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Refresh rate, VRR and motion smoothing: what the Hz number hides

Published . 7 min read

The Hz number printed on a TV box is usually not the panel's refresh rate. "Motion Rate 120", "120Hz CMI" and "Motionflow 960" are processing labels sitting on top of a native panel that is often 60Hz, and TCL paid $2.9 million to settle a class action over exactly that practice.

Two separate numbers get collapsed into one. Panel refresh rate is hardware: how many times per second the display can draw a new image. Frame rate belongs to the signal on the cable: how many images the console, PC or streaming box actually produces. Feed a 120Hz panel a 30fps game and you are watching a 30fps game.

The brand names are multipliers, not measurements

Every large manufacturer has an in-house motion figure. None is a refresh rate.

BrandMarketing termReported relationship to native panel Hz
SamsungMotion RateDisplayNinja reads "Motion Rate 120" as a 60Hz set simulating 120fps
LGTruMotion, renamed OLED Motion or Motion Pro on OLEDsa doubling: 60Hz reads 120Hz, 120Hz reads 240Hz; in some countries LG stopped printing it
SonyMotionflow XRa marketing index; "MotionFlow 960" is one published example
TCLCMI, Clear Motion Indexreported as 4x the actual refresh rate
HisenseMotion Ratereported as 2x or 4x the actual refresh rate

Sony is the weakest row: its own Motionflow article would not load during research, so treat those multipliers as secondary reporting.

Two lawsuits do the work vendor marketing will not. TCL settled a California class action for $2.9 million covering purchases from April 24, 2016 through December 31, 2021; under the deal "TCL must refrain from labeling new TCL-branded television models as '120Hz CMI' or '120Hz Clear Motion Index'" for four years. Preliminary approval landed July 19, 2022, and sources conflict on the final-approval date, so this article prints none. A separate proposed class action, case 1:22-cv-03509, was filed against Samsung on April 29, 2022 naming the TU7000, AU8000, NU7100, NU6900, NU6950 and QNQ60TAFXZA as sold at "Motion Rate 120" on 60Hz panels. That is an allegation; its docket status is not something to take from any article, this one included.

In the shop, look for a spec field that says "refresh rate" rather than a branded motion index, and expect to need a review that measured the panel, because manufacturer pages routinely omit the native figure. If the only Hz number is glued to a trademark, it is a multiplier.

Panel refresh and input frame rate are separate problems

A fast panel gives you headroom; it does not create frames. What good electronics add is the ability to change refresh rate on the fly to match the source. That is variable refresh rate, and the HDMI Forum's wording for it is far more modest than the marketing around it. VRR "enables a gaming source such as a console or computer to deliver video frames as fast as it can, which in many cases is slower than the normal static refresh rate," and it "reduces or eliminates lag, judder and frame tearing for more fluid and better detailed gameplay." Without it, a source rendering 47fps into a fixed 60Hz display must either tear or hold frames unevenly.

ALLM, Auto Low Latency Mode, is the companion. The source flags that it is sending game content and the display drops into low-latency picture mode by itself; HDMI describes it as allowing "the ideal latency setting to automatically be set." It works only if both ends implement it.

"HDMI 2.1" on a spec sheet guarantees neither

The HDMI Forum released version 2.1 on November 28, 2017, raising bandwidth "up to 48Gbps" and adding VRR, ALLM, QMS, QFT, Dynamic HDR and eARC, supporting "8K60 and 4K120".

Here is the part that costs people money: those features are individually optional. TFTCentral made it concrete on December 13, 2021, after a 24.5-inch 240Hz Xiaomi monitor shipped ports badged HDMI 2.1 carrying only HDMI 2.0 level bandwidth and none of the new features. The licensing body's position: a manufacturer claiming 2.1 need only "state which features the device supports so there is no confusion," and devices "should not claim compliance to v2.0." Version 2.1a, reported December 23, 2021, added Source-Based Tone Mapping, which allows "a portion of the HDR mapping to be performed by the Source device in addition to tone mapping done by the Display."

