: 60 hertz vs. 120 hertz Refresh Rate?


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Morgoth
2008-08-02, 06:16 PM
Frustrating for me as all I really do is watch Movies and have been wondering why I've been getting some smearing with my Blu-rays. But I just can't afford the 120 hertz version of the TV I got (like an extra $1k).

Still though, I've watched some BRs which have had completely STUNNING images with no smearing or artifacting at all (Sunshine is a good example). However the new Dark City Director's Cut is tough to watch in some spots.

westcoastinc
2008-08-08, 04:43 AM
Dumb Question here

For 120mhz tv's is this something you turn on and off like in the options section or is this something that is just built in. I always see ppl talking about turning it off and turning amp off cause it looks 3d or not natural. Whats the point of spending extra money to turn this feature off?

Wargoose
2008-08-08, 08:46 AM
I don't know about all sets, but my Sony KDL-52W4100 allows three settings - one is off, one is normal, and one is (if I recall correctly) high. I just leave it on normal and have noticed no picture issues with sports or action films.

Lynx281
2008-08-09, 01:21 AM
My TV has a 120hz refresher rate, I've turned it on and off and as weird as this might sound to some people, the 120hz refresh rate improves the frame rate of whatever the motion picture is, and the picture is indeed crisper. Only problem is it can sometimes be erratic with some of the objects on screen.

Dadius
2008-08-09, 08:48 PM
I must say, that I think the people who think there is a big improvement of any kind when comparing 120 hz to 60 hz TV's, are comparing 120hz tvs to OLDER model 60hz tvs.

Newer model 60hz tvs have much higher response times than the older ones, and are just better in many ways than their predecessors. When comparing these newer model 60hz tvs to 120hz tvs, the visual differences are usually extremely minimal. Infact, in certain stores they have a 60hz model and a 120hz model of the same tv side by side. They have them both playing the same blueray movie, and the 120 hz version apprears to be way better, except, if you look around back, the 120hz tv is hooked up via hdmi, and the 60hz tv is hooked up with low quality component cables. Now, if the stores have to do this in order to create the illusion that there is such a visual difference so people will spend the extra bucks, it goes to show, that there really isn't.

I have compared 120hz tvs to the equivalent 60hz model when hooked up the exact same way, and for most things, I couldn't see ANY difference at all. Even for blueray movies during high action scenes the differences were very minimal and not worth the price difference unless you just have a fat wallet or catch a great sale. But I've seen 60hz lcds that blew away 120hz plasmas in overall visual quality. There is just so much more to it than only refresh, and new 60hz tvs do the 3:2 pulldown much better, so spending the extra money for a bigger refresh number on paper isn't always going to guarantee a superior product. I'd rather take that extra money at put it into a better av receiver.

I say again, the people who think there is a big difference, must be comparing newer 120hz tvs to older model 60hz tvs and not the newer model 60hz tvs. Either that, or they are just brainwashed by the papers. I was big into PC gaming for over 15 years and I've owned all kinds of great monitors, and I've seen the differences in quality, I just think in this case, it's very minimal.

Furtheremore, someone stated above that there is usually other improvements to the 120hz version of the same 60hz model other than refresh, but I don't believe this to be always true. At least not in my case. I own the Toshiba 46rf35ou, when comparing this tv to it's 120hz counterpart, the specs are pretty much identical except the 60HZ version actually has a better response time. So if you looked at everything else rather than refresh, the 60hz version appeared better.( And by the way, I can't see the difference in quality when comparing these tvs in a FAIR way).

speedy22
2008-08-14, 11:38 AM
For what its worth I dissagree. I bought a Sony 120Hz tv largely because of the difference I could easily see in the store (and no it wasn't because the two tv's were hooked up differently, and both were new models). Now having the TV I can also notice a noticable viewing difference when turning the motionflow on and off.

The main function isn't to stop blurring (but new LCD's don't suffer with that anyway) but rather to smooth out the motion so it's more natural and less jerky. This is especially noticable with 24p material. As it's been noted the problem with 60Hz is it can't be divided evenly by 24, where as 120 can and hence can process the frames in an even manner. With that in mind I'm surprised we haven't seen more 72Hz sets.

Anyway everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I would highly recommend visiting a quality TV store for an apples to apples demonstration and make your own.

JDC
2008-09-09, 03:04 PM
I'm with gsrchie on this one. According to this

http://www.hometheatermag.com/gearworks/707gear/index.html

it's more about staying below the sample and hold threshold of the eye.

FPS is one way of doing this but the underlying mechanism is really about shorter frames not more frames.

Am I picking nits?