Will a 120Hz monitor make video playback better?

[Mano]

i heard it is better for FPS gaming but will it make video playback smoother for like anime/movie which are recorded at 23.98fps?

[Atak_Snajpera]

120 / 24 = 5 . So yes

for example
60 / 24 = 2.5

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Whether the monitor refresh rate is a multiple of the movie frame rate, that is one thing.

And indeed, for 24 fps footage 120 Hz should give a better result than 60 Hz. But a monitor with 24 Hz or 48 Hz would have been just as good, in this regard.

In other words: Using a monitor with a higher refresh rate doesn't "magically" improve the temporal resolution of the source.

(There are some players that can actually interpolate movies to a higher FPS though. Whether you like that "effect" or not depends on personal preference)

[Mano]

how much better would it be? do you think it worth $100-$200 to upgrade from a 22" inch 60Hz to a 23"-24" 120Hz monitor?
i got a deal for a Dell U2711 @ $600 but since my main pc usage is watching video not photo editing so i am thinking between an IPS monitor and a 120Hz which gives better improvement.

[Ghitulescu]

It appears that no PC monitor can accommodate the 23.976fps, just 24 (actually multiples thereof). So one still needs to do the usual tricks for 23.976->24 :)

[Mano]

It appears that no PC monitor can accommodate the 23.976fps, just 24 (actually multiples thereof). So one still needs to do the usual tricks for 23.976->24 :)

sry i am new here but what is the "usual trick"?

[Keiyakusha]

how much better would it be? do you think it worth $100-$200 to upgrade from a 22" inch 60Hz to a 23"-24" 120Hz monitor?
i got a deal for a Dell U2711 @ $600 but since my main pc usage is watching video not photo editing so i am thinking between an IPS monitor and a 120Hz which gives better improvement.
If monitor you have now or that IPS that you want to buy, supports 24hz or 48hz mode, they are better choice than 120hz monitor. Visually there is no difference. UPD: actually using right things to play video (madvr renderer and stuff...) I believe you won't notice any difference even on LCD that doesn't supports 24 or 48 hz mode.

[Stephen R. Savage]

The funny thing is that the refresh rate of monitors is completely unrelated to the number of frames it can actually display per second. Even as displays are being sold as "120 Hz", true response times typically stagnate around 20 ms, less than 60 Hz. TN panels can get <10 ms true response, but they are unsuitable for any graphics or multimedia workflows. The advantage of a 120 Hz display is that it can display both 24 and 30 fps content without pulldown. Seeing as 99% of people can't even notice 3:2 pulldown, this is unlikely to be an important consideration for most users.

As for the "usual" tricks for 23.976 --> 24.000, the video is typically sped up by 0.1% and the audio rate adjusted to compensate. The change in pitch is negligible for this, though the adjustment should be done in analog to avoid resampling artifacts.

[Ghitulescu]

The funny thing is that the refresh rate of monitors is completely unrelated to the number of frames it can actually display per second. Even as displays are being sold as "120 Hz", true response times typically stagnate around 20 ms, less than 60 Hz. TN panels can get <10 ms true response, but they are unsuitable for any graphics or multimedia workflows. The advantage of a 120 Hz display is that it can display both 24 and 30 fps content without pulldown. Seeing as 99% of people can't even notice 3:2 pulldown, this is unlikely to be an important consideration for most users.
Try not to confound the "acceptance" of a video with the "full support". A monitor (it includes here the TV displaying part) may accept anything the electronics can, however, the effects are not immediately sensed. Using 4000fps on a display that has a reaction time of 20ms is perfectly Ok, just that the display cannot display the 4000fps, just a mere 50fps (20 ms). The "phosphorus" should be able to keep it's luminescence for 40 ms (25fps) but suddenly, and by changing its chemical properties, it must change its properties and light only 2ms for 500-600 ms. Like in Matrix, one can bend the natural laws to suit his own preferences. Wow!!!!! We are the Masters of the Universe. Harry Potter, Matrix, Batman? Pick a choice....

Do you notice this?

Don't know, quality is personal. And most patents filed in A/V are just "cheating" the senses. From the 5cm tweeters of Bose that supposingly cover 10-20000 Hz (using reflections and resonators) to 600Hz TVs that fully and perfectly represent 24Hz. All compression algorithms are based on senses' weaknesses. All of them.

[hello_hello]

i heard it is better for FPS gaming but will it make video playback smoother for like anime/movie which are recorded at 23.98fps?

The idea being that 120 is an even multiple of 24. So each frame will be "repeated" the same number of times.
When the refresh rate isn't an exact multiple of the frame rate frames are still "repeated" but not evenly, which can result in some motion (such as a camera pan) to appear to "judder" rather than look smooth.
Depending on the speed of motion though, video can still fail to look completely smooth even if the refresh rate is an exact multiple of the frame rate because 24fps isn't always fast enough.
There's examples on this page (you'll need to download them):
http://www.spirton.com/convert-videos-to-60fps/
If you look at the "original file" on a 60hz display you'll probably see the camera pan at the beginning appears to "judder". Theoretically on a 120hz display that judder should disappear but if I remux the same video at 30fps and play it on my TV it does disappear however the camera pan still isn't completely "fluid".
Basically if you're not constantly bothered by judder when watching video now a 120hz display mightn't be an exciting upgrade. I see it occasionally, but not enough that it's a real problem.

If you're using a PC for playback there's a program called ReClock which a lot of people use to speed 23.976fps video up to 24fps to match the video card's refresh rate. It'll also slow Pal video down to 24fps etc.