120hz Television "Smoothing" Must Die | Hacker News Reader

120hz Television "Smoothing" Must Die

theeditdoctor.tumblr.com

14 pointsmikecane14 comments

"24fps has less frames and invites your brain to be a more active participant in the presenting of persistence of motion. 30fps requires less participation. It feels a little more like real life and less artful. "

"So, the drama and emotion of a film or film speed scene with this 120hz smoothing is diminished. Our brains are less active and less participating. Aesthetically, we’re looking at a new process for making FILM look much more like VIDEO now. It really changes the emotion of experience… and it does it so loudly…"

Smooth motion rendering diminishes the drama and emotion of a film? Really?

And colour television is worse than black-and-white, too.

Talkies ruined the cinema piano, culture has never recovered since.

This is a common claim, but I've never seen any evidence other than "Hollywood does it this way so it must be better" (which ignores the effect of path dependence). I have, however, read about James Cameron advocating 48 Hz...

This rant also ignores the realities of the consumer electronics business. In many cases, the optimal thing for a TV to do is take the pixels coming from HDMI and display them as-is with no processing, but this minimizes differences between brands and eliminates upsell opportunities for higher-end models. Even if they know they're making the image worse, their jobs depend on it.

The language is overwrought, but it is true that there is a significant, noticeable difference.

I've been involved in digital filmmaking for a few years and there really is something about the 24fps rate that gives a more dramatic effect to video and that's why it's been so highly sought after in digital cameras. I'm not sure if it's something we've learned by watching real film for so many years or if it's an innate preference but it's real and it's something most consumers don't even realize that they prefer. I suspect it's because when we watch drama, we're watching a highly stylized, surreal version of life and as the article states, higher frame rates sort of bring us down to earth. It feels too real.

When people are shown the 120hz smoothing it kind of reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they ask the children what they want in a cartoon and they give wild, off-the-wall suggestions that create a product they all actually hate. The smoothing may seem better when presented initially because people feel like they're getting "more" from these artificial frames but you it creates this "soap opera effect" on the video that cheapens the feel of the production. So to answer your question, I can't really explain it in a scientific way, but yes.

This dude is ranting about the wrong thing. There are parts of Avatar and Transformers, etc, that look like you're running a game on an overloaded computer.

The problem here isn't televisions running at a high rate. The problem is film adhering to the bleeding edge of what was possible 100 years ago. 24fps is not adequate to handle lots of motion.

You're right, but he's also right- it "looks funny" and people don't like it.

Do you have reference about that claim? (that people don't like it)

I agree, it really looks strange, the interpolation just makes motion look somehow wrong. Native 48 fps would just look much more realistic.

The problem is that people dislike the `smooth' sensation of high-fps video in their films- is there really something magical about a multiple of 24 that would keep that jerky feel?

A multiple of 24 like, say, 120? I'd always thought that 120Hz TVs were being pushed because 120 is a multiple of both 24 and 30.

That was the original push, but lots of manufacturers botched the implementation. For example, some would apply 3:2 pulldown to 60hz and then double it instead of 5:5 pulldown. Nowadays 240hz are all the rage making movies look like a cheap karaoke video.

24fps must die. When they'll start making movies that gamer can watch without this feeling that he is sitting in front of too old machine?

I've seen high resolution, high fps movie in cinema and it was so amazing that I remember it after many years despite the fact that it was about usual day of some old couple.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com