the Luddite is about to give in - guidance requested

[geronimotwo]

One thing to watch out for, or make SURE the sales guy shows you  is where the 120hz overscan or frame interpolation settings are in the menu, and how to turn them OFF. (Side note, how 'Fin CRAZY is the future that chips which cost pennies in $500 50" TV's can just "make up" or synthesize intermediate frames on the fly out of 30/60fps 1080 video to turn it into 120, and have it look right?)

It's an incredibly odd effect, and makes movies and TV dramas/sitcoms look "cheap and fake" like they're News/Daytime Soaps/Home Shopping network footage.

OTOH, sports looks AWESOME with it turned up to the max.  It would be nice if there was an 'auto' signal in broadcasting that told your TV to turn that feature on or off.

i'm not quite following,   are you saying 120hz is a waste of time as video is only shot at 60, or just the ditch the smoothing setting?

[Brad Johnson]

Keep the higher refresh rate.  Ditch the smoothing.  Motion smoothing makes everything look weirdly artificial.

Brad

[AJ Dual]

Keep the higher refresh rate.  Ditch the smoothing.  Motion smoothing makes everything look weirdly artificial.

Brad

This. Although it makes sports and news look better... usually. Although if the source material is broadcast in 30/60 fps, and the 120hz refresh rate is just showing the same frame 4 or 2 times, there's really no net difference, although the image might look a bit more "solid". It's when it decides to use the extra frame to simulate it's own picture that's "in between" each time actually creating a net percieved gain in visual information and "smoothness" it gets really, really weird, depending on the programming you're watching.

I'd guess if you just "toughed it out" for a few weeks, or maybe a few months depending on your viewing level, it would look "normal" again.

It's actually weirder to me that our brains have been wired to perceive 24-30fps with "expensive" and "drama/fiction", and higher video-like fps's as being "live", or "local", or "inexpensive production quality".

Although IMAX which I believe has a higher fps projection rate somehow doesn't suffer this. So it's not just that.