Match Frame Rate Match Frame Rate and Match Dynamic Range (Match Content)

What Match Frame Rate is

Movies have been shot at 24 frames per second since 1927, RTINGS notes, and most fictional TV is still filmed that way. Streaming boxes, meanwhile, default to a fixed output of 60Hz or more. Match Frame Rate lets the box change its HDMI refresh rate to fit each title. Apple's support page describes it plainly: turn it on and Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD matches its refresh rate to the original frame rate of the content. It matches content encoded at 60, 50, 30, 25, and 24 fps and uses the refresh rate appropriate for your region, such as 29.97 fps for NTSC. Apple also warns that you might see a blank screen or flickering as the television switches between formats.

Apple pairs it with Match Dynamic Range, which switches between SDR and HDR formats the same way and applies to Apple TV 4K only. Both live under Settings, Video and Audio, Match Content. Apple notes that for automatic HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision setup, the TV must display those formats at 60Hz (50Hz in Europe), and that with Match Dynamic Range on the box can show them at 30Hz (25Hz in Europe).

Why 24p on a 60Hz output judders

A 60Hz display refreshes every 16.7 ms, and a 24 fps film frame lasts 41.7 ms, which is 2.5 refreshes. Nothing can show half a refresh, so the converter alternates: one frame for 3 refreshes (50 ms), the next for 2 (33.3 ms). Wikipedia's article on 3:2 pulldown describes the cadence, in which four film frames become five video frames, built from 10 fields. The uneven 50 ms and 33.3 ms frame times are the judder you see on slow pans. A 120Hz output divides evenly: 120 divided by 24 is exactly 5 refreshes per frame, so every frame lasts 41.7 ms. See 24p cadence judder for the mechanics.

RTINGS tests this directly. It plays a 24 fps video through the Apple TV Plex app with Match Frame Rate on, so the box handshakes to a 24Hz signal, and photographs whether every frame stays up for the same time. It also tests 24p through a 60p signal, through 60i, and through the TV's own apps. Its verdict is that judder is not a major problem and most people will not even notice it, and that most modern TVs can remove judder from 24p and 25p sources anyway. RTINGS also shows that handling differs: with 25p over a 60p signal, a Samsung S95F OLED showed frames of very inconsistent length, while a Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED only had every fifth frame darker, which is a smaller error.

23.976 vs 24.000: why the odd number matters

Film runs at 24 fps, but broadcast-derived video runs a thousandth slower. Wikipedia's article describes the standard slowdown by 1/1000 to 23.976 fps, or 24 frames every 1.001 seconds, which lengthens a two-hour film by 7.2 seconds. Content mastered for NTSC-derived video runs at that 23.976 rate, so a box that outputs 23.976Hz shows one video frame per refresh with no repeats. A box locked to exactly 24.000Hz would repeat one frame about every 41.7 seconds against 23.976 content (1 divided by the 0.024 fps difference), a hitch that careful viewers can catch. That arithmetic is why Apple's page talks about region-appropriate rates such as 29.97 and not rounded ones.

Where each platform puts the setting

Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD have Match Frame Rate; Match Dynamic Range is for Apple TV 4K only. On Roku, the setting is Auto-adjust display refresh rate under Advanced display settings. When enabled, the player switches to 24, 25, or 30 fps during playback of most content. Roku adds two limits: it is not available for content in some apps such as Netflix or Hulu, which then output at the same refresh rate, and the picture may flash to black when starting and stopping playback.

Amazon's Fire TV calls it Frame Rate Matching and puts it under Settings, Display and Sounds, Display. AFTVnews reports that it needs the video resolution set to Auto and the matching option set to On, and that it worked on the second-generation Fire TV Cube. Google's support page for Chromecast with Google TV and Google TV Streamer describes Match content frame rate as a setting that allows the device to match the frame rate to the source content, found under Display and Sound, and notes that availability depends on the TV's features.

Match Frame Rate vs QMS-VRR

Matching has a cost: every change of refresh rate makes the TV resync, and the screen goes black. HDMI's own QMS page puts that blackout at 1 to 3 seconds when a new video starts. Quick Media Switching, QMS-VRR, removes the blackout by using the VRR mechanism to change frame rate without a resync, but it needs both source and display to support it and works only when the resolution stays the same. Until your chain supports it, Match Frame Rate trades a short blank screen for even frame timing. That is an easy trade for films. It is a worse one if you jump between a 60Hz menu and a 24 fps title all evening.

Common confusions

It is not motion smoothing. Match Frame Rate removes the need for a conversion; motion interpolation invents new frames. It also does not fix a TV that mishandles 24Hz input, which is why RTINGS tests judder on the TV side as well as the source side. And it does not change dynamic range: that is Match Dynamic Range on Apple TV, a separate switch that causes its own blanking. For box choices that expose these settings, see best 4K streaming device, and for the Apple box in particular, Apple TV 4K.