As a former high end audio/video salesperson, I just want to state for accuracy that local dimming, as a feature, is not dynamic contrast. Dynamic contrast is terrible. By having an LED backlight array dim spots that are darker in the source material, the display achieves better absolute contrast. It is not adjusting the exposure to fake it. It is instead getting closer to the contrast given by the source material. It created some halo issues, but it was a step in the right direction.<p>This is not new tech at all - I was selling Samsung LED TVs with this feature in 2007 or so. Samsung, Sharp, and Sony has little choice but to improve contrast, because their LED sets were right next to Pioneer KURO plasmas that were just absolutely amazing - OLEDs are only catching up their PQ now, 15 years later. First on the scene was the Samsung LN-T5781 - <a href="https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-ln-t5781f-review/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-ln-t5781f-review/</a>
One thing I seemingly can’t disable is how my samsung tv gets louder when ambient noise is high.<p>I absolutely do not want my TV to get louder when one of my kids is shrieking. Just adds stress on top of stress
A modern panel is a complex, powerful device with a wide range of capabilities. Human beings are diverse and even an individual's preferences can change over time. It's right that there are settings for this stuff.<p>What isn't right is that instead of using standard terms common across manufacturers and clearly related to what the settings actually do, manufacturers expect anyone who wants to change them to reverse engineer what Dynamic TruScungle means, how it interacts with Active ProHorngus and whether 100 means the ProHorngus is turgid or flaccid.
I'm surprised it doesn't mention "sharpness". It's tricky find the <i>zero point</i>: e.g. '0', '50', or '100' depending on whether it means 'add sharpening', 'smooth/sharp', or 'remove smoothing'.
Frame interpolation is so incredibly awful looking in my opinion. Especially when it comes to animation. I can not comprehend all of the people on Youtube that take a beautiful drawn animation that is intentionally 24 frames per second and increase it to 60 thus ruining the hand crafted perfection of the drawn key frames.
I don't know if it carried over into 4K TVs, but I'm surprised that the dreaded HDMI overscan isn't mentioned anywhere. I'll never understand WHY and HOW someone thought that implementing this at all, let alone making it the default, is a good idea. You had one job, accept a 1080p signal and output it pixel-perfectly to the 1080p display panel. Yet somehow, someone thought that it would be a great idea to cut off the edges of the image and interpolate it so everything looks atrocious. And then every single TV manufacturer agreed and implemented it. Whenever I see this kind of cropped image on a TV, I grab the remote and set it to the only mode that should exist on digital displays, direct pixel-to-pixel mapping. Just blows my mind I have to do that.
Consumer Reports has a "TV Screen Optimizer" that aims to give users optimal picture settings by Brand/Model.<p>Also nice that they mention how to turn off ACR and other privacy related features as well.<p><a href="https://www.consumerreports.org/mycr/benefits/tv-screen-optimizer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.consumerreports.org/mycr/benefits/tv-screen-opti...</a>
For those with a Sony Bravia panel (2015 and later I think), you can enable a pro-mode with a key combo that can turn a laggy and unusable panel into mostly a dumb display.<p>Display, Mute, Vol +, Home<p>I used this to basically save a frustrating laggy panel.
Sadly, (mild) motion interpolation is necessary for those of us that get headaches from 24fps video, especially panning shots.<p>If only filmmakers started with decent frame rates. The few films that came out in 48 fps are so much nicer to look at.
Just get a modern Sony TV and be done with it. They perfected Motionflow to the point where you no longer think about framerate (choppiness nor soap opera). It's clearly a priority, probably because they are the only manufacturer with their own studios (Columbia/Sony pictures). There is a reason people pay the $800+ Sony tax over any TV that has the same panel.
I put my Samsung tv behind pihole and holy s** did it chatter. It stopped ads in the tv ui and I can only imagine other dystopian data exfiltration api calls.
> Motion interpolation or motion smoothing increases the frames per second from 24fps to 60fps<p>It's pretty common for TVs to have even higher refresh rates these days - my 4 year old mid-range LG OLED is 120hz, for example. Conveniently, 24 evenly divides 120, so when you turn off the interpolation you get perfectly consistent frame times.<p>As a more general note, don't be afraid to experiment with the settings. If you're watching low-bitrate netflix streams, some of the artifact-reduction filters can be worthwhile, especially on the lower intensity settings.<p>For watching bluray remuxes however, "filmmaker mode" or equivalent settings is generally the way to go.
