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Comment by RONROC | Hacker News Reader

No mention of refresh rates, per usual.

I’d like to have a stern word with whatever marketing suit deemed refresh rates in excess of 60 to be a premium feature that only the gaming segment cares about.

Even if this monitor is strictly for editing professionals, there are GoPros and Iphones that shoot @ 120 fps. So I still fail to see why this is not a more important selling point?

A daily driver with a high refresh rate (120+) is like cocaine or calamari: once you’ve had the good stuff, reverting back to the “floor” starts to seem downright offensive.

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>Even if this monitor is strictly for editing professionals, there are GoPros and Iphones that shoot @ 120 fps. So I still fail to see why this is not a more important selling point?

Probably because people use these 120fps to deliver slow motion in regular 24fps/30fps/etc timelines, so they have no need to watch/edit them as 120fps...

Why wouldn’t an editor want to view the final deliverable in 120fps, if that was an option?

I understand there’s no need for it, but have you seen the size of the latest F-150?

To quote Jack Nicholson playing Frank Costello in the Departed:

“I haven't needed the money since I took Archie's milk money in the third grade.

Tell you the truth, I don't need pussy any more either...but I like it.”

Because increasing the display's frame rate makes zero difference on a S&H display for movie playback unless one of the combinations has jank: If you go from viewing 24 fps content on a 60 fps display it's janky, going to a 120 fps or 144 fps display fixes that jank because frames divide evenly. If you watch 30 fps content, it looks almost exactly the same on a 60 fps and a 120 fps display (but going to 144 fps would introduce jank).

Interesting. So if everything is all the same and it doesn’t matter at all, then why have fps in excess of 60? Just because?

> it looks almost exactly the same

What is “exactly the same” to you? And does it mean the same to me? And can we measure it?

> So if everything is all the same and it doesn’t matter at all, then why have fps in excess of 60? Just because?

That is not at all what I said.

> What is “exactly the same” to you?

The different scanout speeds can probably be used to produce slightly differently looking images for 30 fps content on 30/60/120 fps displays. In practice I don't think you'd be able to notice the difference between 60 and 120 fps scanout for 30 fps content.

>Just because?

With regards to display, for gamers, smoother scrolling and UI, and (for video) as an additional marketing specs-box checkmark for suckers. With regards to capture, for dropping in a lower fps timeline to get slow motion.

The GP comment is specifically refering to monitors used for working with video that's presumably already recorded at <=60FPS. That might be an edge case for general users, but for the people forking big bucks for monitors, it's all they care about.

Every high refresh rate LCD that I've seen advertised also has variable refresh rate support. As long as a multiple of the framerate is within the monitor's range, there shouldn't be jank.

Browsers don't use VRR even in fullscreen. But yes - that's the correct and by far best solution on S&H displays and would make it a complete non-issue for all common frame rates (24, 25, 30, 50, 60); alas, software.

>Why wouldn’t an editor want to view the final deliverable in 120fps, if that was an option? I understand there’s no need for it

Well, because "no need, but let's add it in case some outlier is interested" is hardly the way to design mass market products (or even high-end, professional products for that matter). It's more for designing custom rigs, than anything that needs to make money...

> A daily driver with a high refresh rate (120+) is like cocaine or calamari: once you’ve had the good stuff, reverting back to the “floor” starts to seem downright offensive.

I have one such device. Someone could switch between the refresh rates and I would be unable to identify which one is set for what I do. I don't doubt there is a difference, but I'm not going to notice it with how I currently use it.

If you can’t notice your mouse pointer stuttering from one monitor to the next, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Maybe one day you will, or maybe you won’t, or maybe you don’t care. And there’s no right or wrong answer so no shade here.

To me, the difference is beyond obvious and the nefarious bit with the refresh discussion is that this take is sometimes met with incredulity.

And maybe this whole thing is more like an accessibility issue like colorblind options rather than something the general market will actually care about.

Also an under-discussed issue in the refresh rate discourse is how snappy your machine is. If you’re using a ten year old think pad well then maybe that’s it?

You might not notice if you… don't ever scroll anything, I guess?

> 'Even if this monitor is strictly for editing professionals, there are GoPros and Iphones that shoot @ 120 fps. So I still fail to see why this is not a more important selling point?'

While this may be true, almost no one is editing video in 120fps. At most, creators are editing and exporting at 60fps, but 24/30fps tend to be the standard.

Isnt the whole point of the 120fps on your phone/gopro to slow it down 4x to 30fps for that smooth slow motion effect?

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