Marty (and others) to the rescue... Again

Thank you Mr. Scorsese! The high speed scanning/motion smoothing plague that makes even the most epic feature film look like a video game or a Telenovela needs to die. ASAP.
It took me over an hour to find and figure out how to turn it off on my in-laws LG set, it was ridiculously difficult for a consumer. Filmmaker mode is at least a step in the right direction
although with all of the various aspect modes and frame rates, pull down versus no pull down, I still think the majority of consumers will watch films on their home sets in a way that
wasn't intended by the filmmaker.
 
Last edited:
Motion smoothing, aka the "soap opera effect", can be turned off. At least, in those TV's I have seen.

And, yes, it is a default setting and a large percentage of consumers leave it at that.
 
Exactly. I had to secretely sneak into my sister-in-laws settings to turn it off. Her and her husband are convinced that the Godfather looks great as crappy soap opera...
 
There really should be more standards in content viewing, but it is madness trying to control that many variables.

You’ve got to dicuss things like how to standardize compression to H.264, so that the red you started with and the red that all these differrnt compressors end up with, is similar. That x100000

Glad some high profile people are bringing awarness and doing something about it.
 
I think consumers also need to be educated about exactly why it's important to watch movies as they were intended to be viewed. I remember working at a video store in my youth and we had a poster behind the counter explaining why it was important to watch letterbox vs. pan and scan on VHS...
 
scorsesefan said:
I think consumers also need to be educated about exactly why it's important to watch movies as they were intended to be viewed. I remember working at a video store in my youth and we had a poster behind the counter explaining why it was important to watch letterbox vs. pan and scan on VHS...
Click to expand...
Yeah, totally agree.
Haha, pan and scan was the worst.
 
DLD said:
Motion smoothing, aka the "soap opera effect", can be turned off. At least, in those TV's I have seen.

And, yes, it is a default setting and a large percentage of consumers leave it at that.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have nearly the problem with it if the TV came from the factory with it turned off by default and if there was a big fat button the remote labeled, "Turn on and off crappy motion smoothing nonsense"
On a few of the sets where I've tried to turn it off for friends and family, it can often be buried in sub menu of sub menu in a menu where you wouldn't think it would logically be. And each manufacturer
has their own dumb name for it so if you don't know that that particular company calls it, it can be tough to find the control to turn it on or off.
 
Last edited:
In some cases, it can’t be, even if there is the “option”. Some sets always have some fudgery going on. Compression and upscaling processing? I’ve noticed a couple sets like that, and some friends have too. But the ones without the option, are the worst.


Wish it was as you say, Pure. Even if my brother appreciates the movie setting, he worries that i am messing up his football settings, so, a button right on top would fix that! In addition to auto detecting 24 or 48fps, might be a nice duo, that way you don’t have to get into the first shot of the film and jump for the remote, yet you can still overide it easily.

I guess it is a matter of who can make that happen?
 
I saw the Sony monitor that uses the double lcd tech that Apple is using in there new pro display.... got to say, $7K isn’t sounding awful anymore. I hate myself. I hate myself so much.
 
scorsesefan said:
I think consumers also need to be educated about exactly why it's important to watch movies as they were intended to be viewed. I remember working at a video store in my youth and we had a poster behind the counter explaining why it was important to watch letterbox vs. pan and scan on VHS...
Click to expand...

I recall once in a Blockbuster some dude said to his girlfriend/spouse "not letterbox, I don't want to watch a movie with part of the picture cut off". Thats the kind of ignorance we face in the consumer world unfortunately and there is no good source to educate the masses. At least when we had video stores there could be a certain level of educating but now its every consumer on their own.
 
100% of my friends and family dislike the soap-opera look. They bring it up, not me. Not too long ago there was a post from one of my friends on Facebook asking for how to turn it off. Others chimed in, saying yes, do tell!

There once was a guy who said he liked that look for sports, but he was a friend of a friend, not one of my friends (and now he never will be).