I can't quite phrase this right, but persistence of vision and "frames" is really quite distinct from I+P blocks, and what we have in modern LCD screens is anything but a fixed rate scan.<p>I really liked old TV. those wagon wheels running backwards were a direct artifact of PoV and frame rate.<p>The whole NTSC vs PAL vs SECAM debate, was about what aesthetically is best against what eyeballs do. Personally I didn't get the argument NTSC was better for live action. I just think PAL was superior to all the others.<p>Yes it was wasteful of bandwidth. Yes, it was analogue signalling of something which was at the fringes of what analogue and digital is (encoding colour as a layer over b&w signalling of grey levels, under a time code synchronisation for framing). But, it was also amazing, and I think we've lost something in MP2 -> MP4. We've also gained fidelity of what is sent to what is received and we've gained far more content.<p>I do really miss old analogue(ish) TV
I've tried filmmaker mode and it is just another kind of bad smart TV setting, making everything way to dark instead of way too bright. Turning of most "features" of these TVs seems to be the only sane solution.<p>Of course perhaps it is the filmmakers that are to blame: <a href="https://www.avclub.com/how-to-watch-dark-movies-and-tv-shows-1849983750" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.avclub.com/how-to-watch-dark-movies-and-tv-shows...</a>
I found this to be an informative and well-laid out argument in favor of motion interpolation: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/motion-smoothing-defense-hdtv/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wired.com/story/motion-smoothing-defense-hdtv/</a><p>I have come to prefer it. I think this comes as a combination of recent algorithms getting better (there are relatively few artifacts and they are far subtler than they once were) and because newer consoles have conditioned me to abhor any content running at less than 60 fps. The jaggedness of 24 fps grates my eyes. I’ve had my iPhone recording 60 fps video for years.
The thing I hate about "advice" like this is that it assumes that everyone likes the same things and feels the same way, and it comes across as an attempt to shame anyone otherwise.<p>I <i>like</i> motion interpolation. I always have it turned on, and I chose my TV based on the quality of its motion interpolation.<p>Screens are so big these days, that if you're watching a 24fps movie, any panning movement becomes a horrible juddering shaking movement. Judder judder judder... ugh. I can't stand it.<p>With motion interpolation turned on, everything is silky smooth, and I can actually <i>see</i> what's on the screen, even when the picture is moving.<p>So no, I won't be turning it off, and I suggest that the next time you watch a shakey-cam action movie, you try turning it on too!
I recently went down the rabbit hole to find a dumb TV. It was surprisingly difficult. I ended up with a Sceptre 65 inch TV, to which I’ve plugged in a rooted, jailbroken Chromecast.<p>It’s been awesome. The TV is fast to boot up, responsive, doesn’t spy on me, and doesn’t need useless software updates.
Well, I didn't expect that to get so many comments.<p>It looks like there are a lot of people with perfectly valid reasons to keep some or all of these settings on. Which is great. I will rewrite the article to reflect that — and change the title to something more neutral and less absolutist.
I find the headline to be seriously clickbaity, as the word "smart" (in the context of TVs) generally refers to a network connection that facilitates streaming, telemetry, ads, etc. but TFA is not discussing that category of features whatsoever. It's discussing features totally unrelated to the growing popularity of disabling "smart TV" features for the sake of privacy and fewer ads.<p>Unfortunately, I don't know that there's a generic non-jargon word for this collection of settings, but let's not solve for that by overloading the word "smart"!
I highly recommend when buying or setting up a tv looking to see if HDTVTest on youtube has a review of it. He really does a good job of going in to the effects of certain tv settings has on the picture. Be forewarned that he is in the UK so TV model numbers wont line up a lot of the time but with a little digging you can find your model that corresponds to his.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@hdtvtest/featured" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/@hdtvtest/featured</a>
Every electronic device should be fitted with a large red mechanical switch labelled "Fuck Off" to reset the device to its most basic usable level. Mobile phones, TV, computers, cars, washing machines, any device where manufacturer or seller has options they can configure for you, should be required by law to have such a switch.<p>And FTR don't have TV anymore since 3year old tested the strength of the screen with a hammer. Don't miss it. Hypnotic on Linux for news TV and Netflix for (mostly stupid) ways to waste an evening.
