The Visio TV you got is a pretty good TV especially for the price and when I'm ready for a new TV I'll also get one with a 120hz refresh rate. However, the in-laws got a Sanyo 42" 1080p from Walmart with a 60hz refresh rate because it only cost $548. When I watch this TV I see none of the issues that many associate with the 60hz refresh rate.
The picture looks really great for movies and even looks great for faster moving action like football games. I sometimes wonder if the 60hz vs 120hz issue is overrated. Aren't the TV signals transmitted in 60hz?
No, not really. You can get an interlaced signal of 1080 lines at 60, which is really 60 fields per second, making 30 frames per second. Or 1080 progressive at 24 or 30 Hz, or 720 progressively scanned lines at the same frequency, plus a real 60 progressive frames per second. See below for all combinations under ATSC.
What matters is how the program was originally recorded. You can look up "pull down" to read about how a device
displaying at 60 Hz has problems with something recorded at 24 fps.
ATSC DTV Formats (18)
Vert-lines....Pixels........Aspect Ratio........Picture Rate
...1080........1920..............16:9...........60I...30P...24P
....720........1280..............16:9...........60P...30P...24P
....480.........704..........16:9 & 4:3.......60P...60I...30P...24P
....480.........640...............4:3............60P...60I...30P...24P
Previously we had channels 2-83
In 2004 we had channels 2-69
We now have channels 2-51
