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03-Mar-2009

Posted by: Chance Stevens

What Does 600 Hz Sub-field Motion Mean?

Many of the new 2009 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.

For more information check out Panasonic’s new Vierapassions.com website.

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Naebeth

"The television shows you the image at the same refresh rate but fires the individual pixels faster so the images appear smoother."
To me, this makes no sense. How does refreshing a still image more make transition to the next still smoother? It still jumps from one still image to another in exactly the same the amount of time, in the same way. These two stills just take more electricity and computing power to display.
Surely the only way to make the "images appear smoother" is to increase the frames per second, which we can't as it is set by the recorder/broadcaster.
francine219

Let's see if I've got this! Does 600 hz in plasma actually equal 60 hz in LCD? Because I was told that we would not want a 60 hz tv when 120 hz is now the standard and 240 hz is even better! Let me know
KD

Okay, I think I'm getting a slightly better grasp on all this. I'd kinda come to the conclusion that plasmas, and LCDs had differing technical specs, and this was one of those different measurement specs.

However, my parents just bought a 42" pana plasma, and were told it had 240hz, but that doesn't seem to mesh with what's being posted here, was the salesperson blowing smoke at them, or perhaps giving them a comparison?!
Mick Liverpool

So my question is, if a plasma tv (mine being a Pana P50G10) really runs at 60hz, will they be able to display any 3d material at all? Everything i've read says that 120hz is needed to dipsplay it properly!
Matt

You can watch rendered 3D material, but an actual 3D tv is required to watch 3D material. True 3D involves the merging of two or more images, such as the masters, the masters was the first broadcast of true 3D, not rendered 3D, just splitting an image to make it 3D. On a non 3D tv you will just see two of the same images on the screen and it requires a 3D tv to merge those images to actually make it 3D

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-01/its-about-time-3-d-comes-home
xrunner

yes if it's thru your satellite company, because the first time i seen 3d sharks remember this? is on my 27inch tube tv on discovery channel, people are saying they have to buy a new tv, i dont think you do as long as it's 120.hz or 240.hz, if you can rent a dvd and it's 3d and play it on your older dvd player,,,,, and your newer but older tv! think about that, why does your dvd player play 3d then, JUST A MONEY MARKETING CRAPPPP dont you think
Chance_Stevens

The answer is a definite yes. There is no single standard for watching 3D and there are lots of televisions out there which are 3D ready but are not 120Hz which means 60Hz MUST be good enough to display the 3D content.

Thanks for asking!
SmarterThanYou_2

you are completely wrong m8 60hz is not good enough it needs to be able to display 2 1080p images simultaneously at 120hz per frame thus 240hz is required also the tv must have hdmi 1.4 to achieve this there fore you will need a true 3D tv which are available around april 2010 samsung or sony ect
hello jim

i actually have a 3d TV and that is totally wrong about needing 240hz. your tv has to have at least a 120 hz to do 3-d as it needs to show 60 hz for each eye. it also needs a 3d emitter connection to attach the emitter which times the shutter glasses. it does not need 240hz, but that would be nice to see a movie in 120hz in each eye. The Mitsubishi 3d came out in march, thats when we got ours not april. 60hz by the way is to slow to show 3-d as that would be 30hz for each eye that would be ok but more annoying than 3d.
Riley

huh?

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