60 vs 120 vs 240 Hz

[Nufy]

Ok so I purchased a Samsung 52" LCD 60HZ tv during the boxing week sale.

The Salesman told me I had 30 days to decide if I like it and to return for store credit and upgrade.

The picture is awesome but I have been noticing some blurring while watching hockey, football etc.....

Is there a noticable difference in upgrading to a 120 Hz unit.

Would switching to a plasma make any difference ???

Any other models I should be looking at ??

[Jimmy Stang]

These are my totally uneducated thoughts:

- yes, you may find 120 better from what I have heard. I have 60 and I find it OK, however.
- Plasmas are something like 600Hz, aren't they? I believe that plasmas are in a class of their own in terms of speed. How much would it be noticeable? Can't tell you.

[Table 5]

Ive never seen a 240 in person, so I can' comment on it. However with 120hz there is a noticeable difference from 60hz, and is worth it if you watch a ton of sports as it makes all the action much smoother for the eyes. If you can afford it and watch a ton of sports and "live" shows, get it.

HOWEVER, I really hated watching movies with 120hz, as the effect makes it too realistic. It took away all the atmosphere and character of the hollywood experience, and made it feel like you were watchin a soap opera. It's hard to explain without seeing it, so go down to the store and take a look yourself. I believe you can switch off 120hz though in most models.

[Redliner]

If you're going with an LCD and you want to watch sports or fast-paced action, get at least the 120hz. I haven't seen enough of the 240 to tell if it makes that much of a difference, but my brother works for Sony and he says it's not really all that noticeable. All the TV's I've seen with the 120hz refresh rate (Sony calls it MotionFlow, Samsung calls it AutoMotion+, other brands have other names) allow you to turn it off and watch with the regular 60hz if you don't like the smoothing effect. Like Table 5 said, I found the 120hz really weird looking at first when watching tv & movies, but have gotten used to it over time.

Plasma is a totally different system, and from what I hear they are "faster" tv's. Colour is great on them too; the only concern is that the screen is very shiny so if the tv is in a room with lots of light sources, reflections will be an issue. Panel life used to be a problem for plasmas as well, but from what I've heard the new ones are just as good as the LCDs if not better.

[daredevil]

I totally agree with Table.
There is a HUGE difference going from 60 to 120.

I too find it very distracting when watching movies, but for sports, it's awesome.

[GoinAllTheWay]

So I guess I'm not fulling understanding this 120 Hz thing. I bought a new 52" Samsung that is 120 Hz. Got it home and flipped through the menu and found the Auto Motion Plus section. Cranked it up and movies looked like they were flimed like soap operas. Turning it down to "Clear" or "Off" made movies look normal again. So if I'm watching hockey, it crank it up then? Same thing for using a 360 and Blue Ray? Turn it down for everthing else? I honestly just thought that was the speed a processor inside worked at and I didn't actually need to adjust anything.

[Hack&Lube]

People have to stop equating refresh rate with speed.

The hertz rating is refresh rate. It is how many times a second the picture is redrawn regardless if the pixels are changing or not. It can be a still picture and the entire image will still be redrawn 60 or 120 times a second. 60Hz is plenty fast although 120Hz will sometimes provide a more subjective smoothness and ease eyestrain or nausea. It will also make the TV more compatible with future 3D technologies. For an LCD, the Hz rating is not very important.

The speed of an LCD is denoted by response time. That's the rating that is in milliseconds (ie: 5ms, 2ms, etc.) While that's not a very good measure of what's actually happening (even that varies with LCD technology), that is what you should be looking for for speed and smoothness of frames and action. Response time is how fast an LCD pixel can go from active to inactive. Your refresh rate can be crazy but if your LCD pixels (imagine they are a bunch of millions of little lights that make up your picture) have a slow response time, it will be like a lightbulb that fades and lags slowly from color to color instead of quickly changing from color to color leaving after images or ghosting. This is what governs the speed and smoothness of your picture.

Plasmas have better response times than LCD. If I had the option, I would not purchase an LCD personally.

Auto Motion Plus is sort of a fake frame technology. It increases the frame rate to 120 frames per second (this is frame rate, not refresh rate!). Normal Bluray is only 24 frames per second. But it's not just simple frame-rate conversion, which usually involves simply repeating the same frame over again 5 times. Auto Motion Plus interpolates new frames in between existing frames. Basically for every frame of video you get, it stretches it out into 5 frames and does a blending (imagine the Michael Jackson morphing effect from the Black or White music video) and makes up fake frames to stick in between to give you a feeling of smooth motion or motion blur.

Some people like it, some people don't. The feeling of accelerated fps makes some people think it looks like old early 20th century silent films or old home videos.

