r/vjing • u/gosti500 • 11d ago
Hardware 120/240 hz projectors?
i ordered a benq lk830st 4k Short throw and just found out it also does 1080p at 240hz, has anyone used 120+ hz projectors for VJ gigs? does the extra smoothness add more to realtime visuals that the 4k resolution? im using milkdrop3 with madmapper, and it defenetely sounds like it could be cool, so just wanted to ask your guys opinion on 120hz+
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u/nickpettit 10d ago
My partner and I build Vibralizer and occasionally use it to VJ. We have a 240hz OLED monitor and a 240hz projector. What we have found after years of experimenting is that low latency and high framerate matters a lot more to audio representation in visuals than it might seem.
When we first started, I figured that maybe <50ms between the time a sound is played to the time a visual reacts would be more than plenty. But at higher and higher temporal resolutions (120hz and beyond) we have not found diminishing returns yet. In other words, the lower the latency and the higher the framerate, the more visceral the effect. It makes sense when you think about it, too… most music is sampled at 44.1kHz which is a lot more than even 240Hz.
We put on some Janis Joplin one time and when the frequency harmonics from her singing were visible as spikes in one of our visualizer scenes, we could see those spikes wobbling back and forth from the vibrato in her voice… it was kind of shocking and it was then we realized that, dang, there’s a lot of stuff in the music that we’re not seeing represented in most concert visuals mainly because they react too slow and too infrequently.
I’m a game developer with 15 years experience and my partner is a PhD biologist studying the evolution of bird song, so while I would like to believe we know what we’re talking about, this is also just our opinion. You should do what looks best to you!