A refresh rate of Hz allows a new frame to be displayed up to times every second. A Hz display can only refresh the screen 60 times per second. And you can guess how many times a Hz screen can refresh.
With videos or video game graphics, this is expressed as frames per second fps. Movies typically run at 24 frames per second because it's a theatrical standard, while many games can run at up to fps. Just to confuse you more, manufacturers sometimes list the touch response rate or touch sample rate for touchscreen displays, which is also measured in hertz. This number relates to how often the touchscreen scans for a touch from your finger.
The higher the touch response rate, the faster it responds to your touch. A higher refresh rate allows a phone's display to keep up with gaming action and reduces motion blur on video, but it can also make navigating around the interface feel more responsive than it would on a display with a lower refresh rate.
Games look less choppy during frenetic action, video footage of fast-paced sports action appears smoother, and any jerkiness scrolling a long web page is reduced. To get the full benefit of a high refresh rate, you also need a high frame rate, and ideally, the two match. The cost is often your battery life. However, Hz TVs have an advantage here because they can simply display each frame five times since is a multiple of There are a few sources that display fps, such as the Xbox Series X or the PS5 , and having a Hz TV helps display this content at its max frame rate.
While it's rare to find content other than games with this frame rate, displaying fps has a significant impact on the perceived motion. As you can see in the picture below, content looks much smoother at fps than at 60 fps on a Hz TV. With the release of HDMI 2. This means that Hz TVs may slowly become the norm. Another place where Hz is useful is if you enjoy the motion interpolation feature found on TVs also known as the Soap Opera Effect.
It allows the TV to generate frames between existing ones, increasing the frame rate to match up to the refresh rate. This is why a Hz TV is an advantage over 60Hz since it can interpolate more types of content. There are other ways to produce a similarly clear image as a Hz refresh rate. Essentially, the TV displays a black screen between each frame, which most people can't see, but it can also make the screen dimmer.
On most LED TVs, this is achieved by adjusting the flicker frequency of the backlight, which results in the backlight being turned off for half the frame. Persistence blur occurs when your eyes move past a static image, such as each static frame that makes up moving content. With Black Frame Insertion, the static frame is present for a shorter duration, so the length of the persistence blur is shorter. Unfortunately, though, not everyone can stand the flickering, and some people may get annoyed after a while.
A TV is only as good as the content you are playing, and unfortunately, very little fps content actually exists. With the new HDMI 2. We've compiled a couple of lists of common entertainment sources as well as their respective refresh rates. A source's frame rate isn't always constant, especially in games. It may drop and if that happens, it can lead to screen tearing because the frame rate of the game and the refresh rate of your TV don't match up.
There's a feature called variable refresh rate VRR that aims to match the refresh and frame rate on-the-go, so if the frame rate of the game drops, the TV automatically lowers its refresh rate as well. Learn more about variable refresh rate. TV companies will often market their refresh rates in ways to make it seem like it's higher than it actually is. A company like Samsung uses the term 'Motion Rate'; the Motion Rate on a 60Hz TV is , while a Hz model has a Motion Rate of ; they effectively double the refresh rate to come up with this number, and there's no real explanation as to why it's marketed like that.
These marketing numbers don't really mean anything, and you need to check the TV's specs to find the real refresh rate. Learn more about fake refresh rate. What this means is that the backlight turns itself off every few seconds, so it doesn't get too bright. It's not visible to the human eye because of how fast the frequency is. Flicker frequency, like refresh rate, is measured in Hz because we want to know how many times it flickers every second.
Backlight flashing is what it sounds like. The most basic version of backlight flashing is the backlight going dark in between video frames. This moment of darkness is much like how a film projector works: an image, then darkness, an image, then darkness, and so on. Done slowly, this can result in flicker. Done fast enough, and you don't notice it. A more advanced version, called backlight scanning, dims sections of the backlight in sequence with the video.
In either case, the side effect is a loss of light output sometimes significantly , because there are sections of time where the backlight is literally off or close to it.
There is another way of doing this called black-frame insertion, which shows a black image in between the real frames, but that doesn't actually manipulate the backlight. With and Hz displays, there's another option: frame insertion. This method, also called frame interpolation, actually creates entirely new frames of video to insert in between the "real" frames of video.
With video sources, like live TV, sports, and video games, there's very little downside to this method. You get excellent motion resolution, and you maintain the light output of the display. The image at the top of this article is an example of frame interpolation. The interpolated frames smooth out the inherent juddery motion of 24fps content. On the surface this may seem like a good thing, but the resulting ultrasmooth motion makes movies look like soap operas.
Fitting, then, this is called the Soap Opera Effect. We and many TV companies call it "dejudder. In some, it causes nausea. Some people don't mind it, which I find rather shocking. Check out What is the Soap Opera effect? The trade-off, usually, is that if you don't use motion interpolation or backlight scanning, you don't get full motion resolution. Personally, I find the step from 60Hz to Hz to be noticeable, and worth the additional money.
The step from to is far more modest of an improvement. It's also possible these features, when enabled, are bothersome over time. Some people are especially sensitive to a flickering backlight, so you might need to turn these features off.
If you're concerned about that, or notice motion blur, it's best to find a TV that actually has a Hz refresh rate. There are two things at play here.
The first is simple, and one we've said many times before: don't trust marketing. At least, don't trust it at face value. Marketing is designed to sell you a product, not give you information about a product. That's secondary. The second is being able to reduce motion blur. When Hz p TVs first hit the market, they offered a noticeable improvement in motion resolution. The technology has only gotten better.
But if you're sensitive to motion blur, or you want to get the most from your Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 , it is worth checking for a true Hz TV. It would be a shame to let all that extra 4K resolution go to waste due to blur. It's also worth checking reviews for measurements and subjective takes on how the TV handles motion -- that's more useful than any manufacturer-supplied spec. Note: This article was originally published in but has been updated regularly since. Got a question for Geoff?
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