Tom Cruise breaks silence on the 'soap opera effect' and we couldn't be happier
Hollywood chimed in Tuesday on something it actually knows a thing or two about: film and video technology. And you should be glad it did.
In a short video attached to the home video release of Mission Impossible: Fallout, ageless star Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie explain, plainly and directly (from the set of Top Gun: Maverick no less), the modern scourge of TV technology: video interpolation, better known as the “soap opera effect.”
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You know it. The effect happens when you’re watching a movie and for some reason the motion onscreen looks too smoo… ah, I’ll just let Cruise explain:
The unfortunate side effect is that it makes most movies look like they were shot on high-speed video rather than film.
Yes. Video interpolation is often turned on by default in many TVs, so it’s already engaged when you unbox the TV and turn it on for the first time. It’s mainly intended to reduce motion blur in sports and live events, and Americans certainly like to watch those, so there is some justification for the setting.
Still, one might argue that because sports look just fine without it, and the setting has the effect of making most movies and TV shows look like they were shot on your iPhone, it should be kept off – at least as a default.
And now it looks like that might actually happen. In addition to being an extremely needed and useful PSA, the video includes a hint of hope for the future. Cruise and McQuarrie mention that Hollywood is in talks with TV manufacturers to get them to rethink how video interpolation is accessed, hopefully leading to more viewers seeing films and TV shows as they were intended to be seen.
We can hope. In the meantime, your mission is clear: Google how to turn off the motion smoothing or interpolation on your TV and turn it off before you watch any more films on it. Listen to the movie people on this — they know of what they speak.
Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
