joehenryscool wrote:120hz?? why in the computer and video sections does it only say 60, what am i missing???
Great question.
To understand the answer, you must first realize that there are two sides to this coin.
1) What signals can a device understand.
2) How a device (TV, projector, or monitor) displays stuff on it's screen.
For the first part, if a signal is to be generally understandable, it must conform to a standard. Most computer video cards and video games only output the mentioned resolutions at 60Hz. While some video cards are capable of outputting those resolutions at 120Hz, those formats are non-standard... mainly because it would've required cards to have lots of very fast video RAM... which was very expensive when those standards were set. Can this TV understand an input signal that has a 120Hz vertical sync rate? I don't know. BUT I wouldn't expect Phillips to include non-standard rates in it's compatibility list. One would just have to try it... IF (an unlikely if...) you could find a camcorder, or whatever, that output 120Hz analog video. Digital video has different standards.
As for the second part, how a picture is placed on a screen, it's mainly a matter of timing. First there are horizontal and vertical synchronization pulses (along with video data) in an analog video signal. The H sync pulses enable the set to place the video data on horizontal scan lines across the screen. The number of H pulses equal the number of scan lines (In this case, up to 1080). The V pulses determine how many screens per second are displayed. If the display is interlaced (i), the even and odd scan lines would be alternately displayed. So at 60Hz, you would see 60 half pictures per second, or 30 (ever so slightly jiggly) complete pictures per second. Non-interlaced displays (now called 'p' for progressive scan) would display 60 complete screens per second... with greater clarity. 120Hz TVs would display 120 screens a second... provided there was 120 frames a second available to show... which is possible with a digital interface. But if there were only 60 frames, then it would show each one twice. Either way, progressive scan at 120Hz produces surreal clarity, which is quite remarkable... and summons a higher price tag!
So, the bottom line is this...
If you walk into a TV show room, that has the same video feed on multiple sets...
and some look great, and a couple look incredible, the 'couple' are most likely 120Hz sets. The difference is unmistakable.
