120Hz TVs

[JustinC939]

A friend of mine is always talking up these high refresh rate TVs, but something about it looks really artificial to me. I can't put my finger on, but it almost looks like the video is slightly sped up. I have to wonder if the higher refresh rate is done through an artificial process like 1080p upconverting.

[3dfxrain]

Side effect of 120Hz refresh rate, looks artificial however is smoother motion when something is moving.

[/\/\adGamer]

I have to wonder if the higher refresh rate is done through an artificial process like 1080p upconverting

I could be wrong but I think cable usually is 30Hz and 60HZ. I believe you only get the benefit from it on blue ray or DVD

[John C]

The 120 is internally doubled from the 60hz input (or quintupled if you are using 24p input from BD player). It is not actually the 120 that looks fake, it is the motion interpolation feature, that can usually be adjusted or turned off. The 120Hz cannot be turned on or off, it is permanently on. The effect you are describing is known as "Soap Opera Effect", in other words it makes everything look like a video, or super-smooth.

[JustinC939]

So if it's motion interpolation doing the work. Than is there a point to 120hz TV.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all movies still being filmed at 29.97 FPS.

I guess it's really nitpicking, but I'd just rather see my movies as they were meant to be seen. No up converting, no motion interpolation, and no strecthing to fit the screen.

[Gaming Again]

So if it's motion interpolation doing the work. Than is there a point to 120hz TV.

The only time I enable the motion interpolation is NFL games, fast moving sports. Otherwise the "soap opera" effect is all together too weird to watch.

I imagine soccer games would work well with it enabled also, baseball games I leave it off.

[Brandito]

So if it's motion interpolation doing the work. Than is there a point to 120hz TV.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all movies still being filmed at 29.97 FPS.

I guess it's really nitpicking, but I'd just rather see my movies as they were meant to be seen. No up converting, no motion interpolation, and no strecthing to fit the screen.

The advantage of 120hz is that 30, 60 and 24hz signals all divide into it evenly thus eliminating judder when viewing 24p content.

This could all be done on a tv that supports 48 and 60hz as well, but 1230 is obviously a larger number and bigger numbers are always better in the eyes of mouth breathing consumers.

Had and argument with a coworker because he thought 120hz was something spectacular. Same guy also thought 1080p was the highest resolution you could get in a computer monitor, and also didn't understand why 1080p displays usually had a 1920 somewhere in the specs. When I told him why he asked, "why don't they call them 1920p, it's a bigger number?" Sadly he wasn't being facetious. Oh and he thought LED tv's were better than lcd, not understanding that the LED part was just for back lighting.

What I'm getting at is consumers are idiots that will buy the technology that boasts the bigger numbers every time.

[Activate: AMD]

Had and argument with a coworker because he thought 120hz was something spectacular. Same guy also thought 1080p was the highest resolution you could get in a computer monitor, and also didn't understand why 1080p displays usually had a 1920 somewhere in the specs. When I told him why he asked, "why don't they call them 1920p, it's a bigger number?" Sadly he wasn't being facetious. Oh and he thought LED tv's were better than lcd, not understanding that the LED part was just for back lighting.

What I'm getting at is consumers are idiots that will buy the technology that boasts the bigger numbers every time.

God I hate that crap. People honestly get all pissed off when you tell them their new super awesome LED TV is an LCD. "NO BRO ITS AN LED SO IT OWNS, LCD SUCKS"

I also saw today someone saying "this TV has an IPS panel and its only $550! why would anyone buy those $1000 27" IPS computer monitors?!" yea.. its some weird fluke and nothing to do with the fact that one is 1080P and the other is 2560x1600

[Bearded Frog]

God I hate that crap. People honestly get all pissed off when you tell them their new super awesome LED TV is an LCD. "NO BRO ITS AN LED SO IT OWNS, LCD SUCKS"

I also saw today someone saying "this TV has an IPS panel and its only $550! why would anyone buy those $1000 27" IPS computer monitors?!" yea.. its some weird fluke and nothing to do with the fact that one is 1080P and the other is 2560x1600

Theyre still a good value option for getting an IPS panel monitor though. my 32" LG HDTV works great as a primary monitor. Its pretty hard to get monitors that are higher than 1080p these days anyway.

Also while its true LED just refers to the backlighting and is very hyped like most things, it is actually quite a lot better when done right. LED backlighting looks a lot better than CCFL and is thinner and lighter on power consumption to boot.

