I see AMP as a response to problems with the LCD format. In solving a problem they created a weirdly distorted image that does not exist in the real world. If you like it use it, but I certainly will not, I think it looks like crap.

I see AMP as a response to problems with the LCD format. In solving a problem they created a weirdly distorted image that does not exist in the real world. If you like it use it, but I certainly will not, I think it looks like crap.

I still have my recording of the last game between Pittsburgh and Detroit for the Stanley Cup. I've made several playbacks with and without the 240Hz AMP ON or OFF... with the AMP OFF, if the camera is still, instead of panning with the players, blur is very evident. I will not view hockey games without the AMP on. Same goes for tennis, golf and the Tour de France I'm watching every day.

Nature scenes in "The World's Most Beautiful Places" is like an open window from my living room with the AMP ON.

You say I think it looks like crap do you know that, or, you think that would be the case... if you had it?

My 2 cents and new discovery.

First and foremost I hate AMP I hate Motion Flow. Soap Opera Effect sucks imo.

Ok with that said I own a a Sony 52V5100. For a few months I was not using Motion Flow because as I stated it made everything look like crap.

Now I am here to tell you that if you want smooth motion without the sopa opera crap ass effect set you Sony to Motionflow standard and Cinemotion Auto2(3:2 Pulldown only)

I know you guys are going to say the frames dont match. But thats the point. The motion is smooth but the mismatch causes there to be no soap opera effect.

You say do you know that, or, you think that would be the case... if you had it?

I certainly have it and it was one of the reasons I initially hated my Sammy B650. Once I tamed it I found I like the set. There is a place for the "Video" look that it creates, but it is not when I'm watching filmed material. To me the video look of taped content looks cheap and low budget and I treat that content as such.

If you have a light controlled environment, you're an ideal candidate for professional calibration - and it is well worth the money.

Some displays can take varying degress of ambient light into account by offering multiple modes that can each be calibrated correctly. Thus, you can acheive accuracy while watching your TV in a room that sees many different levels of light. Many calibrated displays often appear dim simply because they don't have the ability to crank out a lot of light output without clipping whites, killing grayscale and/or mutilating the gamma curve.

There aren't standards for light output like there are for color points, color temperature, gamma, etc. It's all a matter of preference and what your specific display is capable of doing. My prior HDTV hit will north of 100ftL post-calibration. I actually had to town it down. The idea that calibrated displays are necessarily dim is incorrect.

This thread's name is "120Hz Forever!"

Reading pages here, it appears to be owned by filmed movie lovers...

If the thread title means anything, anymore, may I say that my Samsung LN52B750 has a 240Hz AMP. And may I ad that it works beautifully:

- For Sports viewing (major difference)

- For HD Video recording: Planet Earth, Galapagos, IMAX films converted to 1080p video, such as, Coral Reef Adventure, The Living Sea. And HD camera recordings such as The World's most beautiful Places, Blu-Ray concerts and Blu-Ray and HD DVD documentaries.

I much prefer viewing and listening to concerts than watching a movie and I have many more of them than movies.

But I do have a few movies and leaving the AMP ON does not kill the experience for me... but I'm not very knowledgeable in the world of movies. However, I do appreciate good quality pictures and that includes the least blurring and juddering possible... which I now get with 240Hz.

Members who appear to be movie experts and critical of the 120Hz/240Hz novelty, I wonder if they all have had adequate exposure to the LCD AMP before coming out with their statements?

I do believe that the 120 and 240Hz AMP introductions were designed to improve the LCD experience and put it on a par with Plasma displays. I took 3 months to decide, read extensively in AVS owner threads, CNET reviews and viewed demo units in stores. I made my choice LCD because of brightness of my viewing room and selected LCD over Plasma because of hockey and the need for appropriate whites for an ice rink. My experience with the B750 is better than expected. And movies have more PQ than I had with my previous 1080i 60Hz CRT RPTV.

