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Comment by monocasa | Hacker News Reader

You don't typically don't want to switch output resolution to match the resolution of whatever your outputting on modern displays, but instead want to match the panel resolution and software scale the content. You're way too likely to confuse the monitor trying to match resolution. There's something to be said for matching frame rate, but there's even more dragons in that practically.

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Doesn't that depend on how good the implementation is? Some modern TVs and receivers have exceptionally good scaling built-in.

I'd also bet with certain types of displays (eg: OLED, HDR and/or local dimming) there's benefits when there's a different aspect ratio (eg 21:9), letting the TV do something different to the backlight when it knows there there is no content in parts of the display vs getting a black signal.

Actually matching framerates is a lot more common, for example to provide smooth playback of 23.976/24 or 25 fps when the native refresh is 60hz (not cleanly divisible). Usually this is done by going up to 72hz or 75hz rather than down but it's a lot better than keeping at 60hz and stuttering. Previously this was accomplished with something called telecining which.. isn't great.,

Shouldn't the optimal solution be to adjust the display refresh rate using vesa adpative sync these days? No need for shitty interpolation when most panels can run at variable refresh rates.

adaptive sync isn't well supported yet

You can have multiple displays connected to an HDMI hub with different refresh rates. I have this problem with a projector that runs at 240 Hz in a TV that runs at 60 Hz. It confuses my receiver.

Truly modern TVs have much better scaling and frame interpolation than whatever your OS or media player can do.

Most people hang on to their TV for 10 years or way more than that. Expecting people to have truly modern TVs is a crapshoot. Only enthusiasts upgrade to the latest and greatest.

And unless you're a very informed technical savvy consumer who does his research and knows what he's buying, upgrading your TV might end up being a downgrade for you as you could end up replacing a perfectly good dumb TV with a new WiFi "smart" TV that spies on you and serves you ads.

No thanks, modern TVs!

Unlikely. I doubt that state of the art video processing is available in hardware. There are custom finetuned neural upscalers and frame interpolators available for every kind of content.

TVs have software too. My LG OLED gets updates to the upscaling software relatively frequently.

At the cost of seeing the lips move a little after the actor said the words :D

What makes the TV software better than OS software?

Usually software designed explicitly for the hardware where it runs, while OS software is designed to run on general hardware. If there is hardware specific fixes, they might be skipped as it'll make compatibility worse while software designed for exact hardware doesn't make tradeoffs like that at all.

I don’t think the actual hardware components inside a TV are all that different from an SOC because they’re essentially doing the same thing.

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