There are high requirements for smooth picture quality, whether it is in the fierce action film or game competition, since it plays a pivotal role in the user experience. It is no coincidence that for those enterprises applying advertising LED screens for product and brand promotion, they have even higher requirements for the image quality presented because the lagging and low-quality images are not only detrimental to the promotion and even additional negative impact on the brand.

Given that, an increasing number of enterprises prefer to choose advertising LED screens that can display smooth pictures. Nevertheless, the screen refresh rate, a vital factor in fast motion processing, has a great relationship with the smooth picture whether the LED display can provide. In most cases, a higher display refresh rate means a more stable screen display with smoother and natural motion.

What is Screen Refresh Rate in LED Display Screen?

Refresh rate can be divided into vertical refresh rate and horizontal refresh rate. The screen refresh rate generally refers to the vertical refresh rate, that is, the number of times the electronic beam repeatedly scanned the image on the LED screen. In layman’s terms, it is the number of times that the LED display screen redraws the image per second. The screen refresh rate is measured in Hertz, usually abbreviated as “Hz”. For example, a screen refresh rate of 1920Hz means that the image is refreshed 1920 times in one second.

What you see on an LED video wall are actually still and slightly different pictures, while the motion you see is because the LED display screen constantly refreshes to give you the illusion of natural motion. Since the human eye has the effect of visual dwell, the next picture follows before the impression of the previous picture in the brain disappeared, coupled with that these images are only in slight differences, the still images are connected to form a smooth, natural movement as long as the screen refresh frequency is fast enough.

A higher screen refresh rate is the guarantee of high-quality images and smoother video playback, which facilitates you better to communicate brand and product information to your target audience and leave a deep impression on them. On the contrary, if the display refresh rate is low, the image transmission of the LED display screen will become unnatural. There will also be flickering “black scan lines”, torn and trailing images, as well as “mosaic” or “ghost effect” displayed in different colors. A low screen refresh rate tends to make viewers visually tired and leaves a bad impression on your brand image.

Industry Requirements for LED Screen Refresh Rate

Generally, in order to present a high-quality picture, LED screen manufacturers provide LED display screens with a refresh rate higher than 1000Hz, and for a high-performance LED display, its screen refresh rate should reach at least 3840Hz. Among the several core components of a LED display screen – LED power supply, LED driver chip, and LED lamp beads, LED driver chip exerts great influence on the screen refresh rate. In the current LED display market, some LED display manufacturers, such as RIGARD, are committed to improving the led refresh rate by integrating S-PWM technology into the LED driver chip. S-PWM technology is the latest technology that improves on the traditional Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technology by breaking down the original once-per-frame count (LED die ON→LED die OFF) into multiple counts on average. By integrating S-PWM technology into the small pixel pitch LED display, the screen refresh rate is increased up to 64 times to 3840Hz and effectively eliminates horizontal black scan lines and uneven color block distribution during high-speed digital camera shooting.

Although high screen refresh rate is highly related to smooth and high-quality images, it does not mean that a LED display screen with a higher display refresh rate will necessarily produce high-quality images, as both the refresh rate and frame rate can affect what you see on your LED video wall. Especially when the frame rate and refresh rate are not in sync, tearing images may occur. Therefore, the screen refresh rate and frame rate are two key factors for enterprises looking for a high-performance LED display.

Hz vs. FPS

The motion is shown by displaying many consecutive still but slightly different images that are called “frames”, and frame per second (FPS) refers to the rate at which new frames are displayed, i.e. how many of these images are displayed in a second. For example, 24fps means that the screen displays 24 images a second.

Frame rate and screen refresh rate are two different things, but people often confuse them. In fact, FPS is determined by the combination of the software or media you use, the central processing unit (CPU), and the graphics card, while the refresh rate is determined by the display screen itself. The screen refresh rate (Hz) does not affect the frame rate of your equipment output, but if your output FPS is higher than the refresh rate, your LED display screen is not able to display all the frames generated by your equipment. That is to say, 60 frames per second source should have an LED display screen that supports a display refresh rate of 60 times per second; otherwise, the action will be blurry and incoherent.

For companies seeking a high-quality LED display, choosing an LED display screen with a screen refresh rate higher than the frame rate is a perfect solution as a high screen refresh rate LED display will refresh the same frame many times over to match the frame rate. For example, if your LED screen with a refresh rate of 3840 Hz is playing a video with a frame rate of 24 fps, the processor will refresh the images 160 times per frame to match the overall occupied 24 frames per second. At such a high LED refresh rate, the human eye cannot perceive flicker in the screen, so the fast action displayed will be very smooth and clear.

Conclusion

Whether you want to use an indoor or outdoor advertising LED screen for branding, video presentations, broadcasting, or virtual filming, you should always choose an LED display screen that offers a high screen refresh rate and synchronizes with the frame rate recorded by your camera if you want to get high-quality images from the screen. The narrow pixel pitch LED display of RIGARD is able to boost the overall screen refresh rate up to 7680 Hz depending on the pixels and size of the screen by building in the latest S-PWM technology. If you are looking for a LED display screen with a high refresh rate, RIGARD LED can be one of your choices.