HDMI 2.2 lifts the ceiling to 96Gbps and carries "uncompressed full chroma formats such as 8K@60/4:4:4 and 4K@240/4:4:4 at 10-bit and 12-bit color." It wants a new Ultra96 cable. 2026 testing-lab coverage puts early adoption in professional gear, while "mainstream consumer devices, such as televisions, set-top boxes, and laptops, remain largely reliant on HDMI 2.1 or its predecessors." No TV timeline is firm enough to quote.

Ignore the version number. Look for an explicit VRR claim, an explicit ALLM claim, and a stated 4K 120Hz capability on the port you will use.

G-SYNC, FreeSync and Adaptive-Sync

Three certification programs attack the same tearing problem, and overlap.

ProgramOwnerWhat the badge means
Adaptive-Sync Display CTSVESAVESA's "first publicly open standard for front-of-screen performance of variable refresh rate displays": 50-plus criteria; AdaptiveSync Display for gaming, MediaSync Display for "jitter-free media playback". v1.1, May 16, 2023
G-SYNC and G-SYNC UltimateNVIDIAAn NVIDIA G-SYNC processor is physically inside; both tiers are "Certified +300 Tests"
G-SYNC CompatibleNVIDIANo NVIDIA silicon. Validated third-party panels giving "a good, basic variable refresh rate (VRR) experience for tear-free, stutter-free gaming"
FreeSyncAMDTear free, low flicker, low latency, over HDMI or DisplayPort
FreeSync PremiumAMDAdds "At least 120Hz refresh rate", "At least a Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution", and Low Framerate Compensation
FreeSync Premium ProAMDAdds HDR capability and game support, with low latency kept in both HDR and SDR

Adaptive-Sync is the oldest branch: VESA folded it into DisplayPort 1.2a on May 12, 2014, promising "smoother, tear-free images for gaming and judder-free video playback." AMD announced its three tiers at CES on January 9, 2020. Trade press reports AMD has tightened those minimums since, but no revised figure could be confirmed on amd.com, so the table states the 2020 thresholds.

Low Framerate Compensation removes the failure people actually notice. Below a panel's minimum VRR refresh, sync breaks; LFC duplicates frames instead, keeping the panel inside its window. A 40fps game on a 60Hz to 144Hz display runs at 80Hz, each frame drawn twice. That alone justifies Premium over base FreeSync.

How Low Framerate Compensation pulls a 40 fps game back inside a 60 Hz to 144 Hz VRR window A single horizontal rate scale running from zero to 144 Hz. The stretch below 60 Hz is drawn as an open dashed box: a source rate landing there falls under the panel's VRR floor and sync breaks. From 60 Hz to 144 Hz is the shaded VRR window. A game rendering 40 fps sits in the broken region. Low Framerate Compensation draws each of those frames twice, so the panel refreshes at 80 Hz, which lands inside the window. An arrow runs from the 40 fps mark to the 80 Hz mark to show the doubling. Low Framerate Compensation on a 60 Hz to 144 Hz display LFC draws each frame twice below the floor, sync breaks VRR window 60 Hz to 144 Hz 40 fps game renders 80 Hz panel draws Without it, a rate below the window breaks sync. LFC duplicates real frames instead, and nothing is invented between them. It ships with FreeSync Premium, not with base FreeSync.
The doubled frames are copies of real ones rather than interpolated inventions, so the doubling changes nothing about how the picture looks; it only keeps the panel inside the range where sync still works.

For a television, take the vendor-agnostic route: hardware G-SYNC modules do not ship in TVs. Samsung's 2026 OLEDs show it working. The S95H and S90H are validated G-SYNC Compatible and "support refresh rates up to 165Hz", the S85H "supports up to 120Hz", and the same sets carry AMD FreeSync Premium Pro.

Monitors show how far the marketing runs. G-SYNC Pulsar launched on January 7, 2026, pairing VRR with backlight strobing across four 27-inch 1440p 360Hz IPS models from $599, and NVIDIA claims "perceived effective motion clarity of over 1,000 Hz" at 250fps. That is a strobing claim, not a panel spec. It belongs in the same drawer as Motion Rate.

Interpolation and the soap opera effect

Interpolation invents frames. TechTarget: "generated frames are inserted between the original frames of a video," calculated from the real frames either side.

