Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers and studios don’t like what the motion smoothing feature in modern Ultra High Definition (UHD) TVs is doing to their films. And with the help of trade group the UHD Alliance, they’ve banded together and convinced leading consumer electronics makers to create a feature that automatically turns off motion smoothing for movies.
On Tuesday, shortly after the UHD Alliance hosted a star-studded press event to announce the coalition in Los Angeles, Vizio said that it would enable the so-called “Filmmaker Mode” in its 2020 smart TV collection.
LG and Panasonic have also committed to support the standard, which is designed as to not require the user to enter menu settings. Filmmaker Mode can be triggered automatically by metadata in the content, or manually via a dedicated button on the remote.
“Current TVs use advanced video processing capabilities to offer consumers a broad range of options in viewing various types of content, ranging from sports to video games,” reads a press release issued by the UHD Alliance, a coalition of 4K technology stakeholders. “Filmmaker Mode will allow viewers to enjoy a more cinematic experience on their UHD TVs when watching movies by disabling all post-processing (e.g. motion smoothing, etc.) so the movie or television show is displayed as it was intended by the filmmaker, preserving the correct aspect ratios, colors and frame rates.”
The UHD Alliance attached a gaggle of big-name Hollywood directors to its initiative, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryand Coogler, Patty Jenkins, Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan. Executives from Universal Pictures and Amazon Prime Video were also quoted in the coalition’s press release.
“Most people today are watching these classic films at home rather than in movie theaters, making Filmmaker Mode of particular importance when presenting these films which have specifications unique to being shot on film,” Scorsese said in the announcement.
