120Hz, 240Hz - what's the big deal??

[link_of_hyrule]

I don't understand the big draw to TVs displaying 120Hz or higher. I gues 60 Hz is/was the standard, right? When I switch from 60 to 120, the picture/motion just looks weird. Like a home movie or cartoon. Is this the intent? Keeping it at 60 Hz seems to keep the movie looking like a "Hollywood" movie. Is it just me, or what?

[LoveHomeTheatre]

What your seeing is not 120hz but motion interpolation. 120hz is just the refresh rate. What gives it that soap opera feel is something seperate. For example, some TV's like Samsung call it motion flow I believe. Lets take a regular film thats being put through at 1080p/24. Normally, at 120 Hz with no motion interpolation, it will refresh it 5 times.

xxxxx

where x is qual to each frame repeated 5 times (120/24 = 5)

Motion interpolation inputs extra frames that "guess" where the next frame will be using complex algorithms in between each frame giving you

xoxoxoxoxo where x = original, o = interpolated

Thus results in the soap opera feel you get. Some people like it, some don't. Its all personal preference but motion interpolation does not give you the original picture. hopefully this helps.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by LoveHomeTheatre

What your seeing is not 120hz but motion interpolation. 120hz is just the refresh rate. What gives it that soap opera feel is something seperate. For example, some TV's like Samsung call it motion flow I believe. Lets take a regular film thats being put through at 1080p/24. Normally, at 120 Hz with no motion interpolation, it will refresh it 5 times.

xxxxx

where x is qual to each frame repeated 5 times (120/24 = 5)

Motion interpolation inputs extra frames that "guess" where the next frame will be using complex algorithms in between each frame giving you

xoxoxoxoxo where x = original, o = interpolated

Thus results in the soap opera feel you get. Some I like it, some don't. Its all personal preference but motion interpolation does not give you the original picture. hopefully this helps.

+1 that's what's going on, you have motion interpolation on. That's the "HD Video look" you get , that most don't like. 120Hz does help & 240Hz should help just a bit more as far as MR goes, hopefully?

[Fors*]

I do not think you will "see" that much of a difference with 240hz set. What LCD's really need to improve upon are their response times being below 4ms...just my opinion.....

[Erman_94]

can this motion interpolation be turned off?

and will most models have this in the future? i dont like it

[dereksworl]

Originally Posted by Erman_94

can this motion interpolation be turned off?

and will most models have this in the future? i dont like it

Yes the frame interpolation can be turned off. it can also be set to low, medium, or high on most newer Gen displays. "Off" is usually the way to go when watching blus, except Transformers. then it's Low

[Got2LoveGadgets]

Originally Posted by LoveHomeTheatre

What your seeing is not 120hz but motion interpolation. 120hz is just the refresh rate. What gives it that soap opera feel is something seperate. For example, some TV's like Samsung call it motion flow I believe. Lets take a regular film thats being put through at 1080p/24. Normally, at 120 Hz with no motion interpolation, it will refresh it 5 times.

xxxxx

where x is qual to each frame repeated 5 times (120/24 = 5)

Motion interpolation inputs extra frames that "guess" where the next frame will be using complex algorithms in between each frame giving you

xoxoxoxoxo where x = original, o = interpolated

Thus results in the soap opera feel you get. Some people like it, some don't. Its all personal preference but motion interpolation does not give you the original picture. hopefully this helps.

This is an extremely good explanation of what is happening. Refresh rates are going to be the new buzz words in the same was as 720p and 1080p are now. Refresh rates are going to be very important when 3D finally gets released to the consumer market, home displays will have to run at a very minimum of 120hz and then multiples of this 240hz ect. So we will soon see stickers stuck on LCD's that say 1080p 120hz 3d ready (or something similar)

[BluCheez]

I only use my Sony XBR4 LCD for BDs and DVDs. The distortion that results from the interpolation along with that unreal-feel, cause me to leave the Motion Enhancer off all the time.

The exception is Baraka. For whatever reason there is minimal distortion with the Motion Enhancer set to high and it gives a "hyper-real" effect to the movie. If you have Baraka, give it a try. It is very cool.

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by BluCheez

I only use my Sony XBR4 LCD for BDs and DVDs. The distortion that results from the interpolation along with that unreal-feel, cause me to leave the Motion Enhancer off all the time.

The exception is Baraka. For whatever reason there is minimal distortion with the Motion Enhancer set to high and it gives a "hyper-real" effect to the movie. If you have Baraka, give it a try. It is very cool.

I usualy have mine off too, except for certain programing. I do however like the option to turn it off or not in those instances where I can turn it on to add to my viewing experience (i.e sports (especially hockey) and cartoons.)

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by BluCheez

I only use my Sony XBR4 LCD for BDs and DVDs. The distortion that results from the interpolation along with that unreal-feel, cause me to leave the Motion Enhancer off all the time.

