LCD’s Achilles’ heel has always been its ability to show fast moving images. Watching sports or fast-paced action films on an early LCD screen was terrible, thanks to the technology’s inadequate refresh rate. But just like introducing LED backlighting helped LCD display blacks better and more vivid colours, the introduction of 100Hz technology went a long way to eliminating the motion judder caused by fast-moving pictures.
The first 100Hz LCD TV sets were shown off by Samsung back at CeBit back in 2006. Using advanced processing powers, the TV analysed each frame, and then created a composite frame in between the two to smooth over motion blurring. This essentially allows the picture to run at 100 frames per second, which translates to smoother pictures.
If that sounds a bit confusing you should check out this old post explaining the NTSC version of the same technology, 120Hz. The difference between the two is that NTSC traditionally runs at 60Hz, where as PAL runs at 50Hz, and so both techs simply double the frame rate. It’s argued though that 120Hz, which is a multiple of the 24p frame rate of movies, is therefore superior for watching films.
The simple rule today is that if you’re buying an LCD TV, make sure it has at least 100Hz technology on board. There’s another, newer version of the tech called 200Hz, but as a minimum requirement, having 100Hz is a must.
History of TV is Giz AU’s month-long look back at the development of the world-changing medium and its influence on our daily lives.
matt
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 12:12 PMAgreed.
as for 100hz vs 200hz? Id much rather 100hz that worked properly without artifacting than the arguable benefits of 200hz. don’t let the numbers fool you.
L
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 1:58 PMI thought it was the low response time that was the downfall of early LCD’s, not the refresh rate. We can watch sports on a CRT at the low 50Hz just fine.
James Yencken
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 1:41 PMDoes anybody else immediately turn any and all of these motion enhancing features on TV’s? I can’t stand them – it makes motion look completely unnatural, particularly in films. Everything seems to move faster than normal, and it’s just plain weird. I’ve witnessed this on every brand and every model of TV with any motion enhancing features, and they all look much better with it switched off.
Dan Raica
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 2:39 PMYes – couldn’t agree more – I’m much more intersted in having 24hz capability than 100hz – unless a decent sporting is on ofcourse.
Johnny
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 5:21 PMI actually bought myself a 50Hz Tv because i think 100Hz in most cases looks horrifically unnatural, and makes things look like they are in fast forward.
Matty G
Thursday, December 24, 2009 at 12:56 AMI agree, James. I don’t see the point in TV productions getting away from interlacing and moving toward progressive scan and 24p playback when TV’s have functions to create frames and make things look like interlaced. Movies should not be made to look like interlaced video as it destroys the “look” of film that everybody knows and loves. Again, with BluRay players, why have a 24p playback function to mimic cinema projection when the TV is going to make it look like video?
matt
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 2:42 PMyeah it was response time that was the problem, not refresh rate. and 100hz stuff does nothing to fix the response time problem (thats improved by itself)
its just the sharpness and brightness (harshness) of LCDs made low frame rate stuff like tv/movies (which are at like 25fps) quite noticeable.
100hz stuff simply makes it look like the movie/show is at 100fps. and it IS quite subjective as James shows. many people hate it. I love it.
I honestly don’t know what people are on about when they say it makes LCDs ‘less blury’. on mine, ghosting is just as bad (or not) whether 100hz is on or off. theoretically it helps because adding more frames decreases the difference between frames and hence the pixels don’t have to change as much.
Me
Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 11:29 AMYet another Gizmodo article desperately trying to suggest LCD has caught up to Plasma.
You know, if the tech is that good, you don’t actually need to justify its technology every second post.