Liang Zhenpeng/Wen
【The author is a senior industrial economy observer, home appliance/IT/Internet industry analyst】
In recent years, the TV market has been in a state of extreme saturation, coupled with the impact of the new crown epidemic and other factors, the overall market has been sluggish, and companies have looked for breakthroughs in high-end market segments. Among them, gaming TVs with high-resolution, high-refresh rate and other high-performance configurations have become a new growth point in the industry in recent years.
In order to meet the market demand, many TV manufacturers have launched the main 120Hz, 144Hz, 240Hz and other high refresh rate "game TV", so that consumers can see dazzling, product parameter competition emerges in an endless stream, "only parameter theory" wind gradually prevailed.
Gaming TV bucked the trend
Since the beginning of the year, the TV market has been sluggish. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, the retail sales volume of the TV market in the first quarter of this year was 8.831 million units, down 10.8% year-on-year; retail sales were 27.7 billion yuan, down 11% year-on-year. The segment of gaming TV bucked the trend, and the retail volume share of 120Hz high-refresh rate TVs increased from 1.9% in 2020 to 5.3% in 2021, and then to 9.3% in the first quarter of 2022.
The root cause of the explosion of demand for gaming TV is the increase in consumer demand for high-quality and high-performance TVs. TVs with high-performance configurations such as 4K/8K ultra-high-definition display screens, high refresh rates above 120Hz, low latency, and full-blood HDMI2.1 interfaces are called "gaming TVs" by manufacturers. The core advantage of gaming TV is actually the display first, under the premise of ensuring high definition, to provide users with a high refresh rate of the experience.
In the field of gaming, stuttering and screen tearing are a major culprits that affect the game experience, and the most direct factor causing these problems is the screen refresh rate. The refresh rate has a very important impact on the player's game judgment, reaction, shooting accuracy, etc. Taking 120Hz as an example, in FPS games, the screen can show a more silky and smooth effect than 60Hz, and even players will feel that the opponent's action has changed from "teleportation" to "slow motion", which can see more details of the action, so as to carry out accurate strikes.
It is precisely for this reason that major manufacturers have launched game TVs with high refresh rates for the game esports crowd in an attempt to seize the opportunity in this new track.
240Hz is difficult to shine: lack of content, technical constraints
Previously, the vast majority of TV screens had a refresh rate of 60Hz, but now gaming TVs can do it from 120Hz to 144Hz or even 240Hz. The repeated publicity of manufacturers has made users subconsciously form the stereotype of "the higher the refresh rate, the better", but this is not the case.
Taking 240Hz as an example, on the one hand, the screen and chip at this stage have not yet supported 4K 240Hz, and can only reach 240Hz high brushing at the expense of loss of picture quality by interpolating black frames, HSRs, DLGs, etc.; on the other hand, on the most core content source of the TV, the current stage of film and television works and game inputs have not reached the production standard of 4K240Hz. It can be said that the 240Hz achieved by manufacturers at this stage is not mature, and there is no actual use scenario, and more significance lies in marketing gimmicks.
120Hz, which has been developing for many years, not only is the film and television source constantly developing and expanding, but also with the popularity of the next era game console PS5 and Xbox, more and more games are joining the 120Hz camp. Compared with 240Hz, 120Hz will undoubtedly firmly occupy the main use scenarios of high-brush TVs in the future.
Therefore, if manufacturers blindly pursue to improve the refresh rate and disregard the clarity of the picture, this behavior is tantamount to demolishing the east wall to make up for the west wall.
Product development should not be "parameter-only"
As mentioned earlier, at this stage, the most mature and balanced solution between the two dimensions of clarity and refresh rate is "full channel 120Hz". In order to obtain the real "full channel 120Hz", TV companies must support 120Hz from multiple key links such as screen, decoding chip, transmission, etc., which is indispensable, and in this way, it is necessary to support 120Hz in multiple channels such as HDMI, USB, and streaming media.
In the face of the broad prospects of the game TV market, TV companies should not simply take "parameter theory" as the development direction, but should focus on user experience to create high-quality products.
Similar to the development of 8K TV, when new technologies first emerge, there is often a period of mixed fish, and operations like 240Hz that "gimmicks are greater than actual" are obviously not conducive to the benign development of the TV industry.
In general, the head manufacturers at home and abroad have collectively made efforts to make high-refresh rate TVs and upgrade the large-screen audio-visual entertainment experience for consumers, which is very worthy of recognition and encouragement. But at the same time, TV companies can not forget that the core of TV products is display, the core of the viewing experience is picture quality, not excessive pursuit of parameter values, not excessive marketing, with practical product innovation and user needs as the starting point, clear industry standards, promote the orderly development of the game TV industry, activate the new momentum of the TV market.
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