits when watching a Bluray movie because it was filmed at 24FPS. Since that number evenly divides into 120, your DVD player no longer has to perform 3:2 pulldown!
Yeah, I hate the higher hz TVs….I got a great deal on a 52in LCD 60Hz and couldn’t have been more please. My girlfriend and I noticed how everything on 120 and above appeared “fake” to us. We actually compared it to a soap opera as well!
On Sony LCDs that have 120hz, you can turn it off. You can also save money by buying a “lower end” model that doesn’t have 120hz to begin with. I find it’s great for sports (things fast moving or those shot on video to begin with) but for film based content it definitely gets that “weird” effect.
This is also similar to the “cinemotion” feature on Sony LCDs (on 120hz and non 120hz models). When i first got mine, I was wondering why DVDs looked so weird, then i realized I could just turn it off. I’d recommend doing the same if you don’t like it. Not sure about other brands – this is mostly just talking as a Sony owner.
As Jeff began to state, it isn’t the 120hz that CREATES the soap opera effect, it merely ALLOWS it. The soap opera effect is created by software that TV makers add to their 120hz TVs to do the interpolation (they all call it different things – SmoothMotion, MotionPlus, CineMotion, etc.). You can simply turn the software off in the options menu.
With the software off, you still have a 120hz set that offers beneftis way beyond a 60hz set – primarily the benefit that you can display 24fps film in it’s native frame-rate without any 3:2 pull-down – this also reduces judder without the soap opera effect.
The problem is that the marekters of the 120hz televisions don’t make this important distinction so people automatically associate the soap opera effect with the refresh-rate and not the “feature software” that actually creates it.
120hz televisions = less flicker, less judder, native film frame rate disply even when the soap opera effect software is turned off!
Good distinction. I wasn’t sure how to put it exactly when I was helping out with this post, mainly because I’m not familiar with the different motion interpolation solutions and how they integrate with the display rate.
Thanks for this clarification! I’ve got a Philips 42 LCD and tried using it’s Smooth Motion Plus Yadda Yadda for a while. And it’s kind of weird how everyone comes up with the same name for things, because I said “wow, everything looks like a soap opera now…”
I tried to continue watching it, I tried to like it, multiple times even! I just couldn’t. Well…I could, but I noticed a lot more judder. It made most of it smooth, but then there are a few shots or scenes every now and then that are just all about the judder. So I had to turn it off.
But to know that my 120hz lcd is still beneficial without Philip’s motion software turned on, great news!
With film you think of more production effort and cost, while with video you think of ‘fast food’ and cheap, so if my TV makes my film look like video, I don’t like it, even though I recognize it’s not a very objective point of view.
Btw, some sets can disconnect the 120hz feature, which gets rid of the 3/2 pull down effect, from the tweening feature.
In other words, with my samsung, for instance, I can get the improvement of having no 3/2 pull down without the soap opera effect.
Film is 24fps, which doesn’t divide evenly into 60fps, so they duplicate one of the frames but not the other has they fill in the 60fps with the 24fps source. This is what the 3/2 comes from. The result is an uneven choppiness you can see most clearly during panning shots.
24fps divides evenly into 120fps, so the choppiness isn’t uneven. The soap opera effect comes from the further processing which monkeys with the extra frames, but on some sets that can be turned off while still using the 120hz mode to get rid of the 3/2 pull down artifacts.
I was a film major in college in the late 80’s — and this was a common debate among fellow students.
You’d think that 30fps would by definition be “superior” to 24fps — but such is not the case. For whatever reason (psychological, associative, whatever) 24 fps feels “richer” and more like a movie, while 30fps feels more “live” and is more appropriate for news and sports.
Even today, where films are increasingly digital, film is STILL SHOT AT 24FPS.
I remember seeing some old Twilight Zone episodes (old as in Black&White) — where they are shot in video (30fps) and it was obvious even in the 1960’s that video feels “cheap” — they obviously didn’t shoot many in video before switching back to film.
I’ve had a 120Hz set for over a year now, and I still get comments from people why are over about how it looks so clear, but almost too clear. I was drawn to the set for this very reason. When I first got it, I would notice the “soap opera effect” frequently, especially, as other said, during movies. A year and a half later, it’s completely normal to me and I almost don’t notice it ever. Now it’s the opposite. When I watch a 60Hz TV, it seems strange.
That aside, like others have said, the effect is amazing for live TV and other non-stylized type content. Movies which rely on tons of color key corrections, etc., will seems strange because the fluid movement seems to take away the “filter” the director intended to be there.
I realize the 60 vs 120HZ issue is all the rage, but this article is full of incorrect video terminology. It throws the entire thing into a bad light. I work in post production and the entire premise in the first few paragraphs lacks a grasp of the base technologies behind video and film. Please do some research in the future.
it’s not “cheaper” equipment used in soap operas, its video v. film. film has 24fps which has a strobing effect, while video is 60 fields/second – esentially 60 frames per second, thats why some sitcoms shot on film look more “real” than ones shot on video. think of taxi v. three’s company. one looks like a movie, one looks like a soap opera.
