The dreaded soap opera effect - Page 2

Not sure what or to whom this was in reference to but we're obviously referring to frame interpolation and the inherent effect, hence the thread name, and NOT frame duplication. Again, all subsequent purchases must include the prospective panel to interpolate frames at 240fps or more as a per-requisite. This is based on personal preference, not the aesthetic leanings of some established consensus. I have a KRP-500M (no soap opera effect) and 55" Samsung B8500 (and seriously considering the Elite Pro); considering they cumulatively set me back about 6K, I'll be damned if I'm going to allow Big Brother to tell me what "right and wrong" is or how to watch them..

Pointless attempt at oneupsmanship; films are not routinely shot in black and white, but in color. Black and white has been largely abandoned, except in certain artistic cases, and determined archaic and outdated, a sentiment shared by the masses predicating the cinema-wide change to color. If cinema ever evolves to embrace greater-than-24fps rates as the norm, 24fps dinosaurs will still exist. Apples and oranges, my friend..

Besides, I could care less about Citizen Kane..

That was not my quote so I'm not sure what is going on with AVS.

I noticed that. Also, DARQ looks a bit schizo accusing himself of one-upmanship

This is not a response to you, Otto but an indictment of the hypocritical rigid adherence to standard that pervades cinema aesthetic. Cinema is largely entertainment, not art, because it is almost entirely dependent upon favorable critique so it can be sold for coin. The director as artist subverts his expression by packaging it so it can appeal to the target audience en masse. True art only has to appeal to the artist; it is his personal expression through medium. Once cinema-as-"art" is funneled through a set of standards optimized so the initial investment can be recouped and multiplied, it is no longer art but product, and as patron, I reserve the right to flavor my purchased product as I see fit, since I, by virtue of patronage, am the target audience. I posed this question elsewhere; if world famous chef Wolfgang Puck puts a plate before me, is it wrong for me to add a pinch of salt if I felt the dish needed it?

That was not my quote; the original poster posted that quote a bit higher.The quote bracket included in the quotes indicates that I intended copied and pasted from something i originally intended to post..

Have a great Christmas BTW, I turn 60 next year but I'm old for my age

True. But I've seen this before with mine, and others posts, so I'm not sure if someone is not playing games with us. Conspiracy theories anyone?

Lol..

Again, cinema is entertainment and product because it is packaged and sold to an intended target audience for coin. It may be artistic in its rendering, but it is not art. To insist then that cinema should adhere to a standard because its aesthetic as art would be subverted is hypocritical. Considering that television is the final leg of the journey and the point of exchange between director and audience, why would manufacturers include nifty visual adjustment controls such as sharpening, gamma adjustment, color, brightness etc, in EVERY display, if they were rigidly committed to defending “the artist’s original intent”? Perhaps they too understand that if you want to sell anything, the demands of the consumer must be met, irrespective of what anyone thinks is right..

I disagree. I'm not disagreeing with physics, I'm disagreeing with your assertion that what we see in reality, actually moves "smoothly".

Put your hand arms length in front of you. Now, wave it left and right, up and down.
Notice that there IS "motion blur". In the real world there is blur to motion. Our vision doesn't resolve the hands movement without blur.
Motion blur is part of how we see/perceive the real world.

Some may not like it, and will set their TV's to pretend their media is not "more real", but, it ain't.

Nope, there is right and wrong.
This effect is WRONG.

Here is an article that is short and to the point, and makes sense.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379206,00.asp

This "no right or wrong" is very interesting considering how much time and effort many on these forums spend on getting the "right" settings.
Heck, since there is no right or wrong, then set your contrast to 20 and turn the brightness up to 100, push the greens to 100 and reds to 0, and make sure to turn the anti blur to "11". ROCK ON!

Ya gotta remember that those of us who frequent these halls are purists, or wannabe purists. I'd venture to say that the majority of folks out there don't care or understand enough to know what is "right" or "wrong" and come here for guidance or just information. I'm middle of the road. Yes, I've calibrated my set and tweak settings from now and then to my liking (SOE, on or off, depends on my mood) but the absolute bottom line is what do I like, not what others think is the "best". Everybody has their right to their opinions and is welcome to express them here, but to say that one opinion is "right or wrong" borders on arrogance. We have enough of that in another forum. Anyway, sorry for the soapbox. Been a long day. I hope ya'll have a very nice holiday.

You're using manufacturers TV controls as some evidence for you indictment of the lack of art in movie making?
Are you really serious?

Those controls are put there so that you can tweak and alter the image based on your viewing conditions, meaning, your room lighting, your eye's ability to perceive certain colors, etc...

Those controls are there to tweak the TV NOT the media.

Arrogance?
Oh, I've read plenty of that in this thread.

As for my comment, you'll not the smiley face.
Since there is no real way for me to actually express my true intent, I have to use what is available.

Still, imo, the correct or proper way to watch media is to control and adjust your TV to faithfully reproduce what is actually there, not what isn't.
Manufacturers have included anti blur settings as a sales gimmick, not as a way to more faithfully reproduce what is there.
YOMV.

Another pointless and ineffectual attempt to lampoon an opinion. If I felt that "setting the contrast to 20" would mirror what I want to see as purveyor/paying customer, I would most certainly do just that; after all, if the manufacturers were as dogmatic as some of you pretend to be, I wouldn't be able to "push red to 0" in the first place, would I? "Pushing the greens to 100" is tantamount to pouring an entire box of salt on an otherwise enjoyable meal that only required a pinch of salt. You cannot drive a point home by pushing its counter-point to its extreme.

I wonder how well a reference panel like the PRO-111FD would rate with reviewers and consumers, if the panel disallowed any picture adjustments whatsoever.

