It is unclear whether this is just another marketing ploy or if there is actually a market behind extremely high refresh rates. 

Nevertheless, LG Display announced today that the company has developed a 480Hz LCD TV panel.  The new display, dubbed "Trumotion 480Hz," will boast a four-millisecond response time and an unprecedented 480 image refresh rate per second.

In terms of innovation, the new display will be powered by a scanning backlight technology that enables a backlight to be repeatedly turned on and off to reduce motion blur.  However, only by combining the company's scanning backlight technology and its 240Hz technology is the display actually capable of producing a 480Hz refresh rate.  Additionally, energy consumption can be reduced by adjusting the backlight brightness.

The panel is expected to debut at CES 2009 in just over a week's time.  Retail availability is planned to hit in the second half of 2009, but as usual, we're expecting other big LCD players like Sony and Samsung to reveal  similar technologies that may drive up the competition factor.