Cheaper as in total production cost. You expect more going to a movie theater than turning on your TV and watching a soap. I realize that in some cases the production cost can be the other way around, but I think this generalization is what’s behind my own reaction: Tv = cheap.
The “soap opera” effect in the traditional sense does not come from actual frame rate, but from interlacing. This makes NTSC video apparently 60fps as two interlaced fields are being drawn 30 times per second.
Just look at the difference between 1080i and 1080p, regardless of screen refresh frequency to see what I mean. (this is why sports always look better on 1080i vs. 720p on HD broadcasts)
Actually, progressive scan (720p) is better than 1080i for sports.
which is why ESPN broadcasts in 720p.
A full frame, every single time, is more important than the few extra lines of resolution.
120hz tv’s look awesome in Best buy while you’re looking at for 5 minutes, but when you get it home, you will realize it is just a gimmick.
immediately after buying my tv, I went on forums to see what the problem was. It is judder, and the 30fps compared to 24fps is a lie. Again it is all a gimmick. The only movie that has looked good is Kung Fu Panda. It looked amazing.
I love my 52″ 120 hz tv, with the 120hz turned off.
What you describe is linear interpolation, the lowest form of signal processing. Cubic, Beizer or Fourier analysis would improve the synthesis.
Personally I find digital television distracting to watch. I’m forever noticing the artifacts and mpeg blocks.
Cubic/Bezier are usually associated with 2D signal processing, specifically image scaling. In the case of creating in-between frames, the form of your (3D or temporal 1D) filter is the least of your worries.
Good point about compression artifacts.
Wow, Luke & Laura! I remember those days on General Hospital. Used to get high and watch that shit in the summer. Brings me back.
Paul Spurrier couldn’t be more confused.
Theres not a gnome in there cutting and pasting an image to get the filler frames. Its an average of the two frames.
If you pause on the frame in the middle it will look like someone made your football transparent. You’ll see grass and football mixed.
My goodness!
Is it too much to ask people to actually read something before telling me I’m confused?
The whole point of what I was writing was to say that while a little gnome might indeed do a good job at this, the TV does not do that – hence the problem. Please read again:
“But this simple task would take an effects artist a few minutes per frame at least.
Your TV is having to do this in 1/24 of a second.
Which is impossible.
So it cheats. It uses warping and other motion compensaton/interpolation techniques to create inbetween frames that sort of fool the eye.”
this is why plasma is still better than lcd. you guys fell for the marketing fluff. oh well! better luck next time.
no no, this is why DLP’s (especially LED based ones) are superior to everything else. no blur and smooth cinema experience.
DLP’s are lighter than plasmas, use less electricity and lets face it, if you’re going to buy a tv 50″+, you want that baby solid and not having off the wall (although you could mount a DLP to the wall if you really wanted to)
Plasma = Mirror. When I watch TV I want to see what’s on TV not my face or my couch reflecting in the TV.
You would think content should be “cleaned up” on a consumer device such as a display, but to prevent any problems from happening, it needs to come from the broadcaster, and ideally from a standard created at the ATSC. Content broadcasters send to consumers should be able to adapt to quality of a display no matter what, and a number of technologies actually exist to allow that in existing and future equipment. Companies such as Algolith, Harris Broadcast and THX have similar technologies. But broadcasters are very slow at adopting them and creating an industry-led standard that would guarantee the highest level of quality and consistency at the consumer level.
This has been the same problem for years with loudness (volume) control when switching programming or channel. Broadcasters are very slow at adopting & creating new standards to improve quality, for the simple reason that they’ve focused their business on ads sales & content instead of technology innovation to differentiate themselves from each other. Hopefully this will change soon.
Dakx
What a debate… If a movie looks too real you don’t like it? When I first started making films I was stuck on getting the “cinelook” until HD was released to the masses. HD makes images real, not fuzzy or blurred. So we lose the classic film look but HD creates a very immerssive experience. Have you seen Planet Earth? WTF! Can you not suspend your disbelief when something looks too real? C’mon people progress is good!
I think everybody’s an idiot. 120 Hz makes the film look far closer to reality and thats a good thing. Get out of the 1940s, and you’ll realize the more information per second on the screen is better.
Maybe, arguably the more ‘real’ information the better. But as I wrote above, your TV is making up information that is not real. It is information that no camera has ever filmed. It is information made up by relatively cheap computer chips in real-time.
We’ve lived with ‘made up’ information before and still do: anything that was shot natively as interlaced and shown on a progressive display.