I'm one of those people who turns on motion smoothing. For some weird reason, it makes older shows like friends or sound of music crystal clear on my LG C2 OLED. I can't explain why.
Motion interpolation is an absolute essential for me. I can’t stand how choppy TVs (even high end models) are without them.<p>30fps videos look very jarring to me, I almost always notice “tearing” or “shuddering” - even when in a cinema. Enabling motion interpolation / frame rate up scaling usually fixes this for me.<p>It’s so distracting and at times almost painful for me to watch without it that at times I’ll use a tool (Topaz Video AI) to re-render videos to 50-60FPS.
I have done this on family and friends' TVs a number of times already. Most of these settings are crapy and very visibly making picture worse instead of better. Worse offender in my opinion is the noise reduction or sharpness. Noise reduction is incidentally also the one which makes Smart phone or other cheap camera outputs worse.
Modern smart TVs are so disappointing that I just prefer watching films on my 27" IPS computer monitor - no bloatware and every video just looks right.<p>Not to mention that after 6 years the TV becomes useless junk killed by bulky modern app updates. I think there is a market for something like "Framework TV".
Another neat idea is to connect all “smart” equipment to an isolated vlan and separate wifi that can still be seen by your normal network devices.<p>For example if your wifi was called “Home”, an additional “Home-IoT” is for every device.<p>The IoT devices can then be set to not sniff your network, or even connect out if you want.<p>A good example of this is in this EdgeRouter setup guide, which is a pretty decent guide on how to plan a home network for more than just basic home browsing.<p><a href="https://github.com/mjp66/Ubiquiti/blob/master/Ubiquiti%20Home%20Network.pdf">https://github.com/mjp66/Ubiquiti/blob/master/Ubiquiti%20Hom...</a>
The <i>smartest</i> thing you can do with a “smart tv” is to keep it unconnected from your WiFi and instead plug a Raspberry Pi into one of the HDMI ports and use that for your YouTube etc needs.
Not a smart tv problem specifically, but the inability to adjust volume level while on mute (at least adjust down). I often turn the tv on after the rest of the household has gone to bed and it's way too loud, so I hit mute. But as soon as I hit volume down, sounds comes back on at the initial loud volume! Aargh. Only thing is to navigate away to a silent input, adjust volume, then navigate back to previous channel. Annoying. I have seen this feature once before (Sony I think).
The local dimming suggestion isn't fully in line with the rest.<p>It's about bringing some parts of the image closer to whats intended by the filmmaker, at the cost of other parts of the image (usually noticeable by adding gradients to flat color). That isn't going against the filmmaker's intention, so much as respecting the contrast the filmmaker wants at the cost of some gradients. It's a different way to approximate the actual signal the TV should send.
Using the author logic, we should also watch kramer with the image shrunk to a quarter of the screen (the size of the tv in the past was smaller) and also using garbage color accuracy (I don't actually know how color accurate were tv in the past but I suspect it was horrible).
I am still waiting for 4k/8k 100hz movies and youtube, but until then I will use motion interpolation on my TV as the next best thing.
My Samsung “HDR” TV can only approach what an HDR image looks like on a studio display if a bunch of these settings are on and balanced just right.<p>It feels as if Samsung deliberately lowers contrast, for example, until their dynamic contrast is enabled, as the picture matches studio displays much more closely then.<p>No proof, not making this claim, but it did feel this way when I had my TV side by side to a studio display.
Those aren’t Smart-TV features, and they precede the introduction of Smart TVs. Smart TVs are internet-connected TVs with apps [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_TV" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_TV</a>
Important to know that Roku has an "adjust frame rate to content native rate" which, insanely, is off by default. It will make up frames on all content by default if it's less than what your TV is capable of. I just got a new LG C3, and this was making us nauseous until I figured it out. I thought it was the TV, but unbelievably it was the Roku.
