240Hz or 120Hz? LED or LCD?

Basically you just hit upon two very over used terms that fall under marketing hype more than any actual superiority. Lets take the 240Hz verses 120Hz first. This is refresh frequency or how fast what you see on the screen gets redrawn in a second. While it might seem 240Hz would be vastly superior to 120Hz since it is twice as fast, the reality is the human eye can only detect changes to a certain point. I'll assume you spend a fair amount of time watching movies on the big screen. Well guess what, movies are shot at 24 frames a second, did you notice any problem in any high speed action scenes while at the theater viewing the movie on screens many feet tall and much wider? No you didn't. Some people claim to see a difference between 240Hz and 120Hz, but alas they're mostly BS'ing themselves. The reality is 240Hz sets cost around $100 more, BUT they've probably tweaked other things beside the refresh frequency which makes it an apples and oranges type question. The bottom line you can get a bad 240 Hz set and a good 120 Hz set. If you can compare side by side in the stores.

LCD and LED is a similar issue image and quality wise. There's minor differences, but none to really worry about. There can be striking difference between LCD/LED and plasma which seems to be a sore point with some posters here. Both are good, check out both.

With either 120 Hz or 240 Hz, you avoid judder from 2:3 pulldown. Film is 24 fps, and is evenly divisible in either. Not so with 60 Hz, so 24 fps film must be telecined to match, either by the TV or rendered beforehand in software. Digital video shot at 30 fps has no judder. Look up "telecine" if that's not clear. (Let's leave aside the actual numbers as applied to a TV's vertical scan frequency, viz: 23.976, 29.97, 59.94.)

No doubt there are those here who can expound upon the differences between 120 hz and 240 hz display. I'll leave it to them. To me, the absence of judder is the most important thing. I'm unconvinced that a 240 Hz set will be automatically better than a 120 Hz set, but it seems lots of folks think so. Hey, it's more, so it must be better!

As to LED vs LCD, I have one of the former and two of the latter. The LED does not produce nearly as much heat, and supposedly (!) will far outlast the LCD cfl lighting on the LCDs. An edge-lit LED will also typically be much slimmer, and more energy-efficient.

However, since most LEDs are edge-lit, they are prone to uneven backlighting. My own 65" LG 65LW6500 (120 Hz) has it, but it's only noticeable momentarily when changing input. I have a *very* hard time spotting it when actually watching a movie. Read some of the dedicated threads (like the one on the LW6500) and you'll see a number of people have returned their sets because of it. I don't consider it a deal-breaker, but there you are.
Edited by fritzi93 - 9/19/12 at 8:51am

First Sony is not going anywhere when it comes to the tv buisness and they have ended their partnership with LG.....That comes directly from Sony themselfs. That being said pay more for 240hz, trust me you will notice the difference I sure did when I replaced my out of date Sony 46V5100 and it was 120hz. Lastly go with LED. I am glad I did. It uses less energy, dont run as warm and and most importantly the PQ is amazing. Some Edge Lit sets do suffer from light bleeding or clouding. With my Sony HX750 I have none of those problems.

I'm curious of something. The original poster said his tv died after 3 years. I bought my Sony last year, and I've seen others say that Sony's tend to diminish quickly. Now I'm worried I went the wrong way worth my ht. Should I be worried about my tv crapping out on me after a couple of years??

Probably not. Just for what it is worth (not much) I've seen quite a few saying Sony is getting out of the tv business. While looking at tvs at Sears the salesman told me that both Samsung and Panasonic were agressive is pushing their brands, came by often, but he hasn't seen the Sony guy for over six months. I never had a Sony tv, but have a Sony A/V receiver and higher end camera and both performed well and still are (knock on wood), but years ago when I got the camera the lens cap was missing you need to thread some cord through a slot which is explained in the manual. I called Sony "service" up to ask for the missing part and was treated very rudly all but being accused of lying with Sony almost standing on a stack of bibles swearing the part had to be in the box and either I couldn't find it or lost it. All that for a .20 cent part at best.

I had a Panasonic 50 inch plasma for almost 8 years, about 35,000 hours on it, gave it to a charity still performing in tip top order after all that, never once had any problem with it. So my experience, plasma sets seems very stable.

So.. the point of your story would be that I'm ok then?? Don't mean to sound rude, I just want to be certain that I'm understanding you right, . Thanks for the reply, too.

I would think so. I have many relatives, friends, neighbors, I can't recall any of them bringing up any problems with their plasma or for that matter LCD or LED sets either. These days most electronic devices are quite stable unlike the "good old days" just going back to the 80's, 70's, when it seemed much more frequent that a power supply would fail.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest unless you're unlucky, any flat panel if it is going to fail likely will in the first month or less. Of course sooner or later (typically years) any electronic device will fail and repair these days is often nothing more than switching circuit boards, not actual replacement of parts on scene.

I can remember when I was a kid we had a big screen tv, back then a 27 inch was "big" and it was all vacuum tubes. If the set went out, I'd pull the back off the set, pull the tubes, run down to Walgreens which then had tube tester machines in the drug store, just find the bad tube, replace, and you're were all set for awhile. Now I'm showing my age. I can remember further back in the early 50's one of my aunts was the first on the block to have a tv. A great big box with a little 10 inch round screen. Black and white of course. That thing broke every few months. :-)
Edited by BillyBoyBlue - 10/2/12 at 10:08pm

Thanks much BBB, I've heard a couple times people mentioning Sony sets crapping out after a few years, so it got me really worried. Your post lessened my worries a lot, so an honest thanks!!

I wouldnt believe everything you here Chris about Sony sets "crapping" out after a few years. I have had Sony products for years and I have never had an issue with them. My KDL46V5100 that I replaced had a few issues such as the sound going out which was no big deal due to I never use tv speakers anyway and I had an HDMI port go out but that was it. Otherwise I have had zero issues knock on wood. Any electronic devise can have issues no matter what company makes them, your either lucky or unlucky, you get a lemon or you dont. Its a risk like buying a car. But trust me Sony isnt the only company that has had some issues with their products. Samsung, Panasonic, LG ect all have had them no matter what some poeple may say or think. But again Sony aint going anywhere when it comes to the tv buisness and that comes from a Sony rep themselves. A Sears rep told me the same thing they told BillyBoyBlue that they hadnt seen a Sony rep in 6 months and I just wonder why that could be? Could it be that Sears themselves aint doing well in the retail buisness period? They are being forced out by Target and Walmart and just look at their parking lots and you will see it. So maybe Sony is jumping ship before it sinks.

Thanks much for the further confidence boost Steve, I appreciate the time to chime in about it. Makes me very confident about my set. Cheers, my friend!

You missed the big point in this discussion. An LCD display, even if lit by an LED, only displays half the resolution during motion in a shot. Plasma displays, by and large, don't share this shortcoming. LCD's get around this by going from 60Hz to 120Hz scan rates and above. In general, not all 120Hz displays are cracked up to be true 120Hz displays. Without reference to a specific sets test results, an LCD set with a 240Hz display should deal competently with motion resolution issues.

I strongly recommend that you consider a Panasonic or Samsung Plasma set if you want the best display out there. But LCD's are still the top choice if you must view the display in a very brightly lit area.