Hz vs FPS: Why Don’t Your TV Screen and Game Always Sync?

Ever wondered what is the difference is between Hz (refresh rate) and FPS (frame rate) while gaming on your TV?

Do they refer to the same thing, or are they totally different?

Are they features of the TV itself, or do they depend on the game or console?

To be precise, Hz is the rate at which a TV or a monitor refreshes or updates itself with a new frame, while FPS (frames per second) is the rate at which a source like a gaming console or a PC delivers frames to a monitor or a TV.

That said, let’s dive into a detailed discussion of Hz vs FPS and find out what happens when both of them match with each other.

Stick around!

From Signal to Screen: How Your TV Brings Videos to Life!

Frame rate and refresh rate are both linked to how video is created and displayed.

Think of a movie: a camera captures it, and then a TV plays it back, but not in the way most people imagine.

A camera doesn’t record motion exactly as we see it in real life.

Instead, it snaps a bunch of still images (called frames) at tiny intervals.

Those frames get stored, like on film, game graphics, or sent through broadcasts — and eventually reach your TV.

Your TV then shows those frames one after another really quickly.

So what we’re watching isn’t a continuous recording of motion, rather it’s actually a rapid slideshow of images.

But because they change so fast, our eyes blend them together and it looks like a real, smooth video.

Whenever a camera records or a TV shows moving images, it uses something called the “sample and hold” process.

In simple terms, the video is split into lots of tiny samples, basically, individual frames.

Each frame is held on the screen for a short moment before the next one appears.

When all these frames play one after another, we observe smooth, continuous motion.

Now, you might be wondering, how quickly can a camera capture those frames?

That speed is what we call the frame rate (not bit rate), and that’s what we’ll talk about next.

What Does Frame Rate Really Mean for Your Device?

The number of frames a camera records per second while shooting a video is called its frame rate.

Or you can say, it’s how many frames your TV receives from the source every second.

We usually express this as “fps”, which stands for frames per second.

As mentioned earlier, each frame is basically a still image shown for just a fraction of a second.

So, a 60 fps video means 60 frames are captured in one second, while a 30 fps camera captures only 30.

Simply put, a 60 fps camera records twice as many frames as a 30 fps one.

Movies are usually shot at 24 fps, whereas sports and video games often go higher — around 60 fps or even 120 fps.

The higher the fps, the more detail you get, simply because the camera captures more frames.

That’s why high frame rates make gaming visuals smoother and more responsive.So far, we’ve talked about how a video is recorded.

Next, let’s see how your TV displays it.

What Is Refresh Rate and How Does It Relate to The Frame rate?

The number of times a TV refreshes its screen every second is called its refresh rate.

For example, if your TV has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, it means the screen refreshes itself 60 times per second.

In other words, it can pull a new frame from the source every 1/60th of a second.

You can think of it like this, the refresh rate for a TV is what the frame rate is for a camera.

One controls how often frames are captured, and the other how often they’re displayed on the screen.

A higher refresh rate means the TV can display more frames per second, resulting in smoother motion.

But here’s the catch: what if the video itself is recorded at 30 fps, and your TV’s refresh rate is 60 Hz?

That means the TV is ready to show 60 frames per second, but the source only provides 30 per second.

So how does the TV match its refreshes to the incoming frames?

That’s exactly what we’ll explore next.

Should FPS Match Hz?

Ideally, the fps and Hz should match for the smoothest, most responsive performance.

However, in real life, that perfect sync may not always happen.

Your TV has a fixed refresh rate, it doesn’t automatically know what frame rate your content has.

For example, you might have a 60 Hz TV but watch all kinds of content on it, be it a 24 fps movie, a 30 fps TV show, a 60 fps news broadcast, or play a 120 fps fast-paced game.

So how does your TV match its Hz with the fps of all these different types of content?

Let’s take three examples, videos running at 30, 60, and 120 fps and see how they behave on a 60 Hz TV.

• 30 fps content: The video sends 30 frames per second, but the TV refreshes 60 times. To match up, the TV simply shows each frame twice.
• 60 fps content: Both the video and the TV are in sync, 60 frames per second from the source and 60 refreshes per second from the TV. Each frame is shown once, resulting in smooth playback.
• 120 fps content: Here, the video sends 120 frames per second, but the TV can only refresh 60 times. So, it may end up displaying only half of the frames and may drop rest of them, thus losing on some motion details.

Obviously, the second case gives blur-free motion since the source’s frame rate perfectly matches the TV’s refresh rate.

That being said, even with 60 fps content on a 60 Hz TV, the frame rate from the source can sometimes drop slightly.

When that happens, the TV has to adjust its refresh rate again to stay in sync and keep the motion looking smooth.

FAQs

Q. Are Hz and fps the same?

Ans. Hz and fps, though used interchangeably, are used in different contexts. While fps indicates how many frames per second does a source or graphics card sends to a display, Hz indicates the frequency at which the display updates itself with those frames.