soap opera effect Archive

  • Help Key: Why 120Hz looks “weird”

    Help Key: Why 120Hz looks “weird”

    Posted on August 12, 2009 | No Comments
    I've been testing an HD projector here at the house and, in its initial, out-of-the-box setting we found that the picture was ridiculously "sharp." The picture, I suppose, looked like an old Dr. Who episode where the action on screen is smoother than the background, creating a jarring disparity when watching movies with lots of movement. It's sometimes called the "Soap Opera Effect." We decided to do a little digging to figure out why. Most film is recorded at 24 frames per second, but your LCD TV probably either displays at 60 fps or 120 hz (hertz is just a measurement of frequency per second). There are three main ways to cope with this.

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