Do you hate the way HD movies look?

[jay_red]

This is something that has bothered me for a while now, and when I try to explain it to people, there is a split, half of them get what I am saying, the other half look at me funny and think I am crazy for not liking HD.

My problem with movies in HD is they look strange, like "fake" or something. The best way to describe is that HD footage looks like the behind the scenes or something, the characters dont fit in with the back ground, and everything is too "smooth". I specifically do not watch Blu-Ray movies because of this, my PS3 has only ever played 1 blu-ray movie ever. The 2 "worst" looking movies that I can think of (when I saw them on display at Fry's) were "The Dark Knight", and "Avatar", the latter looking especially fake with all the CG used in it.

I just wanted to throw this out there to see if anyone else felt this way, since my Wife is the only one that agrees with me that I have brought up this issue to.

[Hobie-wan]

I've noticed some TV and movies at a friend's place that don't look right either.

[elmagicochrisg]

I've had this 10 years ago with my first Philips LCD TV with pixelplus when watching DVDs.

Like you said, everything looked like behind the scenes stuff. Too realistic...

It's just getting used to you know. You should give it a chance...

[harper]

Yep, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Also, I found this:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-33620_3-57410 ... -than-you/

And it looks like there is a solution!

I never found an option that specifically said it controlled the refresh rate. But buried two menus deep, I found one called Auto Motion Plus. Guessing this was related to the problem, I turned it off. Voila! The bad soap opera look was gone.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I really love watching HD anime. Remasters and original HD movies can both look incredible. Who doesn't covet that Trust and Betrayal Blu-Ray edition?

I think with CG movies, we see all the imperfections that would have been harder to notice with an SD resolution or interlacing. More generally, all the imperfections of viewing a two-dimensional, monocular image become more apparent. (3D is obviously not realistic enough either). On the other hand, people are used to seeing movies a certain way and when you see something with a higher frame rate or better color or something, it's disconcerting because it doesn't look "like a movie" and it doesn't look like real life either. That's why there's no problem with anime and games, they were never supposed to look realistic. I think with HDTV we fall into an uncanny valley.

One last thing is that I'm slightly nearsighted. It's not a big deal, but recently I got some glasses that bump me up to 20/20 vision. The real world is a little crisper, but there's absolutely no difference when I'm watching TV. I sometimes thought it looked too detailed, and at the time I attributed it to the way a camera focuses. If you have less than perfect vision, you're probably experiencing more detail on HDTV than you are in real life and that is really weird.

[Nemoide]

It's not a problem inherent in HD video (35mm film shown in theaters has a MUCH higher resolution than HD) but is usually caused by either a bad default option on a TV like in harper's post, or else a badly mastered Blu-Ray.

A lot of film transfers are overseen by engineers who don't really know what they're doing and try to make the original grain in film invisible. I know a lot of folks are turned off by high-definition, but it really can offer significantly better image quality.

[Hobie-wan]

Well there ya go, shitty processing. If that's turned on it's also possible that it is introducing lag to any gaming you're doing on that TV.

[AppleQueso]

Holy shit they seriously need to stop leaving the mostionplus/smoothmotion/whatever things turned on. You have people thinking it's something inherent to HD. It looks horrible anyway.

If you've seen a movie in a theater, you've seen it in HD. I've never seen anyone complain that theaters look 'off'. Where do you think HD movies get sourced from?

[jay_red]

My experiences are always on TV's that are on display at stores, not specifically my TV, as I have never really watched HD movies on my TV. The perfect way to put it was mentioned in that link posted "The Soap Opera" look.

I guess I just feel that movies should have that grainy look, I think DVD quality is just right for this. What is the FPS for HD movies? I assume its higher than the 24 for standard movies, is that part of the reason things dont look "right"?

EDIT: I am watching an HD stream right now, and while its clear it doesnt look "off", maybe it is just some settings on specific TV's, I will have to get a blu-ray and see on my TV.

[AppleQueso]

My experiences are always on TV's that are on display at stores, not specifically my TV, as I have never really watched HD movies on my TV. The perfect way to put it was mentioned in that link posted "The Soap Opera" look.

I guess I just feel that movies should have that grainy look, I think DVD quality is just right for this. What is the FPS for HD movies? I assume its higher than the 24 for standard movies, is that part of the reason things dont look "right"?

It's an optional TV processing thing. Most 120Hz+ HDTVs have an optional feature that basically smooths out movements and stuff. You can turn this off, but most displays in stores leave it on because they're crazy.

Blu Rays can actually run at a true 24 fps.

Again, what you're describing is a TV post-processing effect. It is not something inherent to HD in any way, shape, or form.