They’ve never had an HD TV before so that in and of itself will be a huge deal.
The size will actually be smaller than their current “big” TV (12 years old, one of the later generation of huge CRT-based TVs).
I’d been looking at 47 inchers at 120 Hz, but if we go for a 60 Hz unit, we can get 50+ inches for the same (or less) money.
The parents are in their mid-to-late 70s which is relevant only in that they won’t be playing video games, and I’ve never seen them watching sports - both of which I believe suggest they need a faster refresh rate.
Assuming all other features are acceptable (number of HDMI inputs, smart-capable etc.), do you think they’d miss much of we went with a 60 Hz unit?
The human eye starts merging images at 12 fps. The standard rate for American movies for most of the last century was 24fps.
I very much doubt that an elderly person would be unhappy with 60 Hz. I kind of doubt there’s much need for anybody to have 120Hz, even gamers. I suspect the vendors just make them because they can, and it gives them an excuse to charge more.
And I feel the same way about giant screens. IMO 40" is plenty. AFAIK there are no broadcast, cable, or satellite signals with more than 1020 lines, so unless they spend most of their time watching a super duper blueray disc on an ultra HD player, they’re getting all the resolution they need with almost any TV now sold. All they need to do to get the exact same experience from a 40" TV as from a 60" TV is sit a few feet closer.
Remember that the original source material, depending on what they are watching, was created at either 24, 30, or 60 frames per second. Any refresh rate above 60 Hz is just “recycling” the same content. Some people claim they can see the differences, others cannot.
There can definitely still be noticeable effects, including flicker, at 60Hz.
While movies may be 24fps, most US television is broadcast at 30fps. A 120Hz rate will be a better compromise between these two than 60Hz if they watch a fair amount of both TV and DVD/Blu-Ray.
That said, it’s not such a huge difference that it should be a deal breaker for buying a TV. Either way, it’s going to be better than the majority of CRTs we used to have.
They won’t notice the difference because they’ve never seen 120+hz video.
My parents had a 47" Plasma and the screen got broke. So we replaced it with a 60hz 47" LED. Plasma TV’s don’t realy use the whole refresh technology.
They hated it. It wasn’t the “motion blur” but the fact that the text on their display guide was fuzzy and almost unreadable.
I was able to place the new LED above the old Plasma and for direct comparison.
So we found a 50" Plasma and they were very happy with that.
I actually own a 240hz 47" LCD. Do you know what sold me? The store had a looping demo on 3 TV’s. The TV’s were the same size, from the same manufacturer except one was at 60hz, one at 120hz and the third was at 240hz.
The demo was a camera panning across a parking lot. There were parked cars of various colours and then the odd car driving through the lot.
I could not believe the difference between the 3 TV’s. It was an easy decision to go 240hz.
Now with that being said, I also have a smaler LCD TV (35") and it is only 60hz. It’s decent to watch, but I’m only about 6’ away from it.
From my experience the larger the TV, the more important the refress rate. I wouldn’t want anything less then 120hz on a TV 42" or larger.
Actually for video games you DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES want 120hz (or anything else other than 60hz) as this adds lag and makes it harder to control the game right.
Not that it affects your parents’ TV, just wanted to point out the incorrect notion.
The higher refresh rate allows the LED/LCD TV to simulate a plasma/CRT refresh rate.
LED’s are solid state displays, they don’t have the flicker in a CRT or plasma. That sounds like a good thing, but it can actually make motion look blurrier. Imagine this display over time, where each space represents an image displayed, and the dots are a blank screen:
-…/…|….…
If flashed VERY quickly the brain ignores the blank space and sees a smoothly rotating line. That is what is happening on a CRT or plasma. Here is what happens on an LED:
---------------/////////////||||||||||||||\\\\\\\
The brain actually notices the abrupt changes more in this scenario than it does with the blank space. So the 120 Hz comes along and tries to help make it less abrupt and you end up with something like this:
-------…/////////…||||||||…\\\\\
Looks much smoother to the brain, but plasma is the best.
I think the only way 120Hz would add lag is if the TV is using software interpolation to display the in-between frames, instead of using blank frames. I think some TV’s do that by default, but the blank frames in-between is a better picture.
Movies would look better- since 120 is a multiple of 24, (and 60 is not) if the TV does it correctly you eliminate 3:2 pulldown and the resultant jerkiness (if it’s too smooth, chances are some frame interpolation is turned on and should be disabled).
Yes, but there are some TVs where 120hz mode requires frame interpolation. And there are movie players that actually do the 3:2 pull down and then double it for 120hz. And, of course, many networks will only broadcast at one rate, and you actually need special software to convert it back to 24hz for you to get any advantage out of 120hz mode.
So, to get any benefit from the 120hz, the OP needs to make sure that TV handles it properly and that the input handles properly. With all that, I’d lean more towards the larger 60hz screens.
Unless they are the type to notice the difference in how movies look on TV vs. from the DVD/video player, they probably would even notice the difference.
And what settings would one change to induce motion blur? :smack:
From this statement it obviously sounds like you were there, oh wait you weren’t.
Yes I guess they could adjust colour settings, contrast and sharpness to impact the “look” of the picture, but they didn’t. When the camera stopped panning all 3 screens had an identical picture. The only time you noticed the bluring issue was when it was panning.
To add to this debate, a friend of mine said that if you don’t watch fast “moving” sports then a 60hz would probably be okay.
