Microblog Memes

The post is about when you are a tech savvy person, and go to a relative's house for the holiday and see some piece of tech with default configuration. Often tech companies (especially TV companies) enable buzzword technology to trick non tech savvy people into believing there was an improvement where there actually wasn't. Often, inspection with a more educated eye reveals that the result actually looks bad and ruins the original media (unless it was already terrible).

In this case the gripe is with frame smoothing technologies, which look smeared and ruin details and timing of movies. But to someone who doesn't know better it looks like "whoa, it really is smoother, I'm gonna smooth all the smoothing with my new extra smooth smoother; the smoothness salesman sold me real smooth on this" (I'm calling out the dishonest seller, not the consumer with this).

So when the tech savvy person sees the swindled relative, they try to fix up the situation disabling the bullshit, but every brand gives it a different patented bullshit name.

It's worth noting that inevitably, as soon as you leave the house the relatives will:

• Not notice a thin
• Call you because the TV "doesn't do the thing it did before anymore" and you have to explain that you did it and why it's better until they ask you to put it back
• Spend too much time trying to pot back the thing on their own, making even worse choices along the way

To actually help them you should have been involved in the choice of device, but if you ever got involved in a choice you would automatically become the designated tech purchase advisor forever and ever.

Go watch any old (think Cinderella, Bambi) Disney movie on Disney+. Notice how it's nice and sharp. It's been upscaled. Notice how the frame rate is fast, it's been interpolated.

Now, closely watch the edges of the lines. They are inconsistent, smeared and now you can't not see it... Sorry

Many modern TVs are now doing this by default and it's rarely a better experience.

It's a setting in newer TVs that "smooths" frames for lower quality media to maximize the capabilities of modern TV hardware. It very rarely looks good. This post lists what the major manufacturers call the technology.

You're the one whose tv will be fixed when family comes to visit over the holidays.

You know how TV shows all look like soap operas nowadays? It's because of goddamn motion smoothing and it is on by default on most TVs.

People who can't tell are monsters. Blind monsters.

This post is for those of us willing to put in the work to turn it off and restore balance to the universe.