It would appear that some Roku TVs are now self-sabotaging their owners. And by that, I mean they’re enabling motion smoothing without any way to turn it off.
Between this complaint on the Roku subreddit, this thread on Roku’s customer forums, and reports from staffers of The Verge, this issue appears to be more than a one-off, even if it isn’t necessarily widespread. The problem is occurring on TCL TVs running Roku OS 13: Reportedly, these TVs started using motion smoothing out of nowhere, with no notice, nor any option to disable the feature. Users looking at both standard settings or picture settings cannot find a “motion smoothing” option to turn off the feature.
This bug isn’t going unaddressed: In the forums complaint, a Roku community mod confirmed the company is investigating the issue, and included the standard instructions for disabling motion smoothing.
What is motion smoothing, and why is it bad?
Motion smoothing (or “Action Smoothing,” as Roku calls it) is a feature on HD and 4K TVs that essentially adds new frames to whatever content you’re watching. Video is made up of individual pictures, or frames, and most shows and movies run at 24 or 30 frames per second. With motion smoothing, your TV analyzes the content and creates extra frames on the fly to smooth out the motion of the image. Some content, like live sports and video games, are made better by additional frames, since it can help keep track of fast-moving action. However, almost always, artificially adding the frames makes the image look worse, not better.
It’s particularly bad when watching shows and movies: Doubling the frame rate and making the motion smoother is what gives this content the “soap opera” effect. Soap operas are filmed in a higher frame rate than most other shows and movies, so when you double the frame rate of 24 or 30 fps content, it looks like daytime television. That isn’t a compliment.
How to disable Action Smoothing on Roku TVs
While some users experiencing this motion smoothing bug won’t see the option to disable Action Smoothing at this time, other Roku TV users can control the setting.
First, press the Star button on your Roku TV remote while watching something, then scroll down and choose Advanced Picture Settings. Here, you should be able to control the Action Smoothing settings. Roku says that if you can’t see this setting, your TV doesn’t support the feature. That’s likely not comforting to users watching the new season of House of the Dragon as Game of Thrones’ first soap opera.
