I stay in hotels several times a year, which is a great reminder about one of the worst features ever introduced to the television viewing experience – motion smoothing. Motion smoothing, which is also known by the more technical term motion interpolation, is done by TV manufacturers to try and match the picture of a video to the refresh rate of the screen. This sounds great in theory, but instead it causes on-screen motion to look extremely unnatural, as if people are floating across the screen instead of moving with a natural human gate.
You’ve probably seen this in action when you visit a relative’s house or maybe during your own vacation. Few people understand this can be turned off.
Motion smoothing is named many things, depending on who manufactures the particular screen you are viewing. The marketers at electronics companies are apparently paid name this feature in a way that sounds like a benefit, when really it largely makes any viewing experience worse.
Disabling Motion Smoothing
If you want to turn off motion smoothing so that the shows and movies you watch playback the way they were intended, here’s a list of how the feature was named by screen manufacturer. The location in settings varies by screen, but it’s frequently in the picture settings or advanced picture settings.
- Vizio = Smooth Motion Effect
- LG = TrueMotion
- High Sense = Motion Smoothing
- TCL = Action Smoothing
- Samsung = Auto Motion Plus
- Sony = MotionFlow
- Panasonic = Intelligent Frame Creation
- Amazon Fire TV = Motion Processing
A bonus tip: If the TV you are viewing has motion smoothing turned on, there’s also a good chance it is still in store demo mode, which is a factory setting to help TV screens look good in the extra bright conditions of a retail store. It’s overkill for most home viewing settings. You can turn this off and set the TV for home viewing for a better overall experience as well.
