LCD TV is the extra 50MHZ worth £200?

donnajunkie

totalsolutions wrote: »

You can not display a 100Hz picture next to a 50Hz picture, er how? Think about it...two refresh rates on the screen at the same time....its a simulation.

whatever it is there is no noticable difference. 100hz will never be a factor for me in the future when choosing a tv. they say it helps while watching sport. hd sport programmes look great to me with it turned off.

Lum

There are some valid reasons for high refresh rates, even on LCD/plasma, but 100Hz isn't particularly useful.

There's several refresh rates in common use that you need to be aware of.

UK & European TV will be at 50Hz interlaced, if an interlaced picture is undesirable then 50i can also be used to display 25Hz progressive.
TV in America (the continent), Japan and others will be at 60Hz interlaced and again this can get you 30Hz progressive
(It is also theoretically possible to have 50Hz progressive and 60Hz progressive on broadcast TV but I'm yet to hear of anyone actually doing this yet.)
Film will typically be 24Hz progressive at the cinema, but when transferred to DVD or BluRay for Europe may be converted to 25Hz by speeding it up slightly. For American release they use a particularly complicated process called 3:2 pulldown that I really don't want to go into detail on. Some DVDs and BluRay may also be left at 24Hz, these are typically marketed as "Progressive Scan"

So you're buying a TV with a fixed refresh rate. If that fixed refresh rate is an exact multiple of the refresh rate of the media you want to watch then great it can fill in all the gaps perfectly. If it's not an exact multiple then some fudging has to happen which can result in jerky motion that some people find annoying.

The Americans have a different situation to us, their cheapo 60Hz TVs show jitter effects when watching progressive scan materian but their 120Hz TVs are spot on because 24x5 = 120 and 60x2 = 120, so providing you don't need to watch anything from Europe 120Hz will do everything you need.

Here we have 24,25 and 50 to contend with. It should be fairly obvious that a 50Hz TV will look just fine with both a 25p and a 50i source, making 100Hz unnecessary, however a 24p source still isn't going to line up.

The worse case scenario is someone buying a cheap Japanese or American TV with a 60Hz refresh rate and using it in Europe, this is going to look crap for all sources you connect up to it.

This is why the 600Hz TV is out, it's the lowest common multiple at 24,25, 30, 50 and 60 and thus the only way to avoid any jitters or interpolation regardless of source.

It's worth noting that this issue does not affect CRTs as they are not fixed to a single refresh rate which is why some people still prefer to have large CRT TVs or CRT based projectors even though the price and effort involved in a decent quality CRT can often be phohibitive.

Some people find the jitteryness annoying but can tolerate the issues surrounding CRTs (geometry issues and the like) so just get a normal CRT or RPTV

Most people these days don't care about the jitteryness at all and just want a big screen TV that isn't 3' deep, in this case LCD or plasma are the ones to go for, either 50Hz or 100Hz it doesn't really matter.

Personally I'd worry more about the native resolution of the TV. Please dont get one of the TVs with a 1366x768 native resolution, these are repackaged cheap computer monitors and look terrible. Nothing is ever broadcast in this resolution so you're stuck with the TV's scaler.

aliEnRIK

Nice to hear from somehone who actually has a clue what theyre talking about Lum (Though I suspect most people on here just wont be listening)
Though I partially disagree ~ some 100 + 200Hz screens are done so well they are most certainly worth buying
My tv also has a dedicated 74Hz mode for bluray viewing which is particularly useful

Lum

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Nice to hear from somehone who actually has a clue what theyre talking about Lum (Though I suspect most people on here just wont be listening)
Though I partially disagree ~ some 100 + 200Hz screens are done so well they are most certainly worth buying
My tv also has a dedicated 74Hz mode for bluray viewing which is particularly useful

Are they worth buying because of the 100/200Hz feature, or simply because they're a decent TV anyway?

