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General discussion

REFRESH RATE and RESPONSE TIME HDTV

by bobtbentley Oct 1, 2008 2:10AM PDT

What is the difference between refresh rate and response time and how does it affect motion blur, like for watching sports? I thought it was the same thing, but saw a philips hdtv advertised at 5 ms response time which I thought would correlate with 120 hz refresh rate, but the TV had a 60 hz refresh rate.

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2 Posts

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Two different things

by Dan Filice Oct 1, 2008 4:09AM PDT

I'm not home looking at my technical paper that describes it, but if I remember correctly, "Response" time is how fast the screen pixels change from solid white to color(?), while "Refresh" rate is how many times the TV image is displayed per second. It's touted that a 120Hz TV displays the image twice as many times as a 60Hz TV, thus helping display fast motion (sports) better, but I've watched TVs that have have slow pixel response time (like 8ms or less), and they were horrible on fast action. So, maybe it's a combination of the two. My Sony has a 4ms pixel response and it's also 120Hz, and sports is great. No blur or lag at all.

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Your close Dan.

by jcrobso Oct 1, 2008 6:29AM PDT

Response time is how long it takes the pixel to go from full off (black) to full on (White), room temperature can affect this.
A lot depends on the source material, 720p is far better than 1080i for fast motion, 1080i will blur fast motion, this has nothing to do with the HDTV. Watch a football game on CBS(1080i) then watch on ABC(720p) you will see the difference. John

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