I'm in market for a new TV. More specifically, 55" LCD 1080P preferrably LG or Samsung. I currently own (2) 720p 50" plasma by Samsung so I'm going to try LCD this time. Big question is what is this 'refresh rate'? On LG models, I'm seeing approx $300 to $400 price difference between 120hz to 240hz. Is this worth it?

I mostly use my TV for cable and movies. Not a big gamer.

 

nope, not worth it imo...in fact when you get the tv turn all that crap off.

 

My Sharp has a mode that puts 120 on one side of the screen & 60 on the other & I'll be damned if I can see the difference.

I do want 24p in my next set.

 

I think you meant 24fps

 

Yup, my Sharp 46L92U is only 60fps.

24fps is what I meant

 

samething 24p/24fps

24p just means 24 frames progressive.

 

oops sorry!

 

As Sarlacc previously mentioned the dejudder process produces "soap opera" effects and I usually turn them off.

 

120hz makes film look

I can't imagine what 240hz would do.

 

I've never used the 120hz on my set.

 

Yeah, I agree. I just bought a Sony 32" TV with 120hz for my bedroom and the TV makes film look "artificial" - not quite sure how to describe it other than film looks like a taped soap opera in appearance. My 50" Pioneer Kuro looks SO MUCH better. I wish they made 32" plasmas.

 

Just go into the menu and turn it off.

 

What do you guys think of this for a guest room?
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...ct_id=13422988

It will not be used much, the reason I was looking at such a big set is the room is good sized & the wall it has to go on is almost 10 feet away from the seated position on the bed.

Seems like a great price.

 

Yeah, 240hz isn't worth it. Comparing them side by side in the store I couldn't tell the difference. In fact, the salesman pretty much steered me away from the 240hz set I was looking at and towards a much lower priced 120hz set.

If you're going to have a Blu Ray player hooked up to it you want to make sure it supports 24p though. Most sets also have some sort of movie or theater mode that turns off the motion enhancement and makes film look much better.

 

good info here. thanks.

 

I have one TV with 60, one TV with 120. Both LCD's. I can barely tell a difference. I have some friends with 240 and it just looks weird.

 

I just purchased a Samsung 55 LED LCD with 240 hz and you will only notice the diff when motion sweep from left to right..i believed its worth the money...

 

Only thing I'd ever watch in 120 or 240 is maybe a football game.

That's about all they're good for IMO.

 

I guess one question still remains for me....

Can someone actually define 'refresh rate'? What is it actually measuring? is 240hz the highest they offer?

Buying plasma was much easier. it was just matter of deciding 720p vs. 1080p. I didn't realize purchasing LCD was much more difficult.

 

If you're getting a 55" like I believe you said...get the 1080p set....no question.

Don't really bother with the refresh rate. It basically is talking about how many times the picture is 'refreshed' per second? I think? With the higher refresh rate, it makes everything much smoother...which sounds great in theory...but when you actually see it on the TV, it looks extremely unnatural. It looks like your watching a home video instead of a film, or movie. Which is why I (and many others) suggest only using it for things like sports if you must. IMO, I don't recommend watching regular TV or movies with it. You should be able to turn it off if you get a set with this higher refresh capability.

 

You're mostly right. The refresh rate is is basically the number of times the screen is redrawn per second. The 'p' in 1080p or 720p vs the 'i' in 480i or 1080i indicates how the screen is refreshed. The 'p' stands for progressive, which basically means that the screen is redrawn from the top to the bottom and each line of pixels is refreshed sequentially. The 'i' stands for interlaced which means that every other line is refreshed per pass. That means that the set refreshes lines 1,3,5,7,etc... then when it gets to the bottom it refreshes lines 2,4,6,8,etc... All LCD sets are progressive. When they get an interlaced signal, the deinterlace it and turn it into a progressive signal using its own internal processing. That same processing also takes whatever progressive signal it receives and converts it to the native size and refresh rate of the set.

So, a 1080p signal is natively 60hz. In order for the set to convert it to a 120hz or 240hz picture it has to interpolate motion between frames. If you have a 120hz set, it has to double the number of frames, and quadruple it if its a 240hz set. This is how the tv manufacturers help to reduce or eliminate "ghosting" in an LCD TV. Ghosting is basically where the set blurs fast moving articles on screen. By refreshing the screen more quickly, you greatly reduce bluring by reducing the number of pixels that the article moves by a factor of 2 or 4 (or whatever the factor is depending on the refresh rate of the TV.)

Now that sounds all well and good, but it does make for some truly unnatural looking motion. I think (and hopefully Sarlacc will correct me if I'm wrong) that most TV and films are recorded at 24 frames per second. By upping that frame rate you get a more "realistic" but much "sharper" motion. The good news is, most (if not all) TVs will allow you to reduce or turn off the motion enhancement all together. The trade off there is that you run the risk of ghosting during fast motion.

I hope that helped to clarify things a bit. Bear in mind though, all this only applies to LCDs. Plasma, CRT, and SED all work differently.

 

Good info. Thanks guys