[LockedOut]

I have a Sony 46" W5100 and I've never seen this soap opera effect with Bluray movies no matter what I set Motionflow to. I have seen it in TV's before in store but can't recreate at home. Is it inferior TV's that have this soap opera effect. Anyways Blurays looks sweet on my TV.

[TSXCman]

Originally Posted by Table 5

HOWEVER, I really hated watching movies with 120hz, as the effect makes it too realistic. It took away all the atmosphere and character of the hollywood experience, and made it feel like you were watchin a soap opera. It's hard to explain without seeing it, so go down to the store and take a look yourself. I believe you can switch off 120hz though in most models.

That's what that is??? I'm glad to finally figure it out, I have seen tons of peoples new tvs and they will throw on a movie and it looks like cornation street or some crap in quality, I thought it was a big downside. Did not know what the cause was

[Hack&Lube]

Haha, yeah that's a funny analogy. I'm not sure if it's the refresh rate itself but something is probably making the picture feel like those old VHS taped low budget shows from the 90s which is what you are relating it to. I think it's because those shows filmed directly to videotape back then had less frames per second on the original recording so when they were broadcast in NTSC, you had frame multiplying and gives you that cheap effect.

Something on these new TVs, maybe the refresh rate or tech tricks like auto motion plus is doing the same thing - artificially showing more frames than are actually playing.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Something on these new TVs, maybe the refresh rate or tech tricks like auto motion plus is doing the same thing - artificially showing more frames than are actually playing.

That is exactly it, they are interpolating the movement between frames and inserting their guesses in the spaces between the real frames.

So while the specific objects with edges will move a bit more smoothly, the other areas where the lighting in colours gradually shift are almost impossible for a jit (just in time) process to handle, and the picture looks funny. Animation should work just fine, and perhaps some sports. But other content looks weird.

[Hack&Lube]

Ruddstudd just pm'd me asking why when he switches from bluray to TV, the screen tells him it's going from 1080p to 1080i.

That's because all regular TV is only 720p or 1080i at best and at 60Hz so keep in mind, 120Hz is not useful for regular television.

[Esoteric]

Originally Posted by LockedOut

I have a Sony 46" W5100 and I've never seen this soap opera effect with Bluray movies no matter what I set Motionflow to. I have seen it in TV's before in store but can't recreate at home. Is it inferior TV's that have this soap opera effect. Anyways Blurays looks sweet on my TV.

Sony has the best dejudder program for 120 hz and 240 hz TV's. Their motion flow looks a lot better then competitors.

[Jimmy Stang]

So am I getting this right: The Flames game on HD cable only comes through at 60Hz anyway, but the TV (120Hz TVs, of course) itself does some magic to enhance the experience for the viewer?

I guess a similar analogy would be standard DVDs getting upsampled to HD. The source may be "standard", but the device can interpolate pixels (or frames) to make it look sharper (or faster).

As an aside, I am actually quite impressed at the quality of standard-def DVDs when upsampled on my Blu Ray player...

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

Sony has the best dejudder program for 120 hz and 240 hz TV's. Their motion flow looks a lot better then competitors.

Even that varies between models. The high end models are very well regarded, but Sony does want you to pay for that technology. But watching standard def shows on my XBR8 with full motion flow on makes it look odd.

[mikey_the_redneck]

A bit OT..........but when I watch Sportsnet HD Flames games, the ice surface looks a little funny at times, not so much with TSN or other broadcasts.
Does anyone else experience this?

[Nuje]

As far as I've heard, most DVD players, game consoles, etc., emit a signal in one of 2 frequencies: 24hz and 60hz. The reason that 120hz works well, is that both of those divide into 120, which would allow for no weird frame-skips. I know nothing on the topic, and this is all simply stuff that I've heard. If it is correct, then right now, there is no reason that 240hz is useful at all.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Nuje

As far as I've heard, most DVD players, game consoles, etc., emit a signal in one of 2 frequencies: 24hz and 60hz. The reason that 120hz works well, is that both of those divide into 120, which would allow for no weird frame-skips. I know nothing on the topic, and this is all simply stuff that I've heard. If it is correct, then right now, there is no reason that 240hz is useful at all.

240 can be divided by 24 and 60 as well

People are confusing frame rate with refresh rate. As most video is recorded at 24 frames per second and most tvs are 60Hz you have a problem because the bluray player has to stretch 24 fps into 60Hz and the result is uneven. A 120Hz TV or 240Hz TV can simply have each frame played either 5 times (24x5=120) or 10 times (24x10=240).

BTW, some TVs have a 24Hz mode (1080p24) so this problem is negated and you are true to the original source.

[burning_acid1]

I have a 120 Hz and haven't noticed any blurring.

[Nufy]

So I looked up the specs on mine...

See here

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-t....html?tag=rnav

LDC Refresh Rate - 60Hz
Pixel Response Time - 6mS

Is that above or below average in terms of availability.