Between this and the embedded crapware, I am glad I went the videoprojector route. I initially though I would not bear the sound of its fan but since it is a constant noise the brain just filter it out. And I use my noise cancelling headset when I am alone.
HDTVTest [0] is a great YouTube channel if you want to go in some of the depths of this.<p>[0] <a href="https://youtube.com/@hdtvtest" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtube.com/@hdtvtest</a>
Noise reduction and dynamic brightness aren't too bad if done tastefully. But it's really up to the TV manufacturers to do it properly which is why there is just general advice to turn it off.
Does the same apply for audio settings as picture settings?<p>For example, Dialog Clarity/Enhancement, TruVolume (automatic volume leveling), and DTS Virtual:X?<p>Why or why not?<p>Do you use Spatial Audio on your Apple products (which sounds great to me)?
Motion features are the worst, I find they always make shows and movies look uncanny. Have turned this off on many friends and family devices, who seem to not notice until I turn it off.
it is surprising that manufacturers turn on motion smoothing by default, as it ruins the aesthetic of most content and makes it look like it was shot on a 1990s camcorder.
> Wouldn't I have remembered Elaine being a 9ft tall blue humanoid alien with a tail?<p>I never observed what TFA is complaining about, does someone have an screenshot?
A couple years ago, my Samsung TV slowed to a crawl. Each click through a menu took multiple seconds. I eventually discovered a new setting buried deep to turn off "real-time anti-virus scanning". That immediately fixed the performance problems.<p>How would my TV get a virus? This was a Tizen TV, not an Android TV where I'm installing shady apps.<p><a href="https://www.techspot.com/news/78967-samsung-loading-mcafee-antivirus-software-smart-tvs.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.techspot.com/news/78967-samsung-loading-mcafee-a...</a>
Or don't buy products that are subsidized by recording and selling your data! Not to mention these half-baked "features" produce thousands of hours of headaches, tech support calls, and general unhappiness. $tvManufacturer could care less because red line go up.<p>Build quality and software invasiveness are both going to keep trending in the wrong directions until people stop buying smart TVs. And it's not like you need to break the bank or order commercial displays - $150 on Amazon for a dumb 43" 1080p, $260 for a 55" 4K.
At first, I bought into the "switch off weird (Ai) settings" talk.<p>Quickly, it became apparent that I couldn't come close to the overall picture quality potential with manual settings. This is for a late model qled. The chip and its auto-adjust capability are built for the panel.<p>So now I deal with some soap opera effect as a trade off for an amazing picture in every other respect. And I rarely notice the soap opera effect anymore. One gets used to it.
Imagine actually, unironically watching a movie with the motion smoothing off. Yes, I sure like to watch my movie on Google Slides and see every single frame during camera pans.<p>Perhaps once movies are recorded at a frame rate from the current decade this advice will be useful. We play PC games at 144Hz+ for a reason. There is no need for movies to still run a format derived from technical limitations of a hundred years ago.
Basically deactivate everything, not that complicated :) I must admit it's always a pain when friends are asking me to aknowledge how awesome is their brand new tv just to notice that it's all défault, very catchy, but definitely not good and tiring to watch.<p>Do you guys remember this hero putting papers on car's windshield to explain users how to fix their TV ? You are what you fight for !
"At first this seems great. Why shouldn't 90s sitcoms seem like they were filmed in 4k at 60 frames per second? Then you start noticing things…"<p>Interpolation will never give the same results as actual capture, so the author is wrong here.
Obligatory PSA to enable the setting to set correct framerate of the content from the source you're playing if you have at least 120hz-capable panel.<p>E.g. if you're playing 24fps movie from a device that's reporting 60fps uniformly across all content, you will have a bad time.<p>For Apple TV it can be set like this: <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/102277" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://support.apple.com/en-us/102277</a>
Or just - get rid of your TV. I’m no Luddite but I’ve quite happily forgone a TV - and the concomitant ads and other irritants TVs bring - for nearly 20 years.
Motion smoothing is so horrible…I don’t understand how TV makers have persisted with it for so long. Surely the people who make televisions appreciate a good picture enough to not spread this nonsense, right?<p>The effect makes movies completely unwatchable. I was at a friends house watching Elf and it felt like watching Will Ferrell host a Zoom call.