On live sport it passes, because the source was captured fast. On film it grates. Cinema runs at 24fps, and "from years of watching movies and television filmed at lower frame rates, our eye expects a certain amount of motion blur and time between frames." Strip that out and the picture reads as daytime video.

Judder itself is arithmetic. A 24fps frame lasts 41.67ms; a 60Hz display refreshes every 16.67ms. The ratio is 2.5, so 3:2 pulldown holds some frames for two refreshes and others for three, and slow pans wobble. Run the same film at 48Hz or 96Hz, clean multiples of 24, and every frame occupies an identical slice of time with nothing invented to fill gaps.

Four film frames laid across a 60 Hz panel and a 48 Hz panel, drawn to one time scale Three stacked timelines sharing one horizontal time scale. The top row is the source: four film frames at 24 fps, each lasting 41.67 ms. The middle row is a 60 Hz panel, which refreshes every 16.67 ms. Because 41.67 divided by 16.67 is 2.5, no whole number of refreshes fits one film frame, so 3:2 pulldown holds frame 1 for three refreshes, frame 2 for two, frame 3 for three and frame 4 for two. Ten refreshes cover four frames, and the block boundaries drift away from the dashed lines that mark where each film frame actually ends. The bottom row is a 48 Hz panel, a clean multiple of 24, where every frame gets exactly two refreshes and every block boundary lands on a dashed line. Blocks are numbered by the film frame they show, and the fill alternates to match. Film source 24 fps, 41.67 ms 1 2 3 4 3 refreshes 2 refreshes 3 refreshes 2 refreshes 60 Hz panel 16.67 ms refresh 1 2 3 4 2 refreshes 2 refreshes 2 refreshes 2 refreshes 48 Hz panel multiple of 24 1 2 3 4 41.67 ms does not divide by 16.67 ms. The ratio is 2.5, so 3:2 pulldown holds some frames for three refreshes and others for two, and slow pans wobble. Dashed lines mark where each film frame really ends. 48 Hz and 96 Hz are clean multiples of 24, so no cadence is needed.
The 60Hz row is 3:2 pulldown drawn in time, and the 48Hz row is the same film with no cadence left to apply. Interpolation attacks the same arithmetic from the other side, by inventing pictures instead of repeating them.

Pick a position and keep it: off for film and scripted drama, on for sport if you like the look. Gaming has a structural reason to leave it off. The processor cannot calculate an intermediate image until the following real frame arrives, so it sits on frames it already holds. Game mode, which ALLM triggers for you, exists to skip that queue.

What a console actually needs

DevicePortOfficial output specCaveat
PS5 and PS5 ProHDMI 2.1"4K 120Hz video output", plus 1440p; 8K on the ProPro 8K needs "8K at 60Hz with Display Stream compression output"; "VRR is disabled during 8K output"
Xbox Series X1x HDMI 2.1"True 4K", "Up to 120 FPS"Spec page lists ALLM, HDMI VRR and AMD FreeSync
Xbox Series S1x HDMI 2.1"1440p", "Up to 120 FPS"Targets 1440p, not native 4K, whatever the TV does

Sony's page puts the VRR switch under Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > VRR. Two figures that travel with it do not survive checking. The 48Hz to 120Hz VRR window traces to 2020 coverage, not Sony's current documentation, and so does the report that the PS5's HDMI port runs near 32Gbps rather than 48Gbps, forcing 4:2:2 chroma subsampling at 4K120 HDR. Nothing current confirms that still describes PS5 Pro hardware.

A PC adds three requirements a console does not: a GPU that sustains frame rates above the panel's VRR floor in your actual game, a cable and port with bandwidth for your resolution, refresh and bit depth, and a sync technology the display truly implements.

Which is where the flagship figures land. LG's page for the 65-inch OLED C6, $1,999.99 down from $2,699.99, prints "165Hz Refresh Rate" under the footnote "PC with 165Hz graphic card required," and lists NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium. Samsung's 65-inch S95H asks $3,399.99 and headlines "Motion Xcelerator 165Hz" with no native panel figure on the page. No console reaches either number. The 65-inch Neo QLED QN80H at $1,599.99 is the sane console buy, though even it is sold as "Motion Xcelerator 144Hz" and its page never spells out HDMI 2.1, VRR or ALLM. Confirm those three before you pay.

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