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Ever felt like your smart TV looks off? You can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong with it until you’re watching an action film and everything starts to blur together. You can’t see what’s going on clearly you’re just left confused and annoyed at what’s happening. Well, what you’re experiencing is motion blur, a pretty common issue in smart TVs that (thankfully!) can be fixed easily by adjusting some settings. However, be careful you don’t end going too far tweaking the settings and cause the soap opera effect where everything’s too smooth! To help you avoid any issues you might have, we here at Systems Insights have put together this guide to help you understand why motion blur happens on your smart TV and then stop it through adjusting your settings.
What is Motion Blur on my Smart TV?
Motion blur is a really annoying effect that can happen with the picture on your smart TV. Just like you might think, it happens when something on screen is moving too fast for the screen to fully register and properly display what’s happening so it ends up looking a blurry mess. This can be really annoying as you can’t properly see what’s happening, leaving you confused and pulling you out of whatever you’re watching.
One potential cause of motion blur might be having an older smart TV that’s got a lower refresh rate. It may now be outdated and after a few too many updates is struggling with all the extra demands on its processor. As a result, it can’t refresh fast enough to handle what’s happening produce a steady stream of images, leaving you with motion blur. So if you’ve got an older smart TV with a low refresh rate, then this might be the cause of motion blur for you.
Another potential cause might be from the settings of your smart TV as it tries to adjust the picture for you. Depending on what smart TV you’ve got, it’ll come loaded with tons of fancy technologies to improve your picture. However, depending on what picture mode you’re using, this can actually not be good for what you’re watching and might cause motion blur. Thankfully, if your smart TV’s settings are what’s causing motion blur then this can be fixed by adjusting them, which we’re going to discuss below…
What Can I Do to Stop Motion Blur?
One of the easiest ways to get rid of motion blur is to go and adjust your settings. Here’s a simple guide to try and help:
- Using your remote control, go onto the settings menu of your smart TV.
- From this, go to the video settings.
- Check if there are any setting which say
- You may be able to adjust the level of these settings to your preferences or outright disable them. For the best results, disable or reduce the levels of these settings to 0.
- You can also change the picture mode from what you’re using to the default or cinema mode to reduce the chance of these settings being applied as well.
- If you reduce all of these picture-processing settings to as low as possible, then you’ll get as natural an image as possible which reduces the chances of motion blur occurring.
But, remember to be careful…
There’s also an opposite issue called the soap opera effect which can come from messing with your settings and make everything you watch feel a bit off. This happens when you enable settings on your smart TV such as motion smoothing which creates extra frames between the originals to stop motion blur from ever occurring. This can make what you’re watching seem almost too smooth and really unrealistic. So when fiddling with your smart TV’s settings to reduce motion blur, be careful with settings like motion smoothing as you don’t want to cause the soap opera effect instead!
It’s also worth noting that sometimes motion blur is being used for a reason in what you’re watching or playing. Several directors and producers use motion blur in what they make to. If you’re playing a video game, then you might actually be able to turn off motion blur in the settings. So if you’re still struggling with motion blur even after changing your settings, then consider that it might be used in what you’re watching or playing instead.
What if Motion Blur on my Smart TV’s Still an Issue?
If you’ve done all the above and you’re still getting motion blur that’s really annoying you, then it might just be time to get a new smart TV with a better refresh rate. If you’re looking to upgrade, then look at the refresh rate which is expressed as 60Hz for example. The higher the number of Hertz, the more times the screen will refresh per second. So if you’re needing to upgrade to a newer smart TV to stop motion blur, then look out for one with a really high refresh rate.
We recommend TCL’s 55Q6C-UK smart TV as an option as it has one of the highest refresh rates of all smart TVs currently available. Make use of their 144Hz Motion Clarity PRO which is much higher than the industry standard of 50 or 60Hz to have crystal clear and smooth visuals no matter what you’re watching. So if you’re looking for a new smart TV to avoid motion blur, then check out TCL’s 55Q6C-UK here for some of the smoothest visuals you can find.
As you can see, motion blur is one of the most annoying issues that you can have on your smart TV. Thankfully, this can be fixed by adjusting your video settings or picture. However, it’s important to not tinker too much otherwise you might end up with the soap opera effect and end up with opposite issue. So, follow our guide above and if that doesn’t help, then check out our recommendations for high refresh rate smart TVs to not have to worry about motion blur ever again!