4K Blu-rays look like motion smoothing is on

[DigitalFirefly]

TV: Sony 65x900H
Players: Xbox Series X, PS5 (both plugged directly into the TV)

Last year I got my first 4K TV and both consoles. When watching 4K Blu-Rays on both players it looks like motion smoothing is on. If I watch the same movie on regular Blu-Ray or 4K streaming it looks fine.

I've turned off motion flow and cinemotion on the TV. I've made sure it's not in game mode. Is there another setting I'm missing? I've looked all over and can't find a fix for this. Is it because I'm using an Xbox and PS5 for movies? Will a stand alone 4K player fix this? I was considering getting one for Dolby Vision, but if I'm still going to have the same issue I won't bother.

[Thoriancreeper2]

Originally Posted by DigitalFirefly

TV: Sony 65x900H
Players: Xbox Series X, PS5 (both plugged directly into the TV)

Last year I got my first 4K TV and both consoles. When watching 4K Blu-Rays on both players it looks like motion smoothing is on. If I watch the same movie on regular Blu-Ray or 4K streaming it looks fine.

I've turned off motion flow and cinemotion on the TV. I've made sure it's not in game mode. Is there another setting I'm missing? I've looked all over and can't find a fix for this. Is it because I'm using an Xbox and PS5 for movies? Will a stand alone 4K player fix this? I was considering getting one for Dolby Vision, but if I'm still going to have the same issue I won't bother.

Hey might want to dig into console settings and look and see what refresh rate or frame interpolation is set at. I’ve never had this issue with standalone player. Hope this helps

[BillieCassin]

Originally Posted by DigitalFirefly

I was considering getting one for Dolby Vision, but if I'm still going to have the same issue I won't bother.

Sorry I can't help with your specific problem - I'm sure someone with that set can help you figure it out once they see this - but I just wanted to chime in here - DO IT!

I too thought I was satisfied with my Series X as a 4K player. I really did not want another box. But once I started collecting 4K seriously, the limitations started to become apparent. The XBOX Blu-ray software just isn't great to begin with, I had compatibility issues (wouldn't recognize certain discs, etc.) - and then the biggest thing - DOLBY VISION. DV is fantastic. The fact that the consoles don't offer it is crazy.

If your TV supports DolbyVision, I can't recommend getting a stand-alone player enough. As much as I love my Series X, I just had to admit that it is barely serviceable when it comes to 4K discs.

[lilboyblu]

You actually want Cinemotion turned on, Auto. With that on content plays at the intended frame rate (i.e. 24fps). That alone should alleviate some of the problem.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by DigitalFirefly

TV: Sony 65x900H
Players: Xbox Series X, PS5 (both plugged directly into the TV)

Last year I got my first 4K TV and both consoles. When watching 4K Blu-Rays on both players it looks like motion smoothing is on. If I watch the same movie on regular Blu-Ray or 4K streaming it looks fine.

I've turned off motion flow and cinemotion on the TV. I've made sure it's not in game mode. Is there another setting I'm missing? I've looked all over and can't find a fix for this. Is it because I'm using an Xbox and PS5 for movies? Will a stand alone 4K player fix this? I was considering getting one for Dolby Vision, but if I'm still going to have the same issue I won't bother.

As Blu-rays look fine and UHDs don't I'd assume there's a settings issue with the players. Motionflow is motion interpolation, I don't think CineMotion needs to be on for 24fps sources, just 60Hz ones, so I'd look at your consoles' settings.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chip75

As Blu-rays look fine and UHDs don't I'd assume there's a settings issue with the players. Motionflow is motion interpolation, I don't think CineMotion needs to be on for 24fps sources, just 60Hz ones, so I'd look at your consoles' settings.

Correct. Cinemotion does absolutely nothing for playing 24p as 24p, or multiples thereof, it's just there to correct for 3:2 pulldown on 60Hz content as you say.

As for the OP's problem, fook knows. I find it baffling that you can feed a TV with the same source player and have one set of content looking fine for motion and the other looking all weird. Check the usual I suppose: is the OP outputting movies at 60p or 24p to begin with? (Not a gamer so I've no idea what to look for on those consoles.) Are the HDMI sockets on the TV set to Enhanced?

[Bueller]

I have the X900F, and I swear the native 24 setting never looked right, so I've switched it to 60 with no CineMotion and True-whatever it's called, and it's better. But that was effecting all Blu-rays, so I'm not sure if that's related.

[Region_unlocked]

Were you watching "Gemini Man" or "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by any chance?

[Takuma]

I've been having the exact same issue since I bought my Sony 55" 950H TV three years ago. I always thought it was my player (Panasonic 420, US import, region free), but seeing this thread it seems obvious it's the TV after all. The OP poster's TV is a sister model to what I have.

