With the release of next-generation consoles, they present powerful performance that allows players to easily get richer game scenarios, more immersive game visual experiences, and smoother game control experiences. These have also promoted the transfer of players from "small screen" to "large screen", so TV equipment with high-definition large screen and high standard refresh rate has become a new choice for more and more players, which also brings a new revolution to living room entertainment.
However, as the bearer of the game masterpiece, in addition to the most basic large size, excellent color performance, players for the TV has also put forward higher and higher requirements, according to the current market performance, 4K resolution, 120Hz high refresh rate began to become the standard of "game TV". This is also confirmed by AVC Revo data, as of 2021, shipments of high-refresh rate TV panels at 120Hz and above reached 21.4M, which is a good reflection of market demand.
However, it should be noted that even if your TV is labeled with 4K 120Hz, does this really mean that it must have excellent performance?
What does 4K 120Hz mean?
First, let's take a look at what 4K 120Hz represents. 4K, naturally refers to the TV resolution, simply put, the horizontal direction of each line of pixel values reached or close to 4096, according to the picture ratio, may be Full Aperture 4K 4K 4096×3112, Academy 4K 3656×2664 and UHDTV standard 3840×2160 and so on, all belong to the category of 4K. In fact, today's flagship TV has come to 8K resolution, but considering a series of problems such as film source and transmission bandwidth, compared to 8K, 4K is currently a more suitable choice.
And 120Hz naturally refers to the refresh rate, which means that the screen can be refreshed 120 times per second. In fact, before the TV, many game monitors have reached this value, even 144Hz; and today's flagship mobile phones, the refresh rate has also come to 120Hz. With a high refresh rate of 120Hz, the screen can show a more silky and smooth effect when facing some dynamic pictures. In the past, television mainly carried the content of watching movies and television, and the 60Hz refresh rate can be said to be more than enough. But as televisions become more and more important carriers of game screens, then better 120Hz has become more important.
Of course, to reach a standard like 4K 120Hz, for a TV, it involves all aspects of its hardware. First of all, the screen itself, it needs to have a 4K resolution, support 120Hz refresh rate; at the same time, the TV also needs a decoding chip with strong enough performance to decode and play the 120Hz film source; and for external film sources, next-generation game consoles, the TV also needs a full version of HDMI 2.1 interface and a high-standard USB interface in order to have enough bandwidth to complete the data transmission; in addition, it also needs technologies such as 120Hz MEMC, VRR and other technologies to solve the corresponding problems. Thus truly realizing the full-scene true 4K 120Hz.
Under this premise, we will find that there are some products on the market, which may indeed meet the requirements of 4K 120Hz in some conditions, so it will be marked with the logo of 4K 120Hz, but in fact, when users buy and use, they find that they cannot achieve the 4K 120Hz standard game and movie experience very well. These pseudo-4K 120Hz products, how can we identify them?
What is the difference between a pseudo-4K 120Hz and a true 4K 120Hz?
1. Screen body
First of all, it is naturally the screen body itself, and the real 4K 120Hz TV is naturally in line with the standard of 4K 120Hz in the screen hardware. For pseudo-4K 120Hz is not necessarily, many pseudo-4K 120Hz TVs, in fact, do not use qualified screens, many actually use 60Hz refresh rate, and then through some algorithms, interpolation technology to achieve an approximate 120Hz effect, the most common is mainly DLG/HSR technology.
Before unfolding these two technologies, we must first briefly talk about the most basic underlying logic of reality technology, and the presentation of each frame of video needs to be projected on the screen line by line. Subdivided into specific presentation methods, it is divided into progressive scanning and interlaced scanning.
Progressive scanning is not difficult to understand, that is, every line of the content of each frame of the picture is scanned to present, such as a 1920X1080 video, each frame needs to scan 1080 lines; then if it is interlaced scanning, that is, the first frame is scanned when the odd line is scanned, and when the second frame is scanned, even lines are scanned, because of the reason for the visual residue of the human eye, we can still see a coherent picture, but for the TV, because the amount of information in each frame drops, you can reduce the bandwidth pressure of the transmission. However, the clarity of the picture will be discounted, so we usually have this feeling, that is, the 1080p video resources are clearer than the 1080i, which is why.
Back to our topic itself, in the face of a screen with only 60Hz display capability, how to display 120Hz content? Manufacturers naturally have a way, first of all, DLG, behind the complex technology we will not expand the details, it and progressive scanning, interlaced scanning the same, in the picture scanning moved the mind, directly scan two lines, two lines of content the same, direct information halved, but the efficiency and progressive scanning is the same, although this way brings fluency, but also has its disadvantages, that is, the loss of half of the clarity.
