LG has revealed the existence of a new high-speed technique for increasing the refresh rate of LCD screens, ostensibly to make motion appear more fluid. The process, dubbed "Trumotion 480Hz", works similarly to the 120Hz interpolation many sets now offer, and the 240Hz system announced for some recent models. Normal video content is usually at either 24 or 30 frames per second. Those speeds are fine for most on-screen motion; our eyes don't notice the individual frames, creating the illusion of motion. This starts to fail when things are moving very quickly, as the changes between frames become greater, making objects appear to jump about on-screen.

All these interpolation modes try to guess what's going on between the frames and draw a series of images that compensate for the big "jumps" fast-moving objects make. The faster the screen updates, the more of these interpolated frames the set can display, and in theory, the better the picture should look. The problem is that it just doesn't seem to work as well as it should; reviewers have criticized the lack of picture-quality improvement with both 120Hz and 240Hz modes.

There's still a chance that LG's Trumotion will deliver some genuine improvement; the tech also claims to be able to reduce ghosting, a blurring effect caused when pixels don't change states quickly enough. The 480Hz systems will use a modulated backlight that will only illuminate the pixels for fractions of a second at a time, like a high-speed strobe light. If this works like LG claims, it could lead to a sharper picture and potential energy savings. We'll withhold judgement until there are some first-hand accounts with the tech, coming to LG models in late 2009.

This story around the web: