Are 50hz displays still a thing?

[JoostinOnline]

I remember back when analog connections were standard, 50hz was normal for PAL regions and 60hz for NTSC. I never see anyone here talking about 50hz monitors. Did that die with analog (or something else), or is it still a thing?

[APasz]

Pretty much.
I haven't seen one in many many years.

[porina]

Monitors weren't tied to the TV refresh rates. Even in those days I think I was running the highest supported between the display and GPU, typically 75 Hz but memory might be off on that.

 

I just looked up the model I had, the Sony Multiscan SF II 17". It support up to 120 Hz, but I don't remember using anything that high. At a certain point it had to go into interlaced mode so I had to operate below that. I still have it in my store room and occasionally think about digging it out for some retro feels.

[Princess Luna]

Monitors aren't TVs to begin with.

[porina]

I looked further in my monitor manual, dated 1995. My memory wasn't that far out as standard modes it supported included:

640x480 @ 60 Hz

800x600 @ 85 Hz

1024x768 @ 75 Hz

1280x1024 @ 60 Hz

 

I think I was running 1024x768 as the clarity of the image degraded at 1280x1024. So even then, 60 Hz was a base standard. It looks like to run at its maximum of 120 Hz you'd have to create a custom resolution at 640x480 or lower to achieve that. I don't think I ever tried.

[.Apex.]

28 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I remember back when analog connections were standard, 50hz was normal for PAL regions and 60hz for NTSC. I never see anyone here talking about 50hz monitors. Did that die with analog (or something else), or is it still a thing?

Both of my monitors (75Hz and 60Hz) can be tuned down to 50hz, it's not officially a thing It would be difficult to find a monitor that is listed as 50Hz but I think a lot of them can do 50Hz, you can even make a custom resolution if it isn't supported out of the box.

[mariushm]

The TV broadcast standards used 50 Hz and 60 Hz  in order to make manufacturing of TVs easier ... the AC frequency was used as timing, to simplify circuitry inside the TV and make them cheaper.

Some of the earliest computers used TVs for display and RF outputs, moving later to composite,s-video, then cga, ega, vga... 

 

By the time ega and vga was a thing, the price of components got low enough that it was possible to have variable refresh rates.  Majority of computer CRT monitors supported wide range of refresh rage, from something like 48 Hz (24 fps interlaced) to 160+ fps.

The peak Hz was limited to the performance of the RAMDAC of the video card (digital to analogue converter) and how fast the electronic circuitry in the TV was ... so for example, you could have 1024x768 at 85 Hz, but you could have 320x240 at 200 Hz ... as long as the bandwidth is below what the RAMDAC on the video card can do, and the tv can pick up, it would work.

 

The 60 Hz was kept for backwards compatibility but higher refresh rates were implemented because it was determined 60 Hz can cause eyestrain, headaches and other issues because of the fluctuations of light intensity on the CRT screen. People determined that  75-85 Hz was the sweetspot where majority of people no longer notice that flicker, that fluctuation in brightness that cause eyestrain or headaches.

This was not a problem with TVs because TVs were much bigger and usually sit further from your eyes, and the resolution is much lower (720 x 480 or 720x576)

 

When LCD monitors (and plasma monitors) were invented, this refresh rate thing was no longer an issue, because once you set a lcd pixel on or off, the pixel doesn't have to be "refreshed" constantly to maintain the brightness as it was the case with CRT monitors.  So there's no eyestrain, no headaches, no need to update the panel at least 75-85 times a second.

If you're watching a movie, it's enough to update the lcd panel 24 times a second or 30 times a second and it would work perfectly fine - in fact a lot of LCD monitors actually support 24 or 30 Hz refresh rate.

The industry decided to stay with 60 Hz, because this way the factory that makes LCD panels for monitors can also make LCD panels for TVs, which have to update 60 times a second, because that's what your TV broadcast sends, 60 frames per second.

 

[porina]

5 minutes ago, mariushm said:

People determined that  75-85 Hz was the sweetspot where majority of people no longer notice that flicker, that fluctuation in brightness that cause eyestrain or headaches.

This was not a problem with TVs because TVs were much bigger and usually sit further from your eyes, and the resolution is much lower (720 x 480 or 720x576)

I had forgotten about this until you mentioned it, but they used different phosphor characteristics in TVs than monitors designed to operate at higher refresh rates. The phosphor keeps emitting light for some time after it is activated and this contributes to the appearance of a constant image. With a fixed 50 or 60 Hz, this is easy to tune. On a monitor with variable refresh, you don't want a long persistence as image changes would get blurry. So it has to be tuned for the upper end of the refresh rate. At the lower end, it is then shorter than ideal, and flickering might become a factor.

[circeseye]

actually there are. at least in tv's. someone posted about some tv's (europe area i believe) and they were all 50hz/100hz instead of 60hz/120hz

 

heres one thats 50hz
https://www.zkelectronics.com/tv/lg-50um7600plb/uk/

[mariushm]

@circeseye  All of those also support 60 Hz, for bluray playback, playing videos from usb sticks or network, connection to PC etc etc...  the 50 Hz is just the default broadcast refresh rate in the countries where the monitor is sold.