The Soap Opera Effect - Love it or Hate it?

It's the worst damn thing in the world.

 

it makes all that hard work look cheap and unsettling.

 

I'd prefer if instead of artificially filling in frames, this feature was a button that zoomed in and froze on a melodramatic expressions while forcing the music to swell!

 

The big problem is that the effect removes the suspension of disbelief that is required for all movie going experiences(except for documentaries, where I think this process might actually work). Instead of saying "Oh, it's the Shire." it's "Oh, its a movie set."

 

The only time 120Hz won't annoy most people is when watching sports. It gives you more of a feeling of being there.

As for films, I don't care either way anymore. The first time I saw a movie on an HDTV at my friends house, he had the TV set to 120Hz and it bugged my wife and I. Sometime after I got my own HDTV, we tried watching a few movies like that and eventually we didn't notice it anymore. It looked and felt like watching a movie when your TV is set at 60Hz. I guess it's nice once you adjust to it because you don't notice it anymore and you also get a smoother picture.

 

I really hated it for the hobbit. TV's that do it artificially are absolutely terrible especially the display models in stores when they play animated films.

 

The problem too is that 24 frames, or even 30 frames 'filters' an illusion of the film's reality, making it believable ironically, where as 48 or 60 frames shows the reality and that trigger something in the brain, leading you to question the tangibility of the sets, costumes or make-up.

 

Depends

If it is a stylistic choice regarding the shutter speed...i embrace it.

If it is a crappy interpolation....burn it with fire.

 

If said it before and i'll say it again.
Considering the "real" look at Michael Mann is currently going for with his movies , HFR is the way to go for him.

 

Then the sets and costumes and props will have to improve, just as they had to after color photography.