Am I on topic?

It is my belief that the AVS members who claim to not like frame interpolation, are those members who prefer plasma screens. It is true that there is no implementation of frame interpolation on a plasma set that could accurately be described as anything but LAME. I include in this the famous Pioneer Kuros and the 2009 Panasonics, at least those I have so far seen. Such HDTVs do not have fast enough screen refresh rates to use frame interpolation effectively. Plasma panels are available in 48Hz-96Hz refresh, the miniimum refresh rate to benefit from freedom from BOTH Telecine judder from 24Hz film and smooth motion from 30/60fps video is 120Hz.

It is my belief that the AVS members who claim to not like frame interpolation, are those members who prefer plasma screens. It is true that there is no implementation of frame interpolation on a plasma set that could accurately be described as anything but LAME. I include in this the famous Pioneer Kuros and the 2009 Panasonics, at least those I have so far seen. Such HDTVs do not have fast enough screen refresh rates to use frame interpolation effectively. Plasma panels are available in 48Hz-96Hz refresh, the miniimum refresh rate to benefit from freedom from BOTH Telecine judder from 24Hz film and smooth motion from 30/60fps video is 120Hz.

Too bad LCD needs to have frame interpolation to get smooth motion with 60fps sources, Plasma has smooth motion naturally with those sources, combine that with how unnatural it looks with anything else (both 24 and 30fps content) it shouldn't even count as smooth as it gives an accelerated look to the media that doesn't exist with real content recorded at or rendered higher frame rates. (such as a video game running at 60fps, perfectly smooth with no accelerated look, and no blur when shown on a Plasma screen) until frame interpolation can achieve the smooth look without the fast forward effect, then it is useless for what it is intended to do in your opinion (to make film look like it is filmed at higher frame rates) as it simply looks like it is being fast forwarded. (the PS3 running at 1.5 times playback looks just like AMP did on all three of the Samsung 120hz LCDs that I had) I've seen plenty of content running at 60fps, and none of it looked like movies did with AMP, even when the 60fps content was running with AMP on high they didn't have the accelerated look that was seen with the 24p movies. The judder is also still there when using AMP, only hidden by the soap opera effect caused by AMP. At least it semi-works for what the LCD makers intended for it to do, reduce the sample and hold blur that plagues LCD sets.

It is my belief that the AVS members who claim to not like frame interpolation, are those members who prefer plasma screens. It is true that there is no implementation of frame interpolation on a plasma set that could accurately be described as anything but LAME. I include in this the famous Pioneer Kuros and the 2009 Panasonics, at least those I have so far seen. Such HDTVs do not have fast enough screen refresh rates to use frame interpolation effectively. Plasma panels are available in 48Hz-96Hz refresh, the miniimum refresh rate to benefit from freedom from BOTH Telecine judder from 24Hz film and smooth motion from 30/60fps video is 120Hz.

As a Kuro owner, I have to say that I like "smooth" precisely because it does not go 100% in the direction of the "soap opera look." Fast-moving elements in the picture are permitted to have film judder while the motion of slower-moving elements is smoothed in a way that increases their effective resolution. In particular, faces are rendered more clearly than they are when 24 fps judder is accepted. I find that this draws me into the experience of watching the show or movie because I connect more closely with the characters. Every once in awhile, I try switching to one of the other modes ("standard" and "advanced") and always quickly come back to "smooth." I have grown addicted to the effect and find it both subtle and artistic.

Granted, "smooth" occasionally introduces odd stuttering artifacts when the motion detection just plain get things wrong. But these are rare with most program material.

Is this consistent with the "director's intent." Maybe. Or maybe (most probably) the director had to shoot 24 fps to ensure compatibility with exhibition and really didn't have the choice to do anything else. Black and white or color is a choice; 24 fps is the speed at which projectors run and cannot be changed.

