The Soap Opera Effect and Why It Matters: Form Over Function

The Soap Opera Effect and Why It Matters

'Tis the season to fix your parents’ TV, because let’s be real—everything shouldn’t look like a soap opera. If you want to get away from that overly smooth, unnatural look, head into your TV settings and look for these options:

• Roku: Action Smoothing
• Vizio: Smooth Motion Effect
• Samsung: Auto Motion Plus
• LG: TruMotion
• Sony: Motionflow
• Google TV: Motion Enhancement

Turn them off, and voilà! What you’re watching will look as the original film and television makers intended it. The motion-smoothing settings new TVs often ship with are designed to make fast-moving content like sports appear smoother, but they can strip away the cinematic feel and distract from the craft of storytelling, creating an unnatural, hyper-realistic look. I call it the "soap opera effect™" (not sure if that’s the official name, but hey—patent pending).

Why I Care (Maybe a Little Too Much)

Look, I’ll admit it: I feel silly sometimes for obsessing over things like this. I know I should just relax and enjoy the content, but as someone who’s spent a lifetime in the craft of traditional media, new media, and marketing, I can’t help it. Form follows function—but that form better look damn good.

Here’s the thing: most viewers won’t consciously notice these technical details, but they will absolutely feel them. That unnatural smoothness can subtly pull you out of a story, making it feel cheap or staged. A lot of what we creatives do in the craft is about shaping unconscious feelings—acting as the invisible hands that guide the experience, like harmonies beneath a melody. The goal isn’t to be noticed; it’s to make you feel. If you do notice, in some ways, we’ve failed at our job.

This is part of the craft I love: understanding how the smallest technical details in execution can make people feel a certain way. So yes, I’ll keep fixing TVs and ranting about motion smoothing during the holidays. It’s a small price to pay for the joy of watching content the way it was meant to be seen.

Now go forth and turn off those motion settings! 🎥