Imagine the scene. You sit down with a bowl of chips, an ice-cold soda, and switch on the NBA All-Star Game, the Super Bowl and the Masters all in stunning, uninterrupted, high-resolution TV right from your sofa.

While we wouldn’t recommend watching all three at once – you don’t have to imagine anymore! Advances in technology mean with the right TV, watching live sports at home can be just like the real thing. But what is the right TV? And how do you know if it’s right for the big game? You may know your cornerback from wide receiver, but it’s a whole new ball game when comes to TV jargon like 4K, OLED, backlighting and refresh rate.

Here, we’ll focus on exactly what refresh rate means and how it affects your viewing experience, especially when you’re watching sports.

What is refresh rate and why does it matter?

To understand what refresh rate is, it helps to picture a video as a series of thousands of still images rapidly showing one image and then moving on to the next, like a super-fast slideshow or flip book. On a TV, the refresh rate means how many of those single images it can display in one second. The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the content on-screen appears. That’s because a TV with a high refresh rate can display many more images. The result is more natural, realistic movement on-screen.

So, if you imagine watching a hockey game, a higher refresh rate means you can see the puck as it effortlessly glides across the ice and into your team's net, without it becoming blurred! That is if you’ve taken your head out of your hands.

The best TVs out right now, like the Hisense 85UX and the epic U7K and U8K Series, have a refresh rate of 120 Hz. So, they’re able to display 120 ‘still images’ in a single second. Most TVs have a 60 Hz refresh rate, but at Hisense, many of our 60 Hz and 120 Hz TVs have an adjustable motion rate to make sports, movies and games appear super smooth with minimal blur. But we’ll get to that later… 

The best refresh rate for watching sports

To truly enjoy sports, you want to see every little detail. From the dirt flying off cleats as your star player heads for a touchdown to the fleck of furious spit glistening on the visor of your hockey team’s tough guy – a 120Hz refresh rate can take the picture to the next level.

This is where things start to get a little tricky. Unfortunately, most broadcasters still put out their content at a native 60 Hz, and you can’t add better detail than what’s already been captured.

If your TV’s refresh rate is higher than the frame rate of the content you’re watching, the TV starts to use techy tricks to achieve the higher frame rate. So, a 120 Hz TV showing content at a native 60 frames per second will blend in new frames between the existing ones based on the data in the frames either side of them. That’s 120 frames, but with half generated by the TV itself, meaning for most TVs, the picture won’t look much different – bummer!

Hisense Motion Rate

Even if your TV has a 60 Hz refresh rate, Hisense’s Motion Rate and Motion Estimate and Motion Compensation (MEMC) tech can help make the picture look smoother. With LED TVs, it reduces motion trail by scanning the backlight. Put simply, Hisense TVs with motion rate tech make it look like the screen has an even higher refresh rate. And it’s adjustable, too. We know, we’re impressive – thank us later.

All you need to do is dive into your settings and look out for ‘Motion enhancement’. Once you’re there, you’ll find different settings like ‘Film’, ‘Clear’ and ‘Smooth’ to suit what you’re watching. If you want to go deeper and refine the Motion Rate settings yourself, you can reduce the judder and blur separately to suit your eyes. So, whatever the refresh rate, you’ll still feel like you have that pitch-side seat.

That’s refresh rate in a nutshell – we hope it comes in handy when you’re buying that new TV (and that pop quiz in a minute). Remember, at the moment, no TV stations or shows broadcast in a native 120 frames per second. But if you invest now, when content is finally released in a native 120 FPS, you’ll be among the first to enjoy the best shows on a TV that can keep up the pace.