Does anyone else find that, when they’re watching DVDs, they get a weird melting-face effect? It’s hard to describe – it’s as if when somebody’s face moves, their eyes go first and the rest of their face takes a second to catch up. It’s particularly noticeable in close-up, especially in scenes where the background is dark, and it turns absolutely everything into Jacob’s Ladder.
It’s really disconcerting and I’ve been getting it on different TVs, different DVD players and different discs/series. Anybody know what it is and better still, what causes it? Overzealous noise reduction? Weird DVD encoding? Something completely different?
Comments
0 responses to “There is a melting face on my TV”
I have noticed this effect on a few LCD TVs, but not specifically with DVD playback. The worst offender was a Sony Bravia with technology to combat motion blur which seemed to create even more bizarre visual artifacts if anything.
In fact, most LCDs are quite poor – telly buyers need to choose very carefully or go for Plasma, which seems to out-perform all but the most high-end LCDs.
Go plasma and wave goodbye to pixel risotto, motion blur, flat shadows and stickyface…
And gain (warranty exempt) screen burn!
I’ve noticed this effect on certain source material, usually upscaled SD digital tv. I think it’s some artifact of the compression interfering with the upscaling routine. Strange that you’re seeing it on a DVD. Try turning off all the sharpening and other picture improvement wizardry, and if your DVD has upscaling, try that rather than the TV’s.