I recently bought a new 43" 4K Samsung TV. Great image quality, especially the UHD content from Disney+, Netflix and Prime. But I noticed something. When a scene is panning across and through a scene I get this stutter or juddering every second or so. Like a single frame pause. I noticed this the most in scifi space scenes, first in Start Trek Discover, and this week in The Expanse, where it seems to happen more.. not just panning space scenes, but also ship interiors when the camera is moving though the ship.

I did some digging in Google and it seems a fairly common issue with newer 4K TVs made since 2018. There are advanced image processing filters, on Samsung TVs called Auto Motion Plus, but on mine it's called Picture Clarity Settings. So they might have recently renamed it. Probably called something else for other makes.

In these settings are picture enhancement filters. The First is called Judder Reduction. Mine has a slidder to set it between 0 and 10, with 0 being off. By default this was set to 3. I tested this set to 1, and then 0. It reduced the juddering but not completely, even when set to 0.

The next setting is blur reduction. On mine this is now called Noise reduction. This was set to auto by default. I set it to off and it completely cured the problem. No stuttering or juddering at all.

The third option is called LED Clear Motion, which was off by default. It's meant to use the LCD backlight to sharpen fast motion, but this alters brightness levels and makes objects artificially brighter. O tested this on to see what the difference was and it makes the overall image much darker.

So at least I fixed the issue. Bit mad that to fix the juddering and stuttering I had to turn off Judder Reduction and Noise reduction. Apparently these filters do reduce Judder and flicker well for more predictable staight line Motion, but don't handle unpredictable movement or erratic motion. So best to turn them off.

Apparently with these settings people have nicknamed it the soap opera effect as it creates a smoothed out over sharpened image that makes everything look a bit too clean and sharp and soap opera set like. And I would agree. With the settings off films look much better. Far more like film. I'd been wondering why things I'd been watching looked a bit wrong, but couldn't put my finger on it.

Strangely my older 65" Philips 4K TV never suffered from this issue. I also think the Philips has a better image than the Samsung, but it might just be the larger size of the panel and I think it has better brightness and backlighting too. But both have really nice images.
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OMG, I hate this soap opera effect, looks like somebody filmed the movie with a camcorder, absolutely unwatchable. That's always what I turn off first. Funny thing is when you visit friends, or even TVs in the bar, they have it switched on, because it's often enabled by default, and I have to tell them straight away to change it. Works ok with animation movies or gaming, but else?? So for me it's defaulted to DISABLED.

On my Sony TV it's called Motionflow, and on the JVC beamers it's called Clear Motion Drive, and on my older Pansonic TVs it's called Intelligent Frame Creation.

Whatever it is called, first thing to do is disable.
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I've learnt that now. As I said my other Philips 4K TV doesn't suffer from this but I need to dig through the settings to see if it is active or not. I'm guessing it's off by default on that one.

Your description of it looking like being filmed by a camcorder is spot on. When we got the TV we were watching a film and my wife commented on it looking quite different and not quite right. Now we know why.
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I think that they usually enable it by default. Don't ask why though.
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We bought a 55Q70 sammy and it's been great, I turned all that extra junk off when I set it up as I hate the cheap looking 'soap opera effect' too.

BUT the first time we watched something in 4K HDR all the settings changed and I had to go back and look for 'film-maker mode' and all sort of other stuff to turn off.

Funnily enough, it was when we watched Rise of Skywalker (heaps disappointing BTW) on Disney+ that it happened. Not an immersive way to begin a movie, having to pause it and delve into menus because the spaceships looked shit.
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Don't understand why it switched back when playing HDR? I know that if you use different profiles you have to change it in all of them. On my beamer I use 2 profiles, one for movies and one for gaming, but on the TV I just leave it on Standard mode, which is fine. HDR anyway has it's own setting, which could then again be the reason.
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I think HDR must have been the reason. When I turned that on for my Samsung all other settings changed again and I had to turn all the soap opera stuff off again. But it's auto remembered it now for each mode when I checked.

You can see how a lot of people not technically minded get confused with TVs these days. And so many just use them on the factory settings and have no idea why it looks a bit wrong, or just moan it can't handle movement on screen very well and just put it down to the TV being rubbish. You would think after all these years and the speed of TV processors they could code judder reduction that actually works, instead of making it worse. And having the settings on by default will just ruin the manufacturers reputation with those that don't understand why.
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Sky Q HD & UHD boxes gave us the same shit on our Panasonic 55" OLED.

Didn't matter if Sky, Netflix or now Amazon on the Q UHD Box.... Stutter!! - Utter Laggy crappy BS stutter left to right or up & down....

Sky Q Settings/Settings/Setup/Audio Visual/Judder Reduction for all Apps (Last Option)..... Set it to "ON" No more BS...

Set it to "ON" by default then eh!
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I didn't actually know that setting was in Sky Q. I tend to watch Prime, Netflix and Disney+ directly through the TV rather than via the Sky box. I think the image looks a bit crisper directly from the TV apps.
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Sky Q UHD is a different animal bud.
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