lcd tvs: how much does hz matter?

[rh71]

asking for someone:

what's the major difference between 60hz and 120hz for lcd tvs? obviously 120hz is better being that there won't be a lag/blur on the picture but i've read reviews where people say 120hz makes it seem too digitized (not real). and price difference between 60 and 120 is close to $250-300. i know they are even starting to come out with 240hz so anything i buy will be outdated soon anyway, just don't know if its worth paying the extra money if i will barely even notice the difference.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Don't confuse 120hz with 'motion compensation/interpolation/whatever'. A lot of people, including me, find this setting really annoying. It can also be turned off.

As far as I can tell, the only benefit is true 24fps instead of 3:2 pulldown (because 24 frames goes evenly into 120, but not into 60). 240hz shouldn't really change this.

I find 3:2 pulldown slightly distracting on large TV sets, but don't really notice it on ~32" sets. That's just me though. Some people find it 'awful', others don't see it at all.

 

[kalrith]

3chordcharlie has it right. For TVs the 120Hz feature ONLY makes a difference when displaying 24fps content, and all it does is remove the 3:2 pulldown. If they tried to sell a TV for $300 more that looked the exact same in the store, that would be a hard sell. Therefore, they couple it with some sort of motion-interpolation mumbo jumbo that most of us despise because of its artificial (or digitized as the OP said) look.

So, you'd spend $300 more on a 120Hz TV, turn off motion interpolation, and only notice the difference for 24fps content. I don't think it's worth the price jump. For that price increase, you could get the next screen size up, and you would most definitely notice that difference.

 

[rh71]

thx guys good info

 

[Homer Simpson]

my parents bought a sammy 46 LED LCD that i think was 120 (i dont think it was 240 but dont recall). when i went home for xmas i checked it out. it seems the marketing of 120/240 being smoother is just that, marketing. when i enabled it, it made the picture look awful. maybe it does work for 24fps sources, but when watching regular old hd cable, yuck. btw, i like my plasma

 

[djnsmith7]

The 120 / 240 Hz displays, as far as marketing is concerned, is intended to smooth out action / sporting scenes where there's constant movement. The problem is, when the technology works, whatever is on the screen almost looks fake. It's like the display is working too hard to display something soft.

Each time I did a side by side comparison with a 120 Hz LCD & plasma, I found myself thinking that the movie on the LCD looked like a soap opera, whereas the movie on the plasma looked like a movie. Blu Ray movies were used for the testing.

 

[OutHouse]

The 120 / 240 Hz displays, as far as marketing is concerned, is intended to smooth out action / sporting scenes where there's constant movement. The problem is, when the technology works, whatever is on the screen almost looks fake. It's like the display is working too hard to display something soft

im not sure i agree with that. my friend has a samsung 46" 240, to me the picture looks awesome. we watched a avs game over the weekend and it looked great. i plan on getting a TV like his wheni get my tax refund.

I have gone to the local AV store and they had a display up showing the difference between 60,120,240 and there is a difference between 120 & 240

 

[kalrith]

im not sure i agree with that. my friend has a samsung 46" 240, to me the picture looks awesome. we watched a avs game over the weekend and it looked great. i plan on getting a TV like his wheni get my tax refund.

I have gone to the local AV store and they had a display up showing the difference between 60,120,240 and there is a difference between 120 & 240

The TVs themselves can be good TVs; however, the motion-interpolation feature is often greatly disliked. It's possible that your friend had it turned off. The main point in this thread is that they're not worth the several-hundred-dollar price premium over 60 Hz TVs.

 

[OutHouse]

The TVs themselves can be good TVs; however, the motion-interpolation feature is often greatly disliked. It's possible that your friend had it turned off. The main point in this thread is that they're not worth the several-hundred-dollar price premium over 60 Hz TVs.

i dunno, ive seen some 60hz that had motion blur and to me it is worth it. you get what you pay for right?

 

[Jeff7181]

Lemme ask a question that's been debated in the PC gaming world for years now...

If your source is only 30 fps, what good does it do to have a display capable of 60, 120 or 240 Hz? I mean... if the source video only contains 30 fps, a 30 Hz TV will show every frame once per second. If you have a 60 Hz TV, it will show every frame twice per second... but the image is still on the screen for 1/30th of a second regardless of how many times your TV is refreshing the same image. So... I'm a little confused why anybody cares about this (besides the marketing people that get to publish bigger numbers). I mean... if I've only got 30 images to show you in 1 second, it doesn't matter if you look 30 times or 240 times, you're only going to see 30 different images.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Lemme ask a question that's been debated in the PC gaming world for years now...

If your source is only 30 fps, what good does it do to have a display capable of 60, 120 or 240 Hz? I mean... if the source video only contains 30 fps, a 30 Hz TV will show every frame once per second. If you have a 60 Hz TV, it will show every frame twice per second... but the image is still on the screen for 1/30th of a second regardless of how many times your TV is refreshing the same image. So... I'm a little confused why anybody cares about this (besides the marketing people that get to publish bigger numbers). I mean... if I've only got 30 images to show you in 1 second, it doesn't matter if you look 30 times or 240 times, you're only going to see 30 different images.

But what if you only have 24 images?

Motion compensation means you are actually being shown 120 or 240 images per second. I think it looks like junk, and should be left turned off, but it's not quite like you said.

 

[Jeff7181]

But what if you only have 24 images?

Motion compensation means you are actually being shown 120 or 240 images per second. I think it looks like junk, and should be left turned off, but it's not quite like you said.

In that case, why wouldn't the TV switch to a 24 Hz refresh rate?

 

[3chordcharlie]

In that case, why wouldn't the TV switch to a 24 Hz refresh rate?

TVs don't adjust refresh rates. I'm sure there's a technical reason for this; all I know is they don't.

 

[Jeff7181]

TVs don't adjust refresh rates. I'm sure there's a technical reason for this; all I know is they don't.

Well they should. Rather than increasing the refresh rate to many multiples of the frame rate of the source video... seems rather stupid if you're going to leave the source video at 24 or 30 fps.