The Best TV Settings for Watching Soccer

Watching soccer in person is loads of fun, but it can also be quite the process to get tickets to the big tournament and get yourself to the stadium. That's why many people prefer to watch all of their anticipated matches from the comfort of their living room instead. However, if you're an avid sports watcher, you've likely run into issues like motion blur when watching live games. With a high-motion game like soccer, motion blur may seem inevitable, but we're here to help you find the best settings for watching this intense sport and preventing motion blur on your TV.

Read on to learn about:

• Motion Blur and Why It Occurs
• Adjusting Your Black Frame Insertion (BFI)
• Brightness and Contrast

Why Does Soccer Look Blurry on My TV?

When you're watching high-movement action on your TV, you may see some objects look blurry. This phenomenon shows up primarily when you're watching live events, specifically live sports like soccer. It's referred to as motion blur and it happens for a few different reasons.

Sample and Hold

Motion blur primarily happens due to a phenomenon called “sample and hold.” As a shortened explanation, TVs are programmed to display an image and “hold” that image on screen for a fraction of a second before displaying the next one. Since most sports broadcast at 60 frames per second, your brain won't know that it's looking at a series of still images and will instead interpret things as being in motion. However, even that extremely small window of time where you are looking at one still image can mess with the way your brain expects something to move. For example, when a soccer ball is kicked, your eyes are tracking the ball on screen while the TV is displaying one still image of it after another as it's changing locations on the field. Even though it's very brief, your eyes are still moving and tracking a still image before it shifts to another one. This leaves you with extremely short moments where your eyes are moving across a still image that your brain thinks is moving, so it blurs everything together to make smooth motion.

Low Broadcast Frame Rates

Your TV's frame rate refers to how many images it can produce per second. This is how fluid motion is created on TV. If your TV has a higher refresh rate than the usual 60FPS (Frames Per Second) sports broadcast, let's say 120FPS, there won't be enough visual information for your TV to display 120 images in a given second of the broadcast. The TV needs to fill in those gaps somehow and it often does through the use of motion smoothing settings. Sometimes referred to as “judder reduction,” having this setting on means the TV will insert “fake frames” to keep everything smooth, but when you're dealing with something like a soccer ball moving at high speeds across a field, the TV's processor may have a hard time keeping up with filling in every gap, thus leaving a blurring effect behind.

How Do I Fix Motion Blur When Watching Sports?

The most effective way to handle motion blur is to look for settings that help your TV process movement more accurately. Most modern TVs include a specialized menu for motion. One of the best tools at your disposal is Black Frame Insertion (BFI). This setting may be called something else depending on your TV brand. It works by inserting a quick blink of black between the actual frames of the soccer match. This essentially "resets" your vision so your eyes don't track across a static image, which significantly reduces the appearance of blur during a fast breakaway, especially if you're also using Smooth Motion settings. You can also manually adjust blur reduction and judder reduction on some TVs. For soccer, it is often helpful to keep blur reduction high to keep the ball sharp, while keeping judder reduction low which helps make sure the broadcast doesn't look unnaturally smooth or like a home movie.

What Picture Settings Are Best for Soccer?

Outside of motion, the goal for a soccer match is to ensure the grass looks natural and the players are easy to track against the background. While many TVs have a Sports Mode, it may not always make the broadcast look exactly right. If that's the case, you can try adjusting these settings:

• Brightness: Since many soccer matches are played during the day or in bright stadiums, you may want to increase your brightness settings to ensure the picture doesn't look dim, especially if you have Black Frame Insertion turned on.
• Contrast: Keeping contrast relatively high helps the white lines of the pitch and the players' jerseys stand out clearly.
• Color Temperature: Many viewers prefer a cool or normal color temperature for sports. This makes the whites look crisp and the green of the turf look vibrant, whereas "Warm" settings can sometimes make the field look slightly yellow.
• Sharpness: It is best to keep sharpness at a low or neutral level. Setting it too high can create halos or digital noise around the players, which actually makes the motion blur look worse.

Finding the right balance of settings can completely change your soccer viewing experience. Whether you're enjoying a local match or a global tournament, a few minutes spent in the settings menu ensures that every pass, header, and goal is seen with total clarity. Once these adjustments are made, the only thing left to do is sit back and enjoy the match!

Recommended Settings

Smooth Motion: On

BFI: On

Blur Reduction: High

Judder Reduction: Low

Brightness: High

Contrast: High

Color Temp: Cool

Sharpness: Neutral/Low