Modern displays have a ‘cheap computer chip that’s making up the missing half’, as you would put it…
So I don’t see where the rub is. It’s possible that current implementations of 120Hz are lacking, but as they get better over time, you might not see this as an issue in the future.
People shouldn’t dismiss 120Hz+ from the get-go, as it will probably become the standard.
Huh?
“The second technique is one used on Plasmas and CRT TVs. ” …
OK…
“then a short frame of either darkness or a very dimmed picture.”
OK.. Plasma TVs and CRT TVs can do to this but whats a “short frame”?
Less that 1/24 a second?
“It is also an old technique, and is used in theaters.”
Used in theaters? Really? Film based theaters? Or Digital LCD projection theaters? I dont see how film projectors can “add a short frame of darkness or a dimmed picture”
I think whats responsible for the “traditional cinema feel” is, well, traditional film projection.
There is simple reason for having 24/25 fps, progressive as preferred way of watching feature films. It’s all about psychology of perception. It “distorts” reality ever so slightly, telling us that we are watching a “story”. Video frame rate (50, 60 fps, interlaced) on the other hand is much closer to the way we perceive reality and therefore telling us it’s “real life”.
You can compare it to listening to someone telling you what happend using specific voice, gestures etc. vs. seeing the same event with your very own eyes.
Thing is, we want feature films to be “stories”. We don’t want them to look “real”, even if they deal with stories based on real events. We want them to be “larger than life”, because we seek for morals, universal truths, dramatic conclusions.
And we prefer news, reportage to be “real life” or “as big as life”. We feel confused if it’s mixed up.
If this becomes an issue that bothers people the manufacturers will simply develop modes to adjust for the type of content. My TV already has different modes for content source… I’d imagine they will just expand upon those. Would be even better if the TV could automatically read the input source and adjust… then give you the option to override it. Most people never even bother to color correct their screens so I don’t see this really being bothersome to the masses.
Now that more HDTV companies are pushing their product via commericals people are a lot more curious about 120Hz, 240Hz, and 600Hz (in plasmas).
I’ve written about the difference between 120Hz and 600Hz to help people decide which is better for them. The story is here: http://www.tvlampsnbulbs.com/2009/08/120hz-vs-600hz-which-is-better/
I didn’t think the frequency of display made that much of a difference with tvs.
Berkeley Beyers seems to be a little confused. judder and motion blur are two seperate video problems. While 120hz/240hz LCD technology solved the problem of judder (A problem the vast majority of consumers never noticed) it traded the problem of motion blur for the “Soap opera effect” .
LCD response timing caused much of the motion blur, but even LCD displays with 4ms timing still suffered from it. Raising the refresh rate was the answer, but there was a cost. This “Soap opera effect” is a distortion of the picture. It makes film look different than film. There is no judder at your local cinema, and there is no “Soap opera effect” either. Telling consumers this is progress in video display technology is as big a lie as advertised one billion to one contrast ratios. Pioneer elite Plasmas convert all film based sources (24fps) to 72hz and you have no judder and no “Soap opera effect”. As Berkeley stated, if you don’t like it, turn it off, but buy plasma if you don’t want to deal with it at all.
I just setup a 120Hz TV last night and observed the incredibly smooth motion. It was indeed very odd looking. The disc I popped in was The Dark Knight and instead of looking like a film, it looked like live theater. I now see that it appeared like that because the TV was interpolating frames — the smooth motion feature was turned on. I thought that turning the smooth motion feature off would take it down to 60Hz, which I certainly don’t want with 24fps film content as that yields frame judder. However, I guess when the smooth motion is turned off the TV is still running at 120Hz, which is a very good thing as there’s no frame judder at 120Hz. Turning the smooth motion off must just turns off the frame interpolation.
As someone previously said, it’s not that 120Hz inherently gives it that smooth motion look. Rather, Rather, if the picture is being refreshed to the screen 120 times a second, that offers the TV the opportinuty to interpolate the frames to give it that smooth motion.
I have a CRT projector that I have setup for displaying HD DVD and Blu-ray at 48Hz so I don’t get frame judder. If I were to display movies at 72Hz the motion wouldn’t be smoother as there’s no frame interpolation going on. Rather, increasing the refresh rate, at least in the case of CRT technology, would just reduce flicker (the reason I don’t increase the refresh rate to 72Hz is because 48Hz looks sharper on a CRT projector). Thus, 120Hz is a great thing for movies as it’s a multiple of 24 and as such, there’s no frame judder. However, frame interpolation isn’t good for movies, at least in my opinion, because it takes away from their surreal nature of 24fps cinema, which I also assume is psychological in nature, as someone stated.
Thanks for the comments, I just bought a 42″ 120hz LCD and the soap opera effect in movies was driving me crazy! Now I’ve turned off all the motion compensation and stuff in movie mode and I am pleased to say that the picture is now acceptable.