As for another HSR technology, it is also a way to achieve high brushing through the adjustment of screen scanning, it is mainly to adjust the scanning timing, simply put, in the second line, the first half of the time is displayed, the second half of the time is displayed, and so on, in order to achieve the effect of high brushing, but still lose the longitudinal clarity of the picture.
In fact, it can be seen that both ways are to achieve 120Hz high brushing by losing a certain degree of clarity, which is a way to achieve high brushing in an economical form for the display body that originally does not have a 120Hz high brush effect, but if the manufacturer packages it into parameters such as 4K 120Hz, it is suspected of deceiving consumers.
As for how to distinguish such a product, we can also carry out through these methods, first look at the product parameters, if it is clearly a 60Hz reality panel, but it is said that it can achieve 120Hz effect, it is naturally impossible to run; in addition, if there is such as "one key to open 120Hz", "120Hz viewing transmission", "manual opening" and so on, it is usually through the 120Hz refresh rate multiplication mode to achieve high brush effect, obviously also pseudo 120Hz In addition, it is to observe the change of clarity after opening 120Hz, if there is such a decline in image quality, there is no objection, it is pseudo-120Hz.
2. Chip decoding ability
Of course, even if the TV uses a 4K 120Hz screen, it does not mean that the corresponding picture content can be displayed. To know that the video content is decoded and played out, it is inseparable from the role of the TV SoC chip. At this time, chips with sufficient computing power are particularly important. If the chip computing power is insufficient, there will be a problem of 120Hz chip source playback stuttering, or even unable to play, then the empty 4K 120Hz screen is useless.
A qualified decoder chip needs to be able to decode high-quality content of all channels, including 120Hz streaming, 4K 120Hz content with HDMI 2.1 input, and 120Hz content from USB channel input. Of course, how to distinguish is also very simple, we use an external U disk to play 120Hz content, to observe the playback of the TV, if it can not be decoded, or stuttering, frame drop, etc., it is also pseudo 120Hz no doubt.
3. Full blood version HDMI 2.1 interface
The full-blood HDMI 2.1 interface was mentioned earlier, which is actually a very important point, especially for next-generation gamers. The Full Blood HDMI 2.1 interface provides a full-speed bandwidth of 48Gbps, enabling the highest specifications of 4K120FPS 12bitRGB4:4:4 signal transmission. If it is not a full-blood version of HDMI 2.1 interface, it is naturally impossible to achieve 4K 120Hz lossless transmission. Whether it is a game or a movie, the effect will naturally be discounted.
In addition to the above points, some of the corresponding supporting technologies are also very important, such as 120Hz MEMC technology, which can ensure that users can also get a smooth experience of high frame rate when watching some low frame rate film sources, which requires the chip to support MEMC functions, obviously low-end chips are usually not supported.
In addition, for gamers, it is VRR technology, which can ensure that the frame rate of the game host and the TV reality side is synchronized, it requires a chip, display to support VRR technology, and needs to have an HDMI 2.1 interface, any one of the conditions does not match, it is also impossible to achieve.
What does true 4K 120Hz bring us?
When your TV is equipped with 4K 120Hz high-brush screen, 120Hz decoding chip and full-blood HDMI2.1 interface, we can call it a real "4K 120Hz" TV, and the full channel can achieve 120Hz performance, then, whether it is playing games or watching movies, the experience it brings is all-round upgraded.
The resolution of 4K ensures the clarity of the picture, especially for today's larger and larger TVs, ensuring that every detail of the picture can be smoothly presented. The 120Hz high brush, when targeting some dynamic scenes, such as intense games, or action blockbusters, can present a coherent, non-tearing picture for users, which can make users more immersed in the picture itself and bring about a comprehensive improvement in visual senses.
Whether it is the advanced development of next-generation games and the realization of the ideal experience, or the next development of high-quality audio-visual, it is of extremely important equipment significance. For user families, the performance of 4K 120Hz allows TVs to fully carry the living room entertainment experience, meet the continuous iteration of entertainment needs of users, and bring upgrades to the TV-centric home entertainment experience.
Write at the end
With the advancement of technology, 4K 120Hz TV will become more and more people's choice, we believe that every manufacturer will provide users with high-quality products that meet the standards and experience without discounting, but everything is always inevitable, so we always need to understand the logic behind these parameters, and will not be blinded by some pseudo 4K 120Hz product publicity when choosing, and will buy TV products that really meet their needs.