A face in the crowd?

Korea-based LG, which absorbed Zenith a few years back, is one of the world’s largest flat-panel HDTV manufacturers. The company is working on some exciting new stuff, including plasmas that meet the new THX video specifications. LG will also produce LCDs that employ local dimming, a technique that improves the black level and contrast of LCD sets. Some of these models will be in stores by the time you read this, or by the fall season.

The 42LG60, at $2,500, is a more conventional 1080p LCD display. The set offers no THX massage or local dimming. But it does offer intriguing features like the 120-hertz refresh rate that’s almost universal on sets with upmarket aspirations.

The Big Red One
The 42LG60 ships with its stand detached. This is a bit of an inconvenience since a minority of flat-panel owners wall-mount their sets. It takes just a few minutes to attach the stand (unless you turn it backwards as I initially did—the round side goes in front!). The stand also offers a useful range of manual rotation.

You can’t mistake the look of this LG with another flat-panel set. It the front, the glossy black frame is wider at the bottom than most flat panels. This retro style accommodates an oversized, illuminated LG logo. You can disable both the logo and the little tune the set plays when it powers up.

The back panel is finished in a bright cherry red. Once the shock wears off, you’ll see an input panel that includes three HDMI 1.3 connections, two component, and an analog VGA (RGB) PC input jack. There’s no S-video input, but I never missed it. While most of the jacks are on the back panel, a small, side-mounted panel features the set’s only composite A/V in, an additional HDMI 1.3 connection, and a USB jack for viewing photos or listening to music stored on a USB flash drive.

The set provides both coaxial and TosLink digital outputs. This feeds the audio from the set’s onboard ATSC and NTSC tuners to an external audio system. The display’s onboard audio sounds a shade better than what you’ll hear from most flat panels, particularly in its decent voice reproduction. Still, it’s no revelation and doesn’t like high playback levels.

The 42LG60 includes eight selectable picture modes. One of them is aptly called Intelligent Sensor. With Intelligent Sensor, “the most suitable picture is automatically adjusted according to the surrounding conditions.” You can use the other seven modes as supplied, or you can adjust each one individually.

The Expert picture modes offer unusually flexible color adjustments. The Expert white-balance adjustments in the user menu provide high and low settings for red, green, and blue, or 10-point adjustments. There’s also an Expert mode color-management system in the user menu that offers individual color and tint controls for red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, and magenta. Oddly, the owner’s manual doesn’t discuss either of these features in detail.

The code-programmable remote can control three components, apart from the TV itself. It’s nicely arranged and easy to use, although it has no backlighting and does not allow for direct selection of inputs. On the plus side, the colorful onscreen input menu highlights only those inputs that are currently connected to sources. You can label the inputs from a limited list of optional names.

You also get password-protected parental control, closed captioning, a sleep timer, and auto shut-off. The only common feature that’s missing is picture-in-picture.

The 42LG60 is also equipped with SimpLink, LG’s version of HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control). HDMI CEC is available from most set manufacturers under various proprietary names. This feature provides integrated control of system components that are linked together by (at minimum) HDMI 1.2. But HDMI CEC, under any name, can be trouble-prone if the components don’t all come from the same company. LG claims that SimpLink will operate with other LG components that wear the LG SimpLink logo.

Love Hz
TruMotion is LG’s name for its 120-Hz motion-smoothing feature. When TruMotion is off, the display simply repeats each frame in a 60-frame-per-second (60-Hz) source five times. (Interlaced sources are first deinterlaced to 60 fps.) When TruMotion is on, it adds interpolated frames to convert 60-fps sources to 120 fps (120 Hz). TruMotion first adds 3:2 pulldown to a 24-fps source to convert it to 60 fps, then adds the interpolated frames to achieve 120 Hz.

However, frame interpolation has side effects that you might not like. I will discuss these side effects later on in this review.

Performance
The LG’s video processing performance is among the best I’ve seen. When it converted standard-def sources (480i) to the panel’s native 1080p resolution, it turned in good to excellent scores, over both HDMI and component. The only exception was the waving-flag test, where critical viewing revealed some jagged edges. When I asked the LG to convert high-definition 1080i sources to 1080p, it tripped up only once, with slight moiré on the brick Vatican walls in chapter 7 of Mission: Impossible III. Otherwise it ranged from good to excellent. The 42LG60 demