Audio/Video Chat → Can't get Roku 2 XS to display 120Hz but only 60Hz

I can get my 55" 1080p/120Hz Insignia to display 120Hz off my Philips Blu-ray on a Blu-ray HD movie.

On the other hand I can only get my Roku 2 XS to display 1080p at 60Hz and not 120Hz at all.

How do I get 120Hz out of the Roku 2 XS???

You won't. It supports 1080P, which is 60hz.

Depending on the TV, it likely doesn't even support 120hz input (many 120 hz TV's do not). 120hz is a display function. The TV takes the input and processes it to 120hz. Which depending on the source material, can improve "quality".

You don't get 120hz out of the ROKU, nor any other device.

As far as I know (and somebody can correct me if i'm wrong and point me to one) there are no commercially available video devices that output a 120hz video signal.

No ROKU's, DVD players, Blurays, VCR's, Cable boxes etc. actually output 120hz.

60hz is the standard.

120hz is a measurement of how fast your tv display panel can redraw the picture it is receiving.

It really has to do with frame repeating in certain multiples.

Since movie content that is captured on film at a rate of 24 frames per second ( the standard for film) you can see that when displayed on a television that works at 60hz there is a problem. 24 does not go into 60 evenly. So as has been done for years is to do an uneven frame repeating scheme known as 3:2 pulldown. so it goes like this, 3,2,3,2,3,2,3,2....... with one frame being repeated 3 times then the next frame two times, and then the third frame is repeated 3 times and so on.

So each frame gets repeated unevenly which introduces a choppiness when viewed on a TV.

Now with the advent of BluRay players and discs along with TV's that are capable of different screen refresh timings (60hz, 120hz, 240hz and 24fps) it is possible to produce a smoother image from that original film.

24 frames per second film works with a 120hz tv much better because 24 goes evenly into 120. 5 times to be exact. so each frame is repeated 5 times. so it goes like this 5,5,5,5,5,5,5....

What is even better than using 120 hz with a 5 frame repeat is to have a TV that displays at 24z so that there is NO frame repeating and you get film like smoothness.

Most bluray players have settings for output at 24, 30 or 60, but not 120.

When you say that your Phillips bluray is playing at 120hz on your Insignia TV when watching bluray disc what is really happening is the very thing I already explained. That is that the player is outputting a 24frame signal. The TV is responding by repeating each frame five times which equals 120hz.

So to recap, 120hz is a measurement of a displays panel ability to redraw or refresh the screen and not a measurement of signal output by video source equipment. Also faster does not always mean better, as I pointed out with bluray material, 24 is the magic number.

it does not cease to amaze me the constant marketing gimmick pitched to naive consumers.
just around the time HD ready LCD/PLASMA televisions started to enter the market, sales associates would gimmick the customer into thinking that anything they connect to the television would be in HD.

Yeah...

"120Hz", "240Hz" "320Hz" etc

9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999:1 contrast

"LED TV" (should be "LED Lit LCD TV", only true OLED TVs should be advertised as "LED TV", IMHO)

BoulderHill1 you have answered my question with great detail. Thanks.

basically what they all said. the TV itself is 120Hz but the source is not. The TV will insert frames to make motion look more smoothly. It's basically upconverting it to 120Hz by adding frames to the source information.

i've never seen a source that can output at 120Hz. then again I've never seen a TV that can handle 120Hz as an input either.