Tom Cruise wants to fix your TV by turning off motion smoothing

Proving that his heroism is not merely limited to on-screen antics, Tom Cruise has starred in a video spreading awareness of a scourge impacting all too many televisions: motion smoothing. It's the setting in almost all new HDTVs and 4K TVs that's usually turned on by default and can turn everything into a slightly-too-smooth soap opera-looking mess.

It works by using a processor to create new frames in between the 24 or 30 frames per second your video is usually being delivered in so that everything moves smoothly across the screen. That can be fine for fast moving live action like sports, but for movies and many TV shows it changes the look entirely and not in a good way.

Since that's not the way directors like Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible - Fallout and Top Gun - Maverick) and or stars intended for you to watch their movies, most people recommend turning it off. The only problem is, not everyone knows about it, or where to look. We've written up some instructions for the settings you should adjust on any new TV and they will help you deal with this, as well as other on-by-default switches. Only you can stop 240Hz TruMotion, Motion Smoothing Effect or Auto Motion Plus (all brand names this motion interpolation technology goes by) from ruining your next movie night.