Resources For TV Channel Developers

Nearly all modern display technologies, even the best TVs, have a problem: motion blur. This is the blurring of fast-moving objects as they move across the screen. TV manufacturers have developed multiple technologies to help minimize motion blur with varying degrees of success. These technologies have side effects, however, and for many people these side effects can be worse than the cure. 

For example, consider the soap opera effect. This “solution” to motion blur can make movies look “too smooth” and artificial, so instead of a big-budget movie, they look like an inexpensive soap opera or telenovela. TV makers created this feature to combat motion blur but many people loathe it, including countless Hollywood filmmakers. The feature is disabled in the Filmmaker Mode on TVs with that picture setting.

But there are other ways to minimize motion blur, and learning the pros and cons of each should help you get a TV image you're happier with, now that I've pointed out motion blur and ruined TVs for you.

What is TV motion blur?

First, though, let's figure out what motion blur actually is. Motion blur is when anything on-screen blurs, becoming fuzzy and less distinct, when it moves. This can be a single object, like a ball or car, or the entire screen, as when the camera pans across a landscape. 

I always notice it when there's a closeup of a face, and then the person turns away. One second you're seeing every eyelash and wrinkle, the next it's a blurry mess. 

Some of this can be attributed to the lower frame rate of movies and most TV shows, which can result in a blur caused by the camera. There's nothing you can do about that. There's also blur caused by the TV itself, which, to an extent, you — actually, your TV — can do something about.

In the early days of flat TVs and displays, the culprit was often the slow speed of the…