As a Kuro owner, I have to say that I like "smooth" precisely because it does not go 100% in the direction of the "soap opera look." Fast-moving elements in the picture are permitted to have film judder while the motion of slower-moving elements is smoothed in a way that increases their effective resolution. In particular, faces are rendered more clearly than they are when 24 fps judder is accepted. I find that this draws me into the experience of watching the show or movie because I connect more closely with the characters. Every once in awhile, I try switching to one of the other modes ("standard" and "advanced") and always quickly come back to "smooth." I have grown addicted to the effect and find it both subtle and artistic.

Granted, "smooth" occasionally introduces odd stuttering artifacts when the motion detection just plain get things wrong. But these are rare with most program material.

Is this consistent with the "director's intent." Maybe. Or maybe (most probably) the director had to shoot 24 fps to ensure compatibility with exhibition and really didn't have the choice to do anything else. Black and white or color is a choice; 24 fps is the speed at which projectors run and cannot be changed.

Thanks for your post, Robert, it is nice to hear from a Plasma owner who is not in bed with the "director's intent", as if we know for a fact that to be the case... always, and, the one perfect way to view a movie and, thus, the only intelligent objective in setting up a display.

My B750 240Hz AMP can be set in different modes:

- Clear = minimum
- Standard = medium
- Smooth = maximum
- Custom = adjusts blur and judder (separately) to suit one's preferences
- Demo = Displays differences with AMP ON / OFF.

I keep AMP set at Custom with Blur set at 10 and Judder set at 5 (minimum = 0 maximum = 10). Love it for Video and films. Last night viewed Casablanca in HD DVD in pristine 1080p/60Hz (this player does not have 24fps) black and white. Nothing in the perfect picture made me question my use of the AMP.

Or maybe (most probably) the director had to shoot 24 fps to ensure compatibility with exhibition and really didn't have the choice to do anything else.

That is certainly the case in some instances.

However, as I've brought up many times, several TV shows (those that run during prime time especially) are shot at 24fps. Such shows aren't constrained by compatibility issues as films destined for the cinema are. Clearly there are those that appreciate the "film look" and utilize it even when there is no requirement to do so otherwise.

- Demo = Displays differences with AMP ON / OFF.


Funny thing about the Demo mode, both sides have AMP going at the same speed, but the "OFF" side has a massive Blur filter on it to make it look much worse, far worse than even 4 year old 60hz LCD sets when it comes to blur.

(I confirmed it by checking several movies and games, the judder is missing on both sides, but the blur is far worse than it normally is on the "OFF" section)

It is my belief that the AVS members who claim to not like frame interpolation, are those members who prefer plasma screens. It is true that there is no implementation of frame interpolation on a plasma set that could accurately be described as anything but LAME.

You are suggesting that people who don't like frame interpolation tend to be basing this on seeing it poorly done on plasmas?

That doesn't fit my experience, nor the preponderance of what I've read from
people who don't care for it (including professional reviewers) at all.
I base my distaste for FI on how I've seen it implemented in LCD technology, not on plasma technology.

It is my belief that the AVS members who claim to not like frame interpolation, are those members who prefer plasma screens. It is true that there is no implementation of frame interpolation on a plasma set that could accurately be described as anything but LAME. I include in this the famous Pioneer Kuros and the 2009 Panasonics, at least those I have so far seen. Such HDTVs do not have fast enough screen refresh rates to use frame interpolation effectively. Plasma panels are available in 48Hz-96Hz refresh, the miniimum refresh rate to benefit from freedom from BOTH Telecine judder from 24Hz film and smooth motion from 30/60fps video is 120Hz.

Frame interpolation is not needed on plasmas. On LCDs, it merely compensates for inherent shortcomings re: image blur.

It is my belief that the AVS members who claim to not like frame interpolation, are those members who prefer plasma screens. It is true that there is no implementation of frame interpolation on a plasma set that could accurately be described as anything but LAME. .

