Higgins' Hints: Remove Soap Opera Effect on your HDTV

Soap Opera Effect is the name for the look when an HDTV uses motion interpolation, making movies and TV shows look like cheap video, similar to a daytime TV Soap.

The reason the effect is produced is complicated, what’s important is that you can turn it off.

First look and see if you can set the native refresh rate on your HDTV, if so set it to 60 Hz.  See how your TV show looks now.  If you can’t set the refresh rate, or if the picture still look soap like, then go down to the next step.

Each TV maker has a different name for Motion Interpolation.  Here is a list of what manufactures call it.  Click on the Manufactures name to download a users manual for you TV if you lost it.

Sony – Motion Flow

Samsung – Auto Motion Plus

Sharp – AquoMotion

Toshiba – Clear Frame or Clear Scan

Vizio – Smooth Motion

LG – TruMotion

Sanyo - Smooth Motion

Check the manual that came with your TV, or dig into your TV's menu until you see the Smoothing settings.  Set the motion smoothing to low or off if you can.  Does your TV shows look better, I hope so.

Some TV’s also have a function called Theater mode, this may work well too!

So what is a high refresh rate or motion smoothing good for you might ask?  They make fast moving video and video shot higher than 24 fps look better such as professional sporting events, blu-ray movies that use a lot of computer animation, and video gaming.