Roku Owners Angered by Persistent Motion Smoothing Issue

Tech & AI | June 12, 2024, 8:13 p.m.

Roku TV owners are facing a series of new frustrations following recent software updates, including mandatory arbitration terms, upcoming ads on the home screen, and a particularly bothersome issue affecting some TCL HDTV owners. After updating to Roku OS 13, reports have surfaced of motion smoothing being automatically activated on these TVs without a way to disable it. This feature, also known as video interpolation, uses Motion Estimation Motion Compensation (MEMC) to artificially boost the frame rate of video signals, resulting in a hyper-realistic, soap opera-like appearance. Tom Cruise even spoke out against the negative effects of motion smoothing in 2018. Roku users affected by this problem can typically find the option to disable motion smoothing in the "Expert Settings" or by enabling "Movie" mode on their TV.