[Shop for a 600Hz plasma TV today at Amazon.com]
Many of the new plasma televisions from Panasonic, Samsung, LG, and Insignia showing up online have a feature which says “600Hz subfield motion.” This got me wondering what the hell it is. I’m not the type to just read specs for a television and just accept it. When doing my research I was able to find out exactly what it is and wanted to share that with everyone on the site.
This comes from Panasonic’s Canadian site:
A standard video signal is actually a series of still images, flashed on screen so quickly that we believe we are watching a moving image. The typical frame rate used in North America is 60 frames per second (60Hz) meaning that a TV would display 60 individual still images every second. Sub-field drive is the method used to flash the individual image elements (dots) on a plasma panel. For each frame displayed on the TV the Sub-field drive flashes the dots 10 times or more, meaning that the dots are flashing 600 times per second (600Hz) or more. (Example: 60 frames per second x 10 sub-fields = 600 flashes per second).
It all boils down to TV manufacturers using some science to trick our eyes into perceiving a better picture. The television shows you the image at the same refresh rate but fires the individual pixels faster so the images appear smoother.
[Shop for a 600Hz plasma TV today at Amazon.com]
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