Sony to Introduce Quadruple Frame Rate LCD-TV in November

On November 10, Sony will introduce a 46-inch LCD-TV with a frame rate of 240 Hz, the world’s first. The set will sell for about ¥400,000 in Japan. That compares with on-line U.S. prices in the vicinity of $2300 for the company’s high-end KDL-46XBR4 with 120Hz frame rate.

Motion blur remains the Achilles heel for large-screen HDTVs relative to plasma and OLED (if there were any large-screen OLED-TVs to worry about). The problem has two sources. The first is cell-response time, and tremendous progress has been made with that. The second is the sample-and-hold nature of LCD addressing, which would produce motion blur even if cell response were instantaneous. The current approach is to reduce the hold time, which is done by fabricating extra frames between the 60 frames your digital broadcaster or cable company sends to you each second. Today’s high-end sets double this basic frame rate and give you 120Hz. That certainly reduces motion blur but doesn’t eliminate it, and 120Hz LCD-TVs do not do as well as a good 60Hz plasma on motion blur — as LG’s plasma unit delighted in demonstrating at last year’s Flat Panel Display International.

So the next step is 240Hz. I look forward to seeing how effective Sony’s implementation is, and to finding out how Sony gets the liquid-crystal material to respond quickly enough to make the quadruple frame rate meaningful and how it creates three fabricated frames for each "real" frame with unique content that comes down the pipe.

By Ken Werner, DisplayDaily