If by lame you mean that it doesn't cause heavy artifacts, destroy film quality, and make a super expensive video recordings look like cheap home videos, then I guess Lame they are.

It is my belief that those who like to crank up the interpolation on high and turn thier movies into soap operas preferr LCD screens.
They usually don't get a claibration because accuracy, mixed contrast, TRUE motion performance, and film quality are not important to them.
Only gimmicky motion tampering and bright torch mode settings. Of course not all of them. Only the ones who think good motion performance without artifact/soapy interpolation is "lame".

I forget who it was that said, "Video is what the eye sees, and film is what the mind sees." but this very much applies to this situation. I do not have problems adjusting to the faster motion of video and other <60fps material, I simply do not think it suits cinema, such frame rates leave little to the imagination and fail to convey important emotional aspects of cinema, in general. Frame rates 60hz and above generally work better for material where you want all of the visual data you can get and do not require any dramatic or emotional "psychological interpolation" required in telling a story, like in cinema; such things as, sports, video games, home movies, etc..

Also, while I went into much more detail on this in another thread, even a 2ms gray-to-gray (response time) LCD can only truly handle 50fps, with most 4ms LCD's only capable of true 30fps, nothing higher. This 120hz, and other motion modulation tech is merely designed to compensate for the fact that LCD's liquid crystal material does not twist/untwist fast enough.

I forget who it was that said, "Video is what the eye sees, and film is what the mind sees." but this very much applies to this situation. I do not have problems adjusting to the faster motion of video and other <60fps material, I simply do not think it suits cinema, such frame rates leave little to the imagination and fail to convey important emotional aspects of cinema, in general. Frame rates 60hz and above generally work better for material where you want all of the visual data you can get and do not require any dramatic or emotional "psychological interpolation" required in telling a story, like in cinema; such things as, sports, video games, home movies, etc..

Also, while I went into much more detail on this in another thread, even a 2ms gray-to-gray (response time) LCD can only truly handle 50fps, with most 4ms LCD's only capable of true 30fps, nothing higher. This 120hz, and other motion modulation tech is merely designed to compensate for the fact that LCD's liquid crystal material does not twist/untwist fast enough.I wonder how live theater has survived for all these years without the ability of film to convey emotion.

I think much of the love of film is economic. The studios have big $ invested in film based technology. There have been incremental improvements in film over the years, but the limitations of the medium are still present.

I wonder how live theater has survived for all these years without the ability of film to convey emotion.

Because cinema and live theater are two entirely different mediums. Each is a product of their own limitations and the means to convey art through each are fashioned around those limitations. You may as well compare movies to cave drawings.

I think much of the love of film is economic. The studios have big $ invested in film based technology.

As I've asked several times before, why are so many television shows filmed at 24fps if the continual existence of 24fps is largely a matter of economics? There is little need for 24fps within the spectrum of broadcast television.

I wonder how live theater has survived for all these years without the ability of film to convey emotion.



Funny you should mention that. While I'm not an aficionado, I have attended live theater for many years. The thing that always hits me with live theater, especially drama, is that it takes a while for me to get into it. It always feels "too real," - unvarnished...with the actors just sort of "being there" in front of me as people are in real life.

Whereas the not-quite-real, otherworldliness of film seems to let me slip into a fantasy mode of accepting what is on screen.

Live theater certainly can convey emotion. But the very "reality" of the experience, instead of making it more believable, makes it a bit harder for me to "buy" what is going on dramatically. So it takes me a while to slip into a mode of accepting the fantasy aspect and get into the drama, in the same way that the "too real" look of soap operas or many frame interpolation effects set up a hurdle to my involvement.

The subjectivity of all this of course means reactions will vary between viewers.

Funny you should mention that. While I'm not an aficionado, I have attended live theater for many years. The thing that always hits me with live theater, especially drama, is that it takes a while for me to get into it. It always feels "too real," - unvarnished...with the actors just sort of "being there" in front of me as people are in real life.