The exception is Baraka. For whatever reason there is minimal distortion with the Motion Enhancer set to high and it gives a "hyper-real" effect to the movie. If you have Baraka, give it a try. It is very cool.

Try Planet Earth as well

[BluCheez]

Originally Posted by Monkey

Try Planet Earth as well

I have, and it worked well most times. I am really fussy about any artifacts, smearing or blurring, so if I see more than a bit, OFF goes ME. On Planet Earth, I notice the artifacts around fast moving objects, say like a wolf trying to catch a baby caribou.

Baraka surprises me, because there is often a lot of movement, but few artifacts and smearing. I wonder if the 8K mastering and/or high bitrate have anything to do with it.

I tried putting ME on for the IMAX scenes in The Dark Knight, but I had to turn it off right away because it looked so "off"... Perhaps the type of content featured in Planet Earth or Baraka (i.e. nature) lend themselves to ME.

[dgator783]

Originally Posted by link_of_hyrule

I don't understand the big draw to TVs displaying 120Hz or higher. I gues 60 Hz is/was the standard, right? When I switch from 60 to 120, the picture/motion just looks weird. Like a home movie or cartoon. Is this the intent? Keeping it at 60 Hz seems to keep the movie looking like a "Hollywood" movie. Is it just me, or what?

it helps if u watch alot of sports or action-fast moving films

[Clark Kent]

Many people find that it looks weird for material shot on film but some like how it makes live-action video look like sporting events.

[ezcheese1]

i had the interesting experience of going to the sony store to compare 120hz with 60hz. i looked at a v5100 next to a s5100, and an s5100 next to an xbr9. i'm not sure that i could tell any difference between the xbr and s-series, but i'm not sure if it was blu-ray.

what disturbed me was what happened when i asked the sales person to turn off the motion flow on the v-series. there was some sort of blatant phase issue where portions of the screen where cascading vertically. i'm not sure if it was a 50p blu-ray disk or 24p....

i would guess that 24p would look optimum at 24hz refresh rate on an LCD and no different at 120hz (24 x 5 = 120). i don't know if there is a variable rate on the t.v. for 50 hz material, but if it was 50hz, it looked fine on the 60 hz.

i wonder if the technology is smart enough for the refresh rate to sync to the frame rate. i would think so, but then why make a higher refresh rate (the light source stays on unless they show a black frame for some reason i don't understand)????

the only reason i'm considering going with a higher rate, is because people seem so concerned about flicker that they are making televisions with artificial production to cure it. i wonder if they will change production standards AND the blu-ray specification soon. of course, most bdps are only 50hz (as far as i know)..... anybody care to chime in on any of this?

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by ezcheese1

...
i would guess that 24p would look optimum at 24hz refresh rate on an LCD and no different at 120hz (24 x 5 = 120). i don't know if there is a variable rate on the t.v. for 50 hz material, but if it was 50hz, it looked fine on the 60 hz.

i wonder if the technology is smart enough for the refresh rate to sync to the frame rate. i would think so, but then why make a higher refresh rate (the light source stays on unless they show a black frame for some reason i don't understand)????

the only reason i'm considering going with a higher rate, is because people seem so concerned about flicker that they are making televisions with artificial production to cure it. i wonder if they will change production standards AND the blu-ray specification soon. of course, most bdps are only 50hz (as far as i know)..... anybody care to chime in on any of this?

Movie frame rate is set to 24Hz and movies were refreshed at 24Hz, I think, in the early days of cinema. Many people found that 24Hz refresh as flickery, therefore, movie projector refresh rate was increased to 48 or 72 Hz to remove flicker. This means that the image frame is changed every 1/24th of second while flashing the same frame 2 or 3 times every 1/24th of second to remove perceivable flicker.

So, digital projectors or flat panel displays do not refresh at 24Hz although the frame rate is 24Hz. If the digital display refresh is limited to 60 or 50 Hz, the display will map 24 fps to 50 or 60 Hz refresh rate which would introduce perceivable judder since 50 or 60 is not an exact multiple of 24 (which is the frame rate) – perceivable judder is due to a characteristic of the human eye/brain as experienced by many people.

The newer digital displays can refresh at 96, 120 or 240Hz rates which are multiples of 24. I do not expect to see a significant difference between 96 and 120. It is unlikely that anyone would notice any improvement between 120 and 240 Hz since these rates exceed the limits of the human eye.

Since 24p is a part of the blu-ray standard, I expect for all blu-ray players to have the capability to output at 24 Hz. The display will them map the 24Hz frame rate to the best native refresh rate of the display (which could be 50, 60, 96, 100, 120 or 240 Hz).

The motion enhancement is another complexity that the display is trying to be smart and interpolate in-between frames (and inserting frames with different intensity) instead of flashing the same frame multiple times. According to many people, this attempt has failed miserably in many instances.