Should I get a 120Hz HDTV for my media PC?

[badreligionhead]

Hi all,

My SageTV media PC is a Dell Optiplex with an entry-level ATI HD Raedon video card. It's all about 3 years old hardware. I've using HDMI to output to an older 42" 1080p 60Hz TV.

I'm looking at getting a new TV. It just occurred to me since I watch all my media through my PC, I'm guessing I'm limited to the settings the video card are set to, which is 60Hz like any typical LED display.

So a 120Hz TV isn't going to do any good, unless I get a new video card too. Yes? Anyone have any thoughts on this? Anyone using 120Hz on their media PC?

FYI, I watch SageTV DVR recordings of OTA HDTV, Youtube streaming in Firefox, and I also watch quite a bit of encoded videos (720p, 24fps, h264) that I encode myself, or acquire from different sources.

[wayner]

Pretty much all TVs, except for low end or small, are now 4K. I would be thinking more about 4K than refresh rates. Presumably you can upgrade your video card if you so desire. You can get 50" 4K TVs for under $350.

Increasingly content is moving towards H.265/HEVC as well including video that is acquired from "other" sources. The good news is that you can play that content on SageTV on a PC, you can't play it on SageTV exteners.

[bcjenkins]

Not all 4K is the same. I am not an expert here - but there's 4K, 4K HDR, and 4K w/ Dolby Vision. E.g., Netflix produces some content which is Dolby Vision.

[badreligionhead]

Yes, 4K is better resolution than 1080p. But what I'm asking about is refresh rate. I already understand resolution.

The topic of this post is: benefits of 60Hz vs 120Hz in a media PC (which signal goes through a video card)

[wayner]

Do you have 120fps content that you want to watch - either videos or gaming? Or is it just that a higher refresh rate may be more pleasing to watch.

Apparently one of the advantages of 120Hz is that it can render 24fps film content better as 120 is a multiple of 24 while 60 is not. So it doesn't had to do 3:2 pulldown.

[badreligionhead]

No specific 120Hz content. I don't game and I don't have a Blue-ray player. Just the Media PC. I'm pretty happy with the picture I get now.

The only area I'd like to improve is watching Formula 1 racing. Again I watch it from encoded videos (usually 720p 24fps h264.) Lots of cars on the track moving fast I can tell it's jumpy.

[Tiki]

Usually the video card in your computer will operate at a fixed refresh rate (probably 60 or 59.9Hz in the US). Sage is not going to override this behavior, so even if you playback a Bluray that is encoded at 24fps, it gets interpolated up to 60fps (3:2 pull down) by the video driver.

I remember seeing posts on this forum about people using special software (I think it was called rclock or reclock or something like that). I think it was supposed to dynamically adjust the video card frame rate based on the content.

By the way, I don't think there are any standard video sources higher than 60Hz. As you said one reason for 120Hz is that it is evenly divisible by 60, 30, and 24. Also, older LCD tv's suffered from motion blur. The tv's with higher refresh rates were generally less likely to have this problem. I haven't shopped for tv's in a while, so don't know if this is still an issue.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Tiki

By the way, I don't think there are any standard video sources higher than 60Hz.

There are supposed to be gamers who have fps>60 but I don't know how that works with existing video cards.

[btrcp2000]

So Sage PC and I believe the android miniclient can play back 4k, but what can capture it in the first place?

[wayner]

You don't have to capture - there is downloadable 4K content. Like ripped 4K discs. There should soon be 4K OTA in at least a few markets so hopefully tuners come out for those.

Here is a device that does 2160p30. I am assuming that TV boxes output 2160p60 so this isn't quite there yet:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/H-26...StoreLevelAB=5

I don't know that anyone has one of these working with SageTV yet but they are essentially the same as 1080p devices of the same sort that a few folks are using.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by badreligionhead

The topic of this post is: benefits of 60Hz vs 120Hz in a media PC (which signal goes through a video card)

The first thing to understand is that there are almost no TVs that actually accept 120Hz input. "120Hz" is almost always marketing speak for frame interpolation.

So in terms of connections, 120Hz is irrelevant, the TV is going to accept 24, 30, and 60 Hz (maybe 48/50).

In theory, 120Hz would be better, because it would allow 24 and 60fps content to be displayed without judder, and without having to switch resolutions, but it's not really something we need to worry about.

[Wayneb]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

So Sage PC and I believe the android miniclient can play back 4k, but what can capture it in the first place?

On the consumer side you have this for 4K capture.
https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/game-capture-4k60pro

On the pro side 4K capture has been around for a long time, even 8K capture exists, you need fast drives and huge amount of storage, files will need to be compressed to be usable.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The first thing to understand is that there are almost no TVs that actually accept 120Hz input. "120Hz" is almost always marketing speak for frame interpolation.

So in terms of connections, 120Hz is irrelevant, the TV is going to accept 24, 30, and 60 Hz (maybe 48/50).

In theory, 120Hz would be better, because it would allow 24 and 60fps content to be displayed without judder, and without having to switch resolutions, but it's not really something we need to worry about.

To add to this excellent point, when the TV does it's interpolation to smooth out the video, the effect may be desirable, but on an HTPC there would be significant mouse lag and you'd just end up bringing the TV back down to a 60hz setting for PC use. If you purchased a large computer monitor that could do true 120hz, that may be the better option.

[badreligionhead]

Well I ended up buying a 55" Samsung with 'Motion Rate 120.' I read up on this and it's not a true 120Hz, but they have some technique where the backlight flashes to help with smoothing. We'll see how it turns out.