When viewing our favorite movies and series We have already recommended on other occasions how to configure or calibrate the Smart TV screen to have the better image quality possible or what parameters must be touched to be able to see very dark content.
It may seem that this configuration and adjustment does not have much influence on the final perception, but in fact is essential so that the image is natural, follows the intentions of the creators and gives us that feeling of realism and immersion cinematographic that we are looking for.
However, sometimes something may have been misconfigured or not taken into account when installing the TV, resulting in videos that appear to be recorded with low quality cameras, even high-budget films that give us the impression of being recorded with a mobile phone. What’s going on? Well, there are two usual suspects that could be the cause.
Movement interpolation, the enemy of home cinema
The interpolation of movements is a function that in theory should improve perceived qualitybut it does not always do it perfectly since has side effects.
It is a image post-processing technique that modern televisions have incorporated into their operating systems with the intention of “smoothing” movement in action scenes, especially with 24 fps content and/or fast-moving scenes such as in sports.
Allows greater smoothness in slow object movements through the screen, as in the landscapes that move in the background with characters in the foreground, in slow lateral and vertical pans. etc
It is also noted more sharpness and definition of texts and isolated objects that move slowly across the screen. The signs are more easily read and some moving textures are better appreciated, sometimes generating greater sense of three-dimensionality by making an artificial separation of the different planes where we can see how the foreground objects closest to the camera seem to stand out compared to the static backgrounds.
But in many cases the apparent advantages are blurred and the result is not always as good as it should be, obtaining when using it the so-called “soap opera effect”that feeling that the image is recorded with a low-quality camera or often shot as if we were passing it at fast speed.
They are also created digital artifacts very annoying that worsen the image quality. For example, they appear as “pixel clouds” around objects that move quickly from one part of the screen to another. It is especially visible in scenes that change very quickly with rotations of objects and movements from one point to another on backgrounds also in motion.
In situations of rapid movements, instantaneous changes such as those that occur in explosions or plane changes, in addition to lose sharpness and details in some areas of the image, also temporary softness is lost giving the feeling that there has been something of a hiatus. This is due to algorithms cannot respond to changes as fast as they should or do not have enough information to create intermediate frames and repeat the real frames several times temporarily “turning off” the smoothness improvement.
What can we do? Well, if we notice these problems disable frame interpolation directly in the settings menu by looking for the option under names like “TruMotion”, “Clear Motion”, “Perfect Clear Motion”, etc. or looking for some configuration mode that turns it off directly, like the filmmaker or “Filmmaker” mode.
The problem with streaming platforms
It may be that the interpolation of movements is not the culprit and that this feeling of low cinematic quality gives us comes directly from streaming platforms in what is known as “Netflix effect“.
It is a situation that occurs on some platforms and implies that all internal productions Sponsored by them usually have a similar appearance with features such as:
- Very dark image.
- Colors appear to be very saturated
- Night scenes where the lighting points stand out a lot
- Makeup and costumes that are too colorful and flashy
This is partly due to the camera technology usedwhich is often imposed or “recommended” to creators by the platform itself, giving a model list that filmmakers can use.
Also because the content is usually filmed conservatively to please the greatest number of viewers and be displayed in an acceptable way on the greatest number of screens possible. This means that series and movies contain the same camera angles, regardless of whether they are fantasy, action or comedy, giving the feeling of being in front of a film recorded for television than before a film production for the big screen.
Furthermore we have the matter of image compression to save bandwidth in the transmission of the service, which introduces digital artifacts, saw teeth and pixelations that will be more visible as we increase the size of our television. Hence the paradox that in high-end models and many inches some content looks worse than on other smaller and cheaper screens.
What can we do in these cases? Well, if the image comes like this from the origin on the platforms and has been recorded with that TV movie touch, there is little that we can fix by modifying the configuration. However, in the problem with dark sequences we can try to adapt our configuration to minimize the defects.
Cover image | Andrea Piacquadio