Whereas the not-quite-real, otherworldliness of film seems to let me slip into a fantasy mode of accepting what is on screen.

Live theater certainly can convey emotion. But the very "reality" of the experience, instead of making it more believable, makes it a bit harder for me to "buy" what is going on dramatically. So it takes me a while to slip into a mode of accepting the fantasy aspect and get into the drama, in the same way that the "too real" look of soap operas or many frame interpolation effects set up a hurdle to my involvement.

The subjectivity of all this of course means reactions will vary between viewers.
Very good insight.

The only time I struggled with the reality of a live performance was at a local theater performing a play in the round. Sitting literally inches away from the actors took a bit of getting used to.

Film does offer a different experience. I'm not sure I buy into the psychological benefit of film vs reality, but it it makes some happy - so be it.

I've seen good and bad video presentations, regardless of the medium used or the fps rate.

I do think it is excellent that current technology offers consumers the ability to tailor their viewing to their likes or dislikes.

Because cinema and live theater are two entirely different mediums. Each is a product of their own limitations and the means to convey art through each are fashioned around those limitations. You may as well compare movies to cave drawings.

They are different methods of accomplishing the same end - story telling through characters to an audience.

Whenever you reference "art" the discussion of a right and wrong way becomes useless.

Movies tend to be product to be sold. As such, the better looking the product, the more profitable it will be. It is especially important when charging a premium price, as is done with HDM.

The differing perceptions of film and theater is interesting. One thing I would point out is that the type of movie that clearly benefits most from Frame Interpolation is the animated film. I'm not sure exactly why - perhaps because any blur that is present is minimal and deliberately inserted by the animator for fast-moving objects. Such movies are also always optimally "lighted" and "exposed" - if I may be allowed to use such terminology for the product of an animation workstation.

Another form of video that benefits from FI is live sports - where clarity of image and the ability to distinguish objects in fast motion is obviously a benefit.

The type of movie where FI is merciless is the typical "Grade D" low budget film found on SyFy (formerly SciFi). They used to use video recordings of live actors and then insert some basicly low quality CGI of a "creature" or "alien". I love SF but I did not appreciate the low-budget SyFy effforts even when I was watching standard Definition, now the low quality graphics are all too apparent. I don't know what else to say except that their production standards were too low for SD, seeing the same material in HD just makes the shortcomings more appaerent.

While I think that there are some reasonable arguments to be made for the effects of the "film look," at the same time the whole "too real" and "looks like video" thing has to be tempered with personal preference and what we are used to.

I could never buy into soap operas - that video look was always an impediment. Yet obviously soap operas were hugely popular and the fact they were shot on video hardly stopped millions of people from getting into the drama.

So it's a personal thing.

I'm mostly into home theater because I'm a film fan. I sought pure realism for quite a while but found it started to work against my forgetting about technology and just getting into movies. So my criteria these days is slightly different. Instead of "realism" I want "believability." My ability to be sucked into and "believe" the world I'm watching is contingent on many factors - the skill of the film-makers, the ability of the playback medium to not raise glaring errors in reproduction etc. Depending on the story, subject matter and the intent of the film-maker, a less strictly realistic approach can actually make for a more believable dramatic experience. Likewise with the images in general. Standing on a film set (and I've stood on many, being in the business) is not very believable. Usually the drama feels more real and coherent once committed to a medium with all the elements added in. Too often when I get an image that looks so real I may as well be standing on the set, it feels less believable, just like being on the set.

I can certainly see the desire for increasing image fidelity. Seeing a beautifully presented image, like Lawrence Of Arabia, in 70mm does increase the apparently fidelity, to real life as well, in size and resolution. And it does enhance the experience for me. But it does so while avoiding the too-real or soap opera effect. Hopefully a happy medium can be found in terms of dealing with motion blur and some of the deficiencies of film, while retaining an artistic impression.

^^Well said.