TT135i's basic point is far from pointless and ineffectual. Instead, it is correct. Anti-blur techniques do not duplicate the way our eyes see the world. Some people like the effect, some don't. I am most definitely in the latter category, but that's really irrelevant to the discussion. What is relevant is that smooth motion ain't more "real", anyway you slice it.

You must have been rolling your eyes while you read the post because you certainly misunderstood what was written. This is not about lack of art. Its about the consumer's right to "season" his purchase as he sees fit. This is about a particular panel's use of interpolation as a means to remove an undesirable effect, inherent with a particular technology, and the opinion of the patron of the side effect. As avant garde as some movie-makers pretend to be, all cinema follows rigid guidelines, which renders its designation as pure art a moot point. It is prepared and sold to garner the largest audience possible. Why should its visual aspect be any different?

Manufacturers of HD panels feverishly strive to produce product that can closely adhere to the guideline. Yet all of these panels allow the purchaser to adjust the picture ad infinitum. Why? Aren't they aware of the rec standard, the perfect gamma setting, blah, blah, blah..? Frame interpolation is considered to be heresy by the elitist overlords of this panel. Is it considered sacrilege to add a pinch of salt to a dish from Bobby Flay?

Remember, that this board is a medium for the sharing of opinions, solutions to problems and ideas, not for bashing someone who doesn't agree with you. Some like the effect, some abhor it. Granted. It's not that serious, people! Good will toward men, remember? Irrespective of what's said here or consensually agreed upon, unless some Huxley-esque Brave New World regime kicks my door in and monitors whether or not the frame interpolation on my set has been activated or not, I'm going to watch it any way I damn well please! Merry Christmas, gents...

For anyone not getting the Bobby Flay reference, frame interpolation to me is seasoning; it adds "flavor" to my viewing experience. How is this example of post-production different from adding sharpening or deepening the black levels to add more "pop"?

It's not. Except that people frequently tout frame interpolation as making things look more realistic or somehow fixing the source content. It's fine if you like it but don't pretend it's objectively superior.

(FWIW I used the blurry hands & background example in the thread I linked earlier. I've never had a frame interpolation fan respond to that point.)

jeff

Didn't mean to imply that *you* were arrogant. It was meant as a general statement to those individuals who say that what is right or wrong is as simple as black and white (contrast and brightness )

Point taken and you are correct. Perhaps, those who prefer frame interpolation like myself should simply chalk it up as preferred seasoning as opposed to being superior.

Even if you enable SOE there is still motion blur during motion just like in real life. It is the choppiness of motion it attempts to remove, give the movie a higher framerate by adding guestimate frames between real frames. Remember that eyes do not have a framerate and higher the framerate is in movie, closer it is to actual RL motion. 24fps that Bluray movies are is pisspoor framerate for creating smooth motion for fast scenes as our eyes can still pick up individual frames at that speed. Scanning backlight (CRT effect) is what tries to remove motion blur from motion and yes, that looks nothing like what RL motion looks. SOE however has nothing to do with this.


I believe that peoples negative opinion about SOE comes from seeing too aggressive motion interpolation attempts (this varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model). This makes motion look both artificial and restless to the point of causing motion sickness during shaky cams and I agree, it looks terrible.

In majority of TVs I have seen the SOE is too extreme even when toned down. And in some when toned down they just aggressively interpolate some scenes and leave others untouched, (Philips is guilty of this) making the motion very uneven.

So far best SOE effect I have seen is in Sony TVs, or atleast mine with Motionflow as Standard and Film Mode/Cinemotion Auto1. Mild and stable motion interpolation WITHOUT making things look restless and fake. Frankly I can no longer watch movies without it after watching one movie with it on.
Setting Motionflow to Smooth creates the aggressive and restless SOE we all know and it gives me bad motion sickness, but Standard+Auto1 simply looks fantastic IMHO.

Ditto for the Samsung B8500 which was heavily lauded for its adjustable dejudder. Full blown 240 interpolation looks amazing on this set. Watching Spartacus on Blu-ray with the effect is not like looking through a window; its looking through the window, but with the window opened! LOL! It's downright spooky! I've seen horrible interpolation on other sets but not here.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that likes it. I think it looks awesome and makes me feel like I'm actually there. You just notice things more, imo.

Can anyone link me to any calibration settings for a HX729 that would make this effect more apparent. It seems there were more options than I anticipated or knew about.

If its anything like my EX720, settings Motionflow to Smooth with Film Mode at Auto1 will create a rather extreme form of motion interpolation. Clear and Clear Plus are more along the lines of Standard when it comes to SOE.

Or do you have something else in your mind?

Thanks, would you be willing to share your calibration settings?

Not sure if they are good for you, depending what size and what panel you have since the default color accuracies/starting points for calibration tend to very between those, sometimes wildly. Mine is 32" with AUO panel. Never had luck with settings from the internetz so I bought a colorimeter years back.


Scene: Cinema

Backlight: 2
Contrast: MAX
Brightness 50
Colour: 50
Hue: 0
Color Temperature: Warm 1
Sharpness: Min for HD sources, use whatever suits you for SD ones.
Motionflow: Standard
Film Mode: Auto1
Gamma: -1

All other special enhancements, reductions and completely useless and ultimately destructive thingamajigs OFF.

White balance:

RGain 0
GGain -2
BGain -5

RBias +1
GBias 0
BBias -1

Gives me spot on 6500k temperature.

I recently watched part of the Jurassic Park "making of" where Spieldberg opted out of using stop motion in favor of digital technology.

Why? Because stop motion was too "stop motiony" or "go motiony" to be precise. That is, stop motion had no motion blur; every frame was in perfect focus. CG however, could have motion blur built in, rendering it more realistic looking to his eye.

Ironic how state of the art CG at the time was used to replicate motion blur of old 24 fps film!