The **refresh rate** (measured in Hz) of your TV or monitor truly affects how smooth the video plays. **4K movies** look amazing, but without the right gear, you might feel a bit let down when you watch them. Though the refresh rate is just one part of video quality, it really **counts**!

For watching movies, 4K at 60Hz is slightly better. However, neither 30Hz or 60Hz will be perfect for films shot at 24fps. On the other hand, movies shot at frame rates of 48 or 60fps will always look better on a 60Hz display.

The relationship between these different factors can be a little tricky to understand, but I’ll explain everything down below. 

Also read: Is It Worth Getting A 4k TV?

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Before you can really grasp why 4K at 60Hz is better, you’ll want to have a solid understanding of the various terms, including:

4K and 30Hz (or 60Hz) are connected, but they describe two different things. 4k is an image resolution of (4096 x 2160), whereas 30Hz and 60Hz describe the refresh rate of a television screen. The number behind the Hz will tell you how many times a 4K image gets updated on screen in one second.

The smoothest videos occur when the frame rate of the video source matches the refresh rate of the screen(and any connected hardware). 

4K at 60Hz is only slightly better than 30Hz in cases where the movie’s frame rate is 24fps. In both cases, the TV makes adjustments to fit the lower frame rate. 60Hz is ultimately better given that the screen is refreshing twice as fast as the 30Hz display, which makes for smoother playback.

4K is still 4K regardless of the refresh rate of the display and the frame rate of the film. Higher frames do dramatically change the quality of the image, but 24fps is the standard for movies as it looks the most “cinematic.” Only a handful of movies have been shot at higher frame rates. 

For other reasons, 30Hz, 60Hz, and 120Hz are standard for TVs, so TVs frequently need to adjust to accommodate videos at 24fps. Here is a comparison:

Most modern TVs play movies at 60Hz by default, but many of them also have settings that enable you to customize the refresh rate. 

If there is no additional hardware between the video source and the TV, you only have to worry about the TV’s refresh rate. However, if you have a media player connected, you want to make sure that the cable running to the TV supports 60Hz. Usually, you need an HDMI 2.0 cable. 

As I mentioned above, you want the refresh rate to match the video’s frame rate. When these two don’t match, the TV has to adjust, and it usually does so by duplicating frames on the playback. Here’s what I mean:

To avoid a stutter in the playback, you would need to adjust your TV’s refresh rate down to 24fps or buy a TV that supports 120Hz (24 goes into 120 evenly). 

Other times, TVs use a trick called motion interpolation to fill in space between frames rather than duplicate them. Essentially, the TV is inserting artificial frames based on the surrounding frames to get the frame rate to match its refresh rate. 

This feature is very off-putting for a lot of viewers and is often referred to as the “soap opera effect.” The TV attempts to make a 24fps film look like a 30fps or 60fps video, which some say resembles a soap opera. 

When we’re talking about 30Hz vs 60Hz, this has less to do with the actual clarity of the image and more about its consistency. 

When the refresh rate doesn’t fit nicely with the incoming frame rate, you might experience skips or stuttering. Frame rates that are higher than the refresh rate produce a lot of skips because the TV can’t fit all of the frames. 

With higher frame rates, the TV is forced to duplicate or triple images to match the refresh rate, but the actual 4K resolution should remain more or less the same. 

In some cases, the difference in refresh and frame rates might create a slight blur, and TVs that utilize motion interpolation appear blurred in some spots, particularly in slow-motion scenes. 

Any hardware that connects between the source of the video and the TV or monitor will affect the final refresh rate. 

For example, you might have a TV or computer with a 60Hz refresh rate and a 4K film with 60fps, but if the cable in between the two doesn’t support 60Hz, the playback will be capped at the cable’s max. In some cases, you may not get any playback. Graphics cards and CPUs are other limiting factors. 

If you are really trying to achieve the highest video quality, you should look out for films that have been filmed at or converted to higher frame rates (48fps or 60fps). However, you’ll need a television and supporting hardware that can support 4K and higher frame rates. 

Films typically aren’t filmed at high frame rates because the image is almost too good. The images are hyper-realistic in a way that oddly makes them look surreal. 

These high frame rates don’t bother some viewers, but for others, the video quality might completely take them out of the movie. 

If you are trying to play a 4K movie, particularly one with a frame rate of 24fps, playback will generally be better with a 60Hz display over one at 30Hz. While 60Hz displays still need to adjust for the frame rate, they refresh the image twice as fast, so everything appears smoother. For films with higher frame rates, you will need at least a 60Hz display. 

That said, you’ll need to make sure that any supporting hardware you have supports 60Hz. Otherwise, the final playback will only be as high as the weakest component.