roma at home

Roma is a movie that deserves to be seen on the big screen. But unfortunately, not everyone has access to a theater showing Alfonso Cuaron‘s heart-wrenching masterpiece. So if you must watch it from the comfort of your own home, Netflix has released a handy guide that will best allow you to absorb the film’s universal and intimate story — without it looking like a mess.

You wouldn’t think you would need a guide to watching a movie on your own TV, but for films like Roma —whose crisp black and white cinematography and encompassing sound design makes for a unique cinematic experience — it’s necessary. And this handy Roma guide will walk you through how to get the best experience watching Roma, even if it isn’t quite the same as seeing it in a movie theater.

The first rule is perhaps the most essential: turn off motion smoothing or interpolation. Motion smoothing has become the bane of many filmmakers and movie buffs’ existence — Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie even teamed up for a PSA on the tech “innovation.” The technology, originally created to reduce motion blur in sports events, is automatically installed in most TV sets and artificially increases the frame rate of whatever you’re watching, creating a “soap opera effect” that takes viewers out of the film. And in an immersive movie like Cuaron’s Roma, that just won’t do.

The next steps in the guide include setting your color temperature to “normal,” and enabling HDR. But one setting to be tweaked that is unique to the film’s black-and-white color scheme is the guide’s rationale for its temperature setting: “Warm’ color temperature can make the film appear tinted sepia or yellow. When set to ‘cool’ the film can appear overly blue.” Read the instructions below:

1. Turn off Motion Smoothing or Interpolation

A lot of commercial televisions come with an image interpolation option turned on by default. The name for this setting can vary depending on the manufacturer. For the best viewing experience, turn off any setting such as TruMotion, Action Smoothing, Motion Interpolation, or similar names. When in doubt, research your manufacturer’s motion smoothing terminology.

2. Set your color temperature to “normal”

“Warm” color temperature can make the film appear tinted sepia or yellow. When set to “cool” the film can appear overly blue. Set the color temperature to “normal” to avoid this.

3. HDR enabled

The film is available in Dolby Vision and has been color graded specifically to make the best use of this new technology. For viewing Roma in HDR, you must have an HDR capable television and a 4 screen Netflix plan. If you meet these criteria, make sure to enable HDR viewing on your TV.

You can read the rest of the guide here.

Roma is now streaming on Netflix.

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