Black: 0.000
White: 25.57

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: Unmeasurable

The above readings were taken in the Expert1 Picture mode with the Backlight on 24, the Contrast on 70, and the Brightness at 52. Little need be said about the full-on/full-off contrast ratio. Our meter will not read anything less than 0.001 foot-lamberts, and the LG’s full-screen black level was too dark to trigger a reading. However, when you turn local dimming off, the black level rises dramatically to a mediocre 0.032 ft-L. For additional details, plus a list of the settings used for this review, see the online version at HomeTheaterMag.com.

The Color Tracking charts show how well a display adheres to the D65 standard white point; the tighter the overlap of the three primary colors, the nearer the result is to D65. The Before Calibration chart was taken in THX Cinema mode. This mode was a bit more accurate than the (also respectable) uncalibrated Expert1 mode (not shown). In THX Cinema mode, the Delta E was under 3.33 from 20 IRE to 90 IRE, and 3.9 at 100 IRE. Delta E is a figure of merit that shows how close the result is to the standard D65 white point. Most experts recommend a value of 4 or less, which suggests that the eye cannot distinguish any improvement below this level. Some experts recommend no more than 3 for a visually ideal result.

The After Calibration result was taken in the Expert1 mode, with its full set of calibration controls. With the Color Temperature on Warm, I performed a full two-point calibration, then fine-tuned the result using the 10-point adjustments. The final color tracking was one of the best we’ve seen from any video display, with a Delta E of less than 1.4 at three points and less than 1.0 elsewhere.

The BT 709 setting of the Color Gamut control positions the color points to within a hair of the positions called for by the BT 709 standard (also known as Rec. 709 or ITU 709). No help was needed from the set’s CMS controls.

The measured brightness of the individual colors was a little hot in red and slightly down in green and blue. The color-filter control indicated that while the decoding in blue was good, red and green were slightly off. Nevertheless, the LG’s overall color accuracy, post calibration, was excellent.—TJN