Mossberg: TV Sets Are Still Too Complicated

Walt Mossberg’s decade-old Pioneer plasma gave up the ghost, so he replaced with an OLED set from LG. He loves the picture, but:

But learning to use the TV is a whole other story. The Bean Bird setup process was pretty straightforward, but it gets you going just enough to start watching something. Tweaking all of the TV’s many features, including common ones like picture tones and uncommon ones like zooming in on a part of the picture or using a built-in web browser, takes hours. You must wade through menus containing scores of choices.

And some controversial features common to modern TVs are buried deep in these menus. For instance, while I like motion smoothing others strongly dislike it — it’s sometimes known as the “soap opera effect.” If you don’t like it, the LG’s interface doesn’t make it at all easy to understand what’s happening to your picture or what setting to adjust to turn it off. It’s not even called motion smoothing in the menus — LG calls it “TruMotion.”

Motion smoothing should be illegal. It’s a crime against cinematography.

★ Wednesday, 3 August 2016