As far as 120hz goes, after I played with the settings a lot I got mine looking pretty good but ill agree for anything other than when im watching Hockey it just kinda looks weird.

the hype that pisses me off is 240hz and contrast ratios... also 3d since I cant view 3d :C

[kbohip]

Meh. Plasma FTW!

[Activate: AMD]

Theyre still a good value option for getting an IPS panel monitor though. my 32" LG HDTV works great as a primary monitor. Its pretty hard to get monitors that are higher than 1080p these days anyway.

Also while its true LED just refers to the backlighting and is very hyped like most things, it is actually quite a lot better when done right. LED backlighting looks a lot better than CCFL and is thinner and lighter on power consumption to boot.

As far as 120hz goes, after I played with the settings a lot I got mine looking pretty good but ill agree for anything other than when im watching Hockey it just kinda looks weird.

the hype that pisses me off is 240hz and contrast ratios... also 3d since I cant view 3d :C

yea, thats true, its probably the best way to get a large 1080p IPS monitor. I was just commenting on people who can't tell the difference between a true high-res IPS monitor like the Dell U3011 or whatever, and a TV

About LED: you're also correct, when done right it can definitely be better than CCFL, but for the lower cost models its probably not the case. Of course, as the technology grows and matures it will probably be more true across a wider model range

[John C]

So if it's motion interpolation doing the work. Than is there a point to 120hz TV.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all movies still being filmed at 29.97 FPS.

I guess it's really nitpicking, but I'd just rather see my movies as they were meant to be seen. No up converting, no motion interpolation, and no strecthing to fit the screen.

Almost all movies were filmed at 24fps, this was the slowest film speed that the human eye would still see as full motion, not stop action, and film is expensive. Most TV is filmed at 30hz, (29.97, like 24 is really 23.9xxx). Many newer movies, with lots of CGI are now filmed at 30 or 60.
24p does have a little bit of "judder" to it, which is what we are used to from watching films at the theater. The conversion from 24p to 60 for a standard TV or broadcast results in some artifacts, which some find unwatchable. Do a search for 3:2 pulldown.

[madhatter256]

My understanding was that 120hz is recommended when you get above the 46 inch displays.

Target has a 46inch LCD 1080p 60hz TV for $300. SOunds like a killer deal until I saw it in action at my local store. They were playing Transformers 3. Lots of jittering on the TV during intense action sequences compared to a 50inch samsung 120hz 1080P TV that was priced at least double the amount. The movie played fluidly on it.

Do plasmas take in a lot more energy than LCD TVs?? I think they do.

[Phopojijo]

If you want to see 120hz vs 60hz vs 600hz -- go to a TV store and see if they have any scrolling credits from a BluRay.

The 60hz and most of the 600hz will stutter crazy -- because they're only playing at 60FPS... whereas the 120hz TVs will have silky-smooth scrolling text.

Why? The BluRay movie is 24FPS

120/24 = 5... the TV displays each frame five times.
60/24 = 2.5... the TV cannot display each frame and even number... so one frame it shows twice, the next it shows thrice, twice, thrice... each frame is on for +/- 50% of the time of its neighbours. So what you're seeing as stuttering is just time speeding up and slowing down about twelve times per second.

The 120hz TV will probably try to do interpolation as well... that said -- 120hz TVs CANNOT ACCEPT 120hz SIGNALS. They can accept a maximum of 60hz.

Which is why 120hz computer monitors, which actually CAN display 120FPS natively (nVidia Stereo 3d), are so dang expensive. And no, your 3D TV still cannot accept 120hz signals from computers.

[John C]

This is true, but what gets lost in the mix is "motionflow", or whatever else the particular mfgr calls their interpolation scheme. This is totally different from the actual 120hz, and can usually be turned off. If left on at a high setting, it can give a fake "video" look to movies, often called "soap opera effect".
The 5:5 pulldown you are referring to for blu-Ray at 24hz is different from the interpolation above, and projects 5 identical frames. My Pioneer uses 72hz and does 3:3. Some of the older Panasonic plasmas did 48hz and flickered noticeably to some people, the higher-end Panny's use 96hz. As was said above, these all divide evenly by 24. (note that the 600hz sub-field drive in plasma's does not come into play, since it is not the same as refresh rate.
Also LCD's will have some degree of motion issues, particularly in the background on fast-panning scenes. This can be reduced by the frame interpolation techniques discussed above, but at a cost.