Most UHDs look like there's a slight soap opera effect (Shout's Escape from New Your looking particularly nasty. Arrow's The Big Boss does the same from the first scene). This doesn't happen with standard BDs, streaming, live TV, TV recordings etc. Only UHDs. It's gotten to the point that I've started avoiding UHDs and buying BDs instead.

I too have the player set to 60p. For some reason, 24p makes the soap effect much stronger, despite motion smoothing being completely turned off (I can't stand the slightest bit of smoothing, and hate all processing with a passion). 60p on the other hand looks perfectly fine.

I should also mention that setting the player to 24p often gives severe handshake problems with UHD discs. At first it resulted in a black screen (image flashes once every 5 seconds for a fraction of a second) though that issue just disappeared over time for no reason. The soap however did not.

I've gone through three different high quality HDMI cables so it shouldn't be that either. I can only assume it's the TV.

[Deadend45]

Technical reviews did not report a UHD problem with the Sony LCDs?

[Takuma]

Originally Posted by Deadend45

Technical reviews did not report a UHD problem with the Sony LCDs?

I never saw this mentioned in reviews, and frankly I wonder if most reviewers would even notice it or consider it a flaw. Seeing how many reviewers seem to view motion smoothing positively, and use some digitally shot movie from a year ago to test equipment, I realize their definition for "what looks good" is probably very different from mine. I rarely even watch recent movies because I don't like the digital look of them.

I did find people online reporting similar issue on Sony 900H, but I don't think what I'm experiencing is exactly the same. Those people aren't talking about UHD discs, and the fix (turn motion smoothing on and off again) doesn't fix it for me.

https://ap.community.sony.com/s/ques...language=en_US

[David M]

Originally Posted by DigitalFirefly

TV: Sony 65x900H
Players: Xbox Series X, PS5 (both plugged directly into the TV)

Last year I got my first 4K TV and both consoles. When watching 4K Blu-Rays on both players it looks like motion smoothing is on. If I watch the same movie on regular Blu-Ray or 4K streaming it looks fine.

I've turned off motion flow and cinemotion on the TV. I've made sure it's not in game mode. Is there another setting I'm missing? I've looked all over and can't find a fix for this. Is it because I'm using an Xbox and PS5 for movies? Will a stand alone 4K player fix this? I was considering getting one for Dolby Vision, but if I'm still going to have the same issue I won't bother.

Make sure the display is in the accurate picture mode (Filmmaker Mode, Professional Mode, Cinema Mode etc.) and especally make sure anything that messes around with the picture temporally is off, so look for any Noise Reduction controls are make sure they're off.

A standalone player vs a console won't make any difference, this sounds like a display issue.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by David M

Make sure the display is in the accurate picture mode (Filmmaker Mode, Professional Mode, Cinema Mode etc.) and especially make sure anything that messes around with the picture temporally is off, so look for any Noise Reduction controls are make sure they're off.

A standalone player vs a console won't make any difference, this sounds like a display issue.

Apparently the X900H has an issue with 23.976Hz content from external sources, it skips a frame every 42 frames.

[ZombieGrombie]

Few things to check:

- Depending on your tv some HDMI ports may not be 4k @ 60hz, the gaming ones can be 4k @ 120hz or even 4 @144hz with VBR. My Tv has 4 ports, 2 x 4k 60hz, 1 x 144hz and 1x 120hz. Whenever I played 4k blurays on series x in anything other than the 4k 60hz HDMI pors the motion looked odd.

- Xbox Series x is pretty crap at playing 4k blurays. I bought a standalone player in the end as its not a high quality player and some large capacity discs like some of the larger sized scream factory ones dont even play on xbox series x.

- Also another reason to buy a stand alone bluray player is because Xbox Series X can stream dolby vision and HDR and games play in both but the bluray player is not capable of playing Dolby Vision/HDR. I know it sounds stupid I was shocked when I found this out.

- check HDMI cable is up to spec.

- check xbox display settings.

- check tv as again if you have a more modern tv it will auto change to game mode when it detects a console and in the settings you can turn VBR off on xbox for just games.

[bloodjet]

I've struggled with this on my 55" Sony A90J for years. When my player is set to 24p playback, the footage looks like motion smoothing is on. I've done countless hours of testing over the years to try to get 24p disc playback to look cinematic. Tested on Sony and Panasonic players. The only solution has been to set the playback to 60p, and only then does it look like a movie and not a hyperreal, high frame rate video.
I think it has to do with the way Sony TVs process 24p footage. Any streaming content looks totally normal.

