Great USB C to HDMI Cable Adapter for this Christmas

Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas on the way. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday just passed, the Christmas atmosphere seems to have arrived. Now you can see that most stores have put up Christmas trees, Christmas balls, bells and other decorations, and many Christmas gift boxes have been launched early. We can also find many Christmas songs re-entering Billboard music charts, this week All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey has ranked third.

Thinking of the happy hour of a family reunion, we have dinner together, chat together, relax by the fire and watch a Christmas-themed movie together, wouldn’t it be wonderful and laid-back? Here, we have a USB C to HDMI cable adapter that is just right for you to connect your laptop and TV, and spend a perfect Christmas night with your family.

 Why is a USB C to HDMI cable?

Back in the day, many people commonly used an HDMI to HDMI cable to display audio or video files from a PC to a TV. However, with the continuous advancement of laptop technology, most well-known laptop manufacturers like Apple, Dell, and Lenovo have opted out of HDMI ports on most laptops.

Although this brings a problem to the traditional way of playing media files on the bigger screen, it does not mean that you have to completely give up the idea of video casting. The USB C to HDMI adapter helps easily solve this tricky situation by supporting the connection to the laptop on one side (USB C) and the TV on the other side (HDMI), allowing for a more immersive video experience.

 How to choose a great USB C to HDMI cable?

There are two main types of USB C to HDMI cables on the market, 4K 30Hz and 4K 60Hz, which refer to their supported maximum resolution and refresh rate. 60Hz is higher than 30Hz, is 60Hz better? This is correct theoretically, but the actual situation will be more complicated.

Generally, people use TV to watch TV shows or movies. Most TV shows are filmed at 30 frames per second (fps), while most movies are filmed at 24fps. Some footage with lots of fast motion, particularly sports events, may look better at higher frame rates like 60fps because the unnatural motion blur is eliminated. So you only need a TV with a refresh rate of 30Hz to watch most content. This means that the USB C to HDMI 4K 30Hz cable is enough for you to watch TV.

Now the refresh rate of new TVs will generally reach 60Hz or 120Hz. While they will look identical when watching TV shows shot at 30fps, TVs with faster refresh rates are generally better at handling motion when watching movies shot at 24fps. Why is it so? Please keep reading.

 How frame rate and refresh rate affect your video experience?

Frame rate is how many frames or pictures the video source can display per second, expressed in fps, while refresh rate refers to how many frames your screen can display per second, expressed in Hz. The refresh rate determines the upper limit of the final picture. For example, a 120fps video displays on a 60Hz monitor, only 60 frames can be displayed at most. The extra frames cannot be displayed, and you may experience screen tearing and blurring in the video output. The organic combination of the two can make the display more comfortable. Therefore, to reduce motion blur, your TV’s refresh rate should be equal to or greater than a video’s frame rate.

However, the problem comes when you want to watch a movie on a 60Hz TV, the problem comes. This is because most movies are shot at 24fps, which is not a good divisible of 60, so a 60Hz TV has to alternate between adding 3 and 2 frames in-between those 24fps to produce the picture.

This is a method called "3:2 pull-down" to match the refresh rate to the frame rate. To do this, the TV will display one frame twice and then the next frame three times. Since the video displays some frames longer than others, you might experience slight judder when watching a movie on a 60Hz TV. This effect can make motion look jerky, and it can also cause the video to play slightly slower than it should, though many don’t notice it all.

On the other hand, if you’re watching a movie on a 120Hz TV, it just needs to display each frame five times, that is, adding 5 frames in-between those 24fps (5:5 pull-down), which means the movie will retain the look that the filmmaker intended. And while there is not much 120fps content, some movies and video games do use high frame rates.

Therefore, although 60Hz TVs are good enough for watching almost any video without any problem, 120Hz TVs are usually better for playing video games and watching native 24fps content.

 Conclusion

In short, the current mainstream 4K HD TV shows are still filmed at standard 30fps, and most new TVs have HDMI 2.0 inputs, which limits your video sources to a 60Hz refresh rate. Adding frames by Pull-Down technology does not effectively improve the picture quality, but it is easy to cause a negative look of tearing and blurring.

A 4K 30Hz USB C to HDMI cable can limit the refresh rate of the TV display to 30Hz, offering a smoother viewing experience. Granted, the 4K 60Hz cable can also achieve 30Hz by reducing the refresh rate via the laptop, but if you have price consideration, a 30Hz cable is sufficient.

Imagine that on a cozy Christmas night, the family gathers together to watch a classic Christmas movie, such as Home Alone, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Polar Express, Love Actually, etc. I bet it will be a perfect Christmas!