Believe it or not, the refresh rate of your screen plays a huge role when it comes to watching movies and not just gaming, this is because it allows more frames to be processed per second. The refresh rate ultimately determines how smooth the videos on screen can get, the higher the refresh rate, the better.
But what exactly does refresh rate mean? Well, the refresh rate refers to how many times your TV refreshes itself per second. So, a screen with a 120Hz refresh rate means the TV will refresh the display 120 times per second. It is quite different from frames per second which refers to how many frames are displayed per second, but they’re quite related.
Answer: The standard native refresh rate for OLED TVs is 120Hz which is pretty good, it allows for many benefits which 60FPs does not offer. Most of the time, 120Hz is far superior to 60Hz for movies, this is because some movies are in 24FPS, and 24 isn’t a multiple of 60. However, 24 is a multiple of 120 which means 120Hz displays will have less judder than 60Hz displays.
Why The Refresh Rate Is Important
The effects the refresh rate has on the content on-screen can easily be overlooked, this is because many important aspects of refresh rate aren’t discussed as much. For movies, we’re going to be discussing why 120Hz is more important to have than 60Hz.
Excluding the fact that 120Hz is undeniably smoother than 60Hz when playing 120Hz content, 120Hz TVs are far superior to 60Hz TVs when playing lower frame rate content. What we’re talking about is 24FPS content which most movies are recorded in.
If you’re serious about building an entertainment/home theater setup, we strongly suggest picking up 120Hz over 60Hz, this is because 24FPS movies play better when played on 120Hz displays. When playing 24FPS content on a 60Hz display, some conversion is necessary when the display receives a fixed 60FPS signal, this conversion will cause “Judder”.
As 24 isn’t a multiple of 60, 60Hz displays will have a hard time removing judder when playing 24FPS content, the TV will apply methods called a three-two (3:2 pulldown). 24 however is a multiple of 120 which means no pulldown will be applied and each frame will be repeated evenly.
24 goes into 120 5 times which means each frame will be repeated 5 times to make 24FPS look exactly how it’s meant to be on a 120Hz display. Hopefully, you can see why 24FPS content can be troublesome on 60Hz displays now.
What Is The Refresh Rate Of OLED TVs
The standard refresh rate for OLED displays is 120Hz which means OLED displays are highly recommended for entertainment setups. When watching movies, the OLED display will process a lot of content perfectly, this includes 24FPS, 30FPS, 60FPS, and 120FPS content.
It’s important to always pick up a TV with a native 120FPS refresh rate and try to ignore any technical jargon and gimmicks which many TV manufacturers use to increase sales. Such techniques TV manufacturers will use is Black Frame Insertion.
Black Frame Insertion techniques will be applied to 60Hz displays and be heavily marketed as 120Hz displays or much higher. Such marketing terms are TruMotion, MotionFlow, and Motion Rate. Keep in mind, these TVs lack the actual technology to process 120Hz content.
Luckily, most OLED TVs have a true natural refresh rate of 120Hz or even much higher which is a huge benefit, 120Hz OLED displays are far more flexible than 60Hz displays as they can interpolate more content.
| Service | Frames Per Second |
|---|---|
| Netflix | 23.976(24) & 59.940(60) |
| Hulu | 60 |
| Youtube | 24 & 60 |
| Blu Ray Movies | 24 |
Is 120Hz Enough?
120Hz is most definitely enough for most content today, even 60Hz is pretty good but the sweet spot is not 120Hz. Many people would say that the human eye can only see 60FPS, but the jump to 120Hz is quite noticeable, introducing a new level of smoothness.
This smoothness that 120Hz offers is a huge benefit for gaming, many gamers especially FPS gamers can benefit from the extra smoothness. This is because it gives them a huge competitive advantage over gamers that are using 60Hz.
120Hz is more responsive to faster-moving content, this means that 120Hz OLED displays have better motion handling than 60Hz displays. This means, if you’re watching fast content such as sports and action movies, your 120Hz OLED display will be able to deliver clearer-looking images.
What Is Variable Refresh Rate
Some TVs have the ability to change their refresh rate to match the frame time of the content being displayed on the screen; variable refresh rate is often referred to as Vsync. Most TVs will have a range for their variable refresh rate, usually, the range is 30-120Hz.
When a TV is displaying content that doesn’t match the refresh rate of the content on screen, issues such as screen tearing and stuttering occur. Stuttering is caused because frames are being displayed at inconsistent intervals. Screen tearing happens when the video feed is not in sync with the refresh rate of the screen.
All these issues are problematic for gamers, screen tearing and stuttering can also be extremely annoying as this can make the game feel laggy in some sort of way. Matching the refresh rate to the frame time on screen will eliminate these issues.
This feature doesn’t provide any benefit for movies and TV shows as you will always receive a consistent frame rate signal. This is mostly a feature for gamers where the frame rate is constantly changing.
Verdict
The verdict is that most OLED displays will have a native refresh rate of 120Hz and you should always look to see if this is the case. TVs that advertise a frame rate far higher are usually referring to Black Frame Insertion.
120Hz is beneficial for most types of content as 120Hz displays are able to process most types of content whether it’s 24Hz, 30Hz, 60Hz, or 120Hz. 60Hz displays often run into issues with 24Hz content which makes them undesirable for movies and home theaters.
