It’s strange how quickly new TVs have adopted fancy new frame interpolation systems, with the promise of a beautiful, smooth image as opposed to the nasty, jittery 24p image that we never realised we didn’t like in the last century of cinema. Now that pretty much all new TVs have the same resolution (1080p), it seems that the manufacturers need another number that that can wow consumers with. Yes, suddenly we’re being made to feel that we need a 100Hz, 200Hz, or even 500Hz TV. And it must be good, since it has a big number, right?
The reality is that these frame interpolation features make the image look terrible, at least in my opinion. Now, instead of an almost unnoticeable jitter, we have horrible motion artefacts whenever a character moves more than a slow walk. The motion looks wrong, taking an almost sped up appearance. And the noise and grain found in different films or videos interferes with the interpolation, taking on a far more noticeable look. I think that really these features dramatically reduce the quality of the media, and are generally a bad idea.
But apart from the aesthetic reasons, I think a very good reason not to use these features is that it’s an insult to the craft of filmmaking. With new digital cinema cameras, it’s now possible to shoot 48 or 96 frames per second if the director wants to. But the vast majority of the time, they don’t. The thing is that the choice to shoot 24 frames per second is an artistic choice by the director and the director of photography. The film is meant to have that aesthetic, and not have extra frames in between generated in the TV. Imagine if somebody took a Monet and added sharpening to give it “150% better definition!”. I’m sure most would agree that doing so would just be ridiculous – it’s taking an artistic choice away from the artist, and really doesn’t offer any improvement.
Although some might prefer the motion of an interpolated image, I think most people use this simply because their TV had a bigger number than the other ones (600 Hz!). I don’t have a problem with giving people the option to destroy the image they’re watching, but having it on by default and advertising it as if it is a good thing is just wrong.