As for letterbox, my brother's friend used to make fun of the artsy music videos (in the 80s) that used it, saying that they were too cheap to afford cameras that could fill the entire screen --- but he was joking!
 
Filmmaker mode isn't enough. It has to be idiot proof. There needs to be metadata shared between the disc player, or streaming file, and the display device so it automatically disables the feature.
 
Last edited:
Thomas Smet said:
I recall once in a Blockbuster some dude said to his girlfriend/spouse "not letterbox, I don't want to watch a movie with part of the picture cut off". Thats the kind of ignorance we face in the consumer world unfortunately and there is no good source to educate the masses. At least when we had video stores there could be a certain level of educating but now its every consumer on their own.
Click to expand...

I also worked at a video store (actually,a video section of a large electronics store) in the 80's and that was one of the problems ... but nowhere close to "what???? This is in black and white?" - "Yes, sir/mam, an Oscar winning film, one of the greatest ever" - "fogedaboutit ... I don't want no freakin' black and white".

And so the "Raging Bull" goes back on the shelf. Take that, Marty.
 
Batutta said:
Filmmaker mode isn't enough. It has to be idiot proof. There needs to be metadata shared between the disc player, or streaming file, and the display device so it automatically disables the feature.
Click to expand...

The chances of this happening are very small. That would require coordination and agreement of a standard across 3-4 completely unrelated industries, good luck!
 
I have a friend, also a hobbyist filmmaker no less, who a) can't tell the motion smoothing effect from how it's supposed to look and b) claims it's necessary for sports or they pixellate or something. I feel that even if you could take people aside and tell them "letterbox actually means you're seeing the WHOLE picture", they'd say... "but...I don't like how part of the picture is cut off."
 
Josh Bass said:
I have a friend, also a hobbyist filmmaker no less, who a) can't tell the motion smoothing effect from how it's supposed to look and b) claims it's necessary for sports or they pixellate or something. I feel that even if you could take people aside and tell them "letterbox actually means you're seeing the WHOLE picture", they'd say... "but...I don't like how part of the picture is cut off."
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's tough. And younger people <30 are being conditioned to the look...eyesopen.jpg
 
Haha! I was signed out, but saw the .jpg name. Was so glad it is that image!
 
Last edited:
Josh Bass said:
I have a friend, also a hobbyist filmmaker no less, who a) can't tell the motion smoothing effect from how it's supposed to look and b) claims it's necessary for sports or they pixellate or something. I feel that even if you could take people aside and tell them "letterbox actually means you're seeing the WHOLE picture", they'd say... "but...I don't like how part of the picture is cut off."
Click to expand...

It does make it better looking on certain sports broadcast with motion plus, etc... I rather see a "fluid" soccer ball than a "strobe"... But it all depends on the FPS recorded, transmitted, received, etc... For example if I watch by satellite it is 50 FPS, the same channel thru the web/IPTV is only 25 FPS and looks "jittery" with fast motion. As for letter boxing, it is of course stupid today, but back in the day the TV's were 15-25" and then lose more real estate just to show the sides can be irritating. Don't get me wrong, I always turn off motion plus, and I will more or less always try to watch a movie as it was intended by the director. But it used to be pick your poison, small screen and the entire picture or bigger screen with cropped sides...
 
High1ander said:
It does make it better looking on certain sports broadcast with motion plus, etc... I rather see a "fluid" soccer ball than a "strobe"... But it all depends on the FPS recorded, transmitted, received, etc... For example if I watch by satellite it is 50 FPS, the same channel thru the web/IPTV is only 25 FPS and looks "jittery" with fast motion. As for letter boxing, it is of course stupid today, but back in the day the TV's were 15-25" and then lose more real estate just to show the sides can be irritating. Don't get me wrong, I always turn off motion plus, and I will more or less always try to watch a movie as it was intended by the director. But it used to be pick your poison, small screen and the entire picture or bigger screen with cropped sides...
Click to expand...

Agreed, back in the SD days, letterbox meant what 360P on youtube means today. I generally prefered letterbox, but hell, the resolution was killed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top