I'm intrigued by the 74Hz mode, is your TV capable of running at more than one refresh rate? I've often thought that this should be possible in theory, but never actually seen in practice with LCD or plasma. It's a much more elegant solution than running at bloody 600Hz

donnajunkie

Lum wrote: »

Please dont get one of the TVs with a 1366x768 native resolution, these are repackaged cheap computer monitors and look terrible. Nothing is ever broadcast in this resolution so you're stuck with the TV's scaler.

i'm no expert but this sounds like total rubbish. either that or you have made a mistake when writing the resolution. mistake or not saying that even the likes of a sony or panasonic lcd tv with a 1366 by 768 resolution is just a cheap repackaged pc monitor is ridiculous.

aliEnRIK

Lum wrote: »

Are they worth buying because of the 100/200Hz feature, or simply because they're a decent TV anyway?

I'm intrigued by the 74Hz mode, is your TV capable of running at more than one refresh rate? I've often thought that this should be possible in theory, but never actually seen in practice with LCD or plasma. It's a much more elegant solution than running at bloody 600Hz

Theyre VERY good tvs anyways. But part of it is because they run the 100Hz and/or 200Hz refresh rates so well (Which a lot of tvs dont)

Yes ~ my pioneer plasma runs at 100Hz or 74Hz depending on the source

Lum

donnajunkie wrote: »

i'm no expert but this sounds like total rubbish. either that or you have made a mistake when writing the resolution. mistake or not saying that even the likes of a sony or panasonic lcd tv with a 1366 by 768 resolution is just a cheap repackaged pc monitor is ridiculous.

The broadcast standards define a number of resolutions, 480 (former NTSC), 576 (former PAL), 720 and 1080. For a HDTV you therefore want to make a panel at either 1280x720 or 1920x1080 because an HD device is going to be outputting at one of these (lets ignore the fact that HD boxes can also output SD resolutions like 480 and 576 for now)

For the most part Sky HD broadcast at 1080i though 720p is also possible and there are situations (such as sports) where 720p is preferable to 1080i. BluRay is typically 1080p. Most XBox360 and PS3 games also run at 720p because these consoles are not actually capable of rendering complicated graphics at 1080, instead they just render it at 720 and scale it. There are a few games that can run at 1080, usually fairly simple ones.

The problem with the 1366x768 resolution is that there is no way (other than an analogue VGA cable) to actually get a signal at this resolution so no matter what source you input you are going to have to do additional scaling in the TV in order to get it to display.

No matter if your source is 720 or 1080, picture quality is going to suffer as a result of this, also since 1366x768 is a resolution used by TVs that are cutting corners the scalers usually aren't all that great either and will introduce a bit of delay which may cause lip sync issues in films and perceived lag in response to your actions in console games.

The worst case scenario is if you have your XBox or Sky HD box set to output 1080 because then your display is going to get upscaled only to get downscaled again when it reaches the TV.

There is really no reason to use 1366x768 panels in a TV, well there is one good reason and that's cost. These panels are cheap. Why are they cheap? Because they've been around for ages for computer use, they're the same sort of panel you see at Luton airport announcing that your flight just got delayed, or in company receptions playing adverts for their products while you wait for someone to show you in.

What really irritates me about these TVs is there is no upgrade path. If you're unhappy with the scaler in your 720 or 1080 TV then you always have the option of using an external scaler which outputs the native resolution of your TV (I use a PC running DScaler for this purpose when I want to watch my old VHS and LaserDiscs) but when your TV has a non-standard resolution you can't do this.

aliEnRIK

The last 42" pioneer plasma that was made was a 768 and that was hailed as the best 42" on the market at ANY price (Including all 1080P 42" screens). Yes it scales, but it scales incredibly well.

Lum

aliEnRIK wrote: »

The last 42" pioneer plasma that was made was a 768 and that was hailed as the best 42" on the market at ANY price (Including all 1080P 42" screens). Yes it scales, but it scales incredibly well.

I think Pioneer plasma TVs are an exception to the rules, their kit is really really good and sold at a price that most folk can't afford.

donnajunkie

to be honest i dont think i have seen a tv that says it is 720 in the spec it is always either 1366 by 768 or 1920 by 1080 if it is full hd. i see your point about the difference between 720 and 768 but it is harsh to say that all 768 tvs are like cheap pc monitors.
does a 768 tv really downscale a 1080i output back to 768? if that is correct then that will mean you need a full hd tv to get 1080i?