[8mile13]

On older Sony TVs for instance you have stuff like cinemotion/filmmode, motion enhancement settings and settings that might impact motion. Cinemotion that is 24fps movies related which had 24fps option that did little smoothing and 24fps option that did no smoothing. It does not work the same on all models. For instance it might only work well if you use the right cinemotion setting combined with the right motionflow setting. And that is just the TV. So you need to checkout that first. Keep in mind your models year because lots of models of that year from that brand will have similar working options with the top models having the biggest threads and best reviews. Also in the USA it might work different than in Europe. Later on you can check out (UHD) blu-ray settings on Playstation or blu-ray player..best it to check it out on a clean source like (UHD) blu-ray/

[James Luckard]

For what it's worth, I'll relate my personal experience.

I avoided 4K for a while, because I saw minimal motion smoothing on the setups of multiple friends when I went to their houses.

The first 4K TV I bought was a cheap Panasonic, and even though I turned off all the motion smoothing and image processing settings, I still saw a small amount of motion smoothing. I found it unwatchable and had them come pick it up to return after a couple of days.

I did a bunch on testing and research, trying out tons of TVs at Best Buy in their high-end section (I think it's called Magnolia) where I was able to actually watch 4K movie feeds and change the settings on each TV.

I found, to my eye at least, that most 4K TVs have minimal motion smoothing baked in.

Most people use their TVs to watch sports and play video games, so I guess this isn't an issue.

I would sooner have elective dental work than watch sports or play a video game, lol, I wanted a TV that would serve solely as a monitor to watch movies.

I asked multiple friends who work in feature film post-production what kind of TV would work best as a movie-viewing monitor.

They all uniformly recommended an LG OLED.

I bought one, and was thrilled with it. You can totally turn off motion smoothing on it, and the image looks normal and film-like, without unnatural smoothing.

Note that you have to turn off EVERY image processing setting to do this, even the ones that lie and say they'll make the image more like 24fps.

My only advice is that you may be out of luck with cheaper TVs, and you may need a fairly high-end one.

I ended up buying an LG OLED that was significantly smaller than the cheap Panasonic that I started with, and still cost twice as much, but I don't regret it for a second, the image is 100x better.

[bloodjet]

Appreciate this ^ I also asked a friend of mine who directs for the big studios and he has an LG C class OLED and is totally happy with it.

[dontpokethebear3893]

Originally Posted by bloodjet

I've struggled with this on my 55" Sony A90J for years. When my player is set to 24p playback, the footage looks like motion smoothing is on. I've done countless hours of testing over the years to try to get 24p disc playback to look cinematic. Tested on Sony and Panasonic players. The only solution has been to set the playback to 60p, and only then does it look like a movie and not a hyperreal, high frame rate video.
I think it has to do with the way Sony TVs process 24p footage. Any streaming content looks totally normal.

I have a 65" A90J with a Panasonic UB820 player and I think your settings might just be off a bit.

If you want pure 24p pacing with no motion smoothing, you want the player set to 24p and the motion smoothing settings on the tv set to custom, with smoothness to 0/off and cinemotion set to "low." I personally prefer a smidgen of motion smoothing for panning shots so I set smoothness to "1" and I feel that gives a a good sense of motion without any Soap Opera Effect which I am very sensitive to.

Never set cinemotion to high under any circumstances if you hate SOE. Always have it set to low because then it just adjusts the native refresh rate of the display or performs 3/2 pulldown. Setting it to high just introduces more interpolation like the smoothness bar does.

Clearness, btw, is just black frame insertion, and it reduces brightness by a lot. So only use this in SDR if you want extra clarity without interpolation artifacts or SOE.

[bloodjet]

Originally Posted by dontpokethebear3893

I have a 65" A90J with a Panasonic UB820 player and I think your settings might just be off a bit.

If you want pure 24p pacing with no motion smoothing, you want the player set to 24p and the motion smoothing settings on the tv set to custom, with smoothness to 0/off and cinemotion set to "low." I personally prefer a smidgen of motion smoothing for panning shots so I set smoothness to "1" and I feel that gives a a good sense of motion without any Soap Opera Effect which I am very sensitive to.

Never set cinemotion to high under any circumstances if you hate SOE. Always have it set to low because then it just adjusts the native refresh rate of the display or performs 3/2 pulldown. Setting it to high just introduces more interpolation like the smoothness bar does.

Clearness, btw, is just black frame insertion, and it reduces brightness by a lot. So only use this in SDR if you want extra clarity without interpolation artifacts or SOE.

Thanks, I appreciate the suggestions. Over the years, I have tried every possible combination of motion, cinemotion, BFI, reality creation while 24p is activated on my player and nothing seems to remove the smoothness. I even once bought a UB820 to see if it was an issue on the player end, but the playback was the exact same as on my x700.

I followed your suggestions today with the movie Psycho and it unfortunately still plays too smoothly. To resolve it I once again turned off 24p on the player, which is the only way I can get a movie to look like a movie on this TV.

I think this has something to do with both it being a 120hz TV and the way Sony processes 24p. I've been in the video industry for 20+ years and have never seen 24p playback look quite the way it does on my Sony TV.