LCD TV Reviews

Setup & Tests
The Cinema preset picture mode was actually pretty close to optimum. I had to slightly increase Brightness and Color, and Contrast had to be decreased a few clicks, but the Tint and Sharpness controls were right on the money. Sharpness defaults to a value of 50, which exhibited no ringing—white outlines around black lines of a gray background—but increasing it by just one click induced obvious ringing.

Of course, I wanted to try out the 10-point calibration system, so I selected one of the Expert modes and had at it. Actually, I calibrated the set using both the 2-point and 10-point systems to see how much the results differed. I was able to get the grayscale fairly close with the 2-point system, but the 10-point system nailed it as you can see in the Measurements section.

The black level was fairly high, even with the backlight turned down so that the peak-white level was comfortable in a dark room. According to my visitors, this is because LG uses LCD panels based on in-plane switching (IPS) technology, which trades black level for a wider viewing angle. By contrast, most other LCD TVs use vertical-alignment (VA) LCD panels, which produce better blacks at the expense of viewing angle.

I started my testing with the Spears and Munsil test HD DVD (unpublished) at 1080i via HDMI. The TV's processor picked up 3:2 pulldown instantly, and it's performance on 2:2 video was also excellent. As I was turning RealCinema (film mode) on and off, I noticed that the onscreen control displays the incoming cadence (3:2 or 2:2 in this case), another nice touch.

Turning to HQV Benchmark on HD DVD, I found that the set's single noise-reduction control was quite effective, though the High setting softened the picture somewhat. Jaggies were invisible. The video resolution-loss test took a moment to lock on, but it was solid after that.

On the other hand, the film resolution-loss test didn't fare quite as well. With TruMotion frame-interpolation off, the set took a moment to lock onto the 3:2 cadence, then it was pretty solid with only a hint of shimmering at the left edge of the high-frequency vertical bursts. Setting TruMotion to Low, there was some flickering in the high-frequency vertical bursts and smudging in the low-frequency horizontal bursts, and both got worse when TruMotion was set to High. On the plus side, the detail in the bleacher seats during the pan across the stadium definitely improved with TruMotion on.

Looking at the HQV Benchmark DVD at 480i via component, jaggies were very mild in the rotating and oscillating bars, though somewhat worse on the waving flag. Noise reduction was very effective without softening the picture, even on High. In fact, detail was surprisingly good overall. On the downside, the TV seemed to have a bit of trouble with 3:2 pulldown in this case—it kept falling in and out of sync. And 2:2 video was not great, with some shimmering on the coffee cups in that clip.

TruMotion really sharpened the motion detail on the FPD Benchmark Blu-ray test disc. There was some slight smudging in the high-frequency horizontal burst of the scrolling monoscope pattern, but it wasn't bad, and there wasn't much difference between the Low and High settings. Brightness gradation was generally excellent, as was differentiation in the mostly black and mostly white shots.

The mostly black shots are killers for LCD off-axis performance, and the 47LG60 was no exception. However, the rise in apparent black level as I moved away from the centerline was not quite as bad as others I've seen recently. Still, I wouldn't want to watch this TV from more than 30 or 40 degrees off axis.