Relevant through Christmas and the New Year

...and we all HATE it.

what is the actual usecase of this interpolation feature? it should require capable hardware, so it doesn't exist for nothing.

I think the idea is to increase motion resolution.
On a sample-and-hold display, like an LCD or OLED, the image on the screen stays the same for the entire frame. When the image suddenly changes because the TV displays a new frame, our eyes need a bit of time to adjust. The result is that when there is a lot of motion on screen, the image starts to look blurry.
This was not an issue on older CRT displays because they used a beam that scanned the picture. Each ‘pixel’ (CRT’s didn’t have pixels but lines, but you get the idea) would only light up for a small amount of time. Since our eyes are relatively slow we didn’t notice the flickering that much, and because it wasn’t fully lit all the time the ‘pixels’ in our eyes didn’t get saturated and could quickly adjust to the new frame.
By adding interpolated frames the image changes more often and this allows our eyes to keep up with the action. Another solution to the problem is black frame insertion, where the TV shows a black image between each frame. Again we don’t perceive this as flickering as our eyes are too slow for this, but the disadvantage is that the picture brightness seems to halve.
How much blurriness you get in motion is a function of both how fast the movement on screen is and the frame rate. Fast movement and low frame rates cause more blurriness than slow movement and high frame rates.
The use-case for this feature is mainly for fast sporting events on broadcast TV, where there may be fast movements (e.g. a soccer ball) combined with the low frame rate of broadcast TV (30 or 25 fps depending on where you are).
- I suspect it's also meant to mitigate the modern fascination with buying TVs that are too big, and sitting far too close to them all the time. If your soccer ball example involves the ball being in one position on this frame, and literally six inches away in real distance on the surface of the screen on the next, and this is happening all the time, people will get fatigued and cranky watching it for extended periods.

Does anybody have any idea what this post is about?

Motion smoothing, frame interpolation features in TVs. It's what makes movement look unnatural and on default TV settings. Old people can't tell/don't understand so it's customary to sneakily disable it for them when visiting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera_effect
Yes. Motion smoothing. It's like kerning or the Wilhelm scream. Once you notice it, you'll hate it.
It makes the slow panning forests and splashy paint videos in Currys look nice, but it makes movies and TV shows look terrible.
- Eh, I've been adding it on purpose to technical and astronomy documentations during transcoding for my library. 23.whatever fps NTSC pulldown is just choppy.
Yes
I think it's the frame interpolation feature that a lot of TVs have.
- It’s a terrible effect, and people who don’t spend much time in their TV’s setup may not know or think to turn it off - or they delude themselves into thinking they like the effect.
- If you're watching a tv and the frame rate hitches all over the place every few seconds then one of these stupid fucking settings is on.
  The shit wouldn't be so fucking awful if it could actually maintain a stable frame rate but it can't. None of them can.

Nvidia calls it DLSS and pretends its new

Wait DLSS is about upscaling right? The “features” mentioned in OP’s post are about motion interpolation that makes the video seem to be playing at higher fps than the standard 24fps used in movies and shows.
- Because names mean nothing Nvidia has also labeled their frame generation as "DLSS".
- It allows more resolution by cutting the fps. Fake frames are inserted into the gaps to get the fps back.
DLSS Frame Generation actually uses the game's analytic motion vectors though instead of trying to estimate them (well, really it does both) so it is a whole lot more accurate. It's also using a fairly large AI model for the estimation, in comparison to TVs probably just doing basic optical flow or something.
If it's actually good though depends on if you care about latency and if you can notice the visual artifacts in the game you're using it for.
Yeah, but only PC owners can have it so they think it's good.
Shouldn't it be more like Motion Blur?
- Motion blur is consistent and reproducible using math. The other isn't. Something that cannot produce consistent results and is sold as a solution does have a name though: snake oil.

Soap Opera Effect

What

It's the setting to disable on smart TVs for a better image. The option can do oone or more of the following: adds in-between frames, reduces noise, and upscales video. Sounds good, but the implementation is always terrible.
- Is this what that uncanny "too smooth" look is on my parents TV? Whenever I'd go to visit them whatever they had on always looked like the camera motion or character movement was way too smooth to the point it was kind of unsettling.
- It brings you gorgeous frames like this:
- I've been exposed to a smart TV only once in my life, and I hated the experience so much 😅
- I'm enjoying LG's implementation. 🤷‍♂️ I have that stuff enabled, but not on the outputs where I play games.
- I usually hate those too...
  But they are not universally bad. OLED screens have almost instantaneous response times, which if paired with lateral movement and content shot at 24 FPS can become a stuttery mess instead of a smooth camera pan. In some movies, it's enough to give me a headache.
  In those scenarios, one of the interpolation settings available on my LG C1 instantly fixes the issue and does not add significant artifacts. The goal isn't simulating 120 FPS on a TV show, but working around content filmed at abysmally low FPS (which was relevant when film was expensive and we used blurry TVs, not good for 2025).
This is in regard to motion smoothing which is enabled by default on modern TVs, and give the effect of a soap opera look. People think that it makes the video look better, but it's just adding fake frames to display at a higher frame rate. Not a lot of people like this: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/motion-smoothing-how-to-shut-off-1235176633/
To make matters worse, all TV brands have their own name for this feature. This post is saying that when you go home for the holidays, this is the name of the motion smoothing in the settings to turn off for a better viewing experience the way the filmmaker intends.
- Oh god this must be what my parents have on their TV- I thought it looked that way bc it's 4k. A soap opera look is exactly how I described it! That's been my only exposure to new/smart TVs
- I agree that it's awful. Why do you think they enable it by default? What's their game?
So they can turn off AI enhancements on their relatives' TV.
To disable the “soap opera effect” on televisions.
Boomer detected.

I went to a friend’s house recently where this was enabled. I couldn’t bite my tongue for more than a few minutes before I had to bring it up. They were instantly impressed with how much better it looked lol.

My friends did that at my TV, I never noticed the difference
I don't think I've ever seen it enabled anywhere where someone around me didn't bring it up.
Sometimes that someone is me, but sometimes it's not.

To further elaborate, on LG TVs it's in the "Clarity" menu.

Thank you for not typing “TV’s”
- Thank you for noticing!

I think I’m the only person I know who doesn’t mind it.

Shit, maybe I’m old and that’s what everyone else is going to look for and turn off.

perfectly valid opinion to have with no consequences...
however, I now hate you
Unpopular opinion but generally I agree. Used it for a long time despite being someone that 'always notices' etc etc and honestly preferred it. Eventually turned it off though because every now and then I would be distracted by artifacts during fast movement.
This is what it did to my anime:
It’s less egregious on live action content but still noticeable
- So it turns human made content into AI looking content?
Don't worry there are dozens of us. Dozens!
It's my guilty pleasure.

How new does your TV have to be to have this? I just scrolled through settings and couldn't find it. Is it normally in screen settings?

If it's a smart TV, it's probably there. Might be under a different name. I think my 6 year old Samsung calls it motion smoothing
It could be in "input settings" too, since it may be device-specific (HDMI 1 on Game mode, etc.)
My plasma """120""" Hz plasma true-motion-plus enabled Panasonic had that shit and it was a decade old.

Say it again, Tom!

"Photography is truth. The cinema is truth 24 times per second, plus some neural frame interpolation spliced in between."

Jensen Godard, probably

I am using a panasonic from 2008 😅

My folks leave subtitles on too. I love when something goes fast behind the text and the letters go all wibbly wobbly.

Thanks! How I know how to turn it on for every TV I see.

If you paid for 120Hz, you should be utilizing every available frame, even if you have to generate fake ones.

I agree. The picture should also be stretched to cover the entire screen, regardless of the original aspect ratio. I'm not paying for black bars!
- Are you my mom?