Refresh rate describes how many times per second a television's screen redraws its image, measured in hertz, or Hz. A television with a 60 Hz refresh rate redraws the picture 60 times each second, while a 120 Hz set redraws it twice as often, which can make fast motion, such as camera pans or on screen movement in games, appear smoother.
Refresh rate is closely tied to frame rate, the number of unique images per second in the source content itself, and to gaming features such as VRR, which lets the display's refresh rate match a game console or PC's changing frame rate rather than staying fixed. A higher native refresh rate on the television is generally needed to take full advantage of high frame rate content or fast paced gaming.
Marketing terms describing motion beyond the native refresh rate, sometimes using much larger numbers, usually refer to internal image processing rather than the panel's true refresh rate, so checking the native Hz figure is more reliable when comparing televisions. Our refresh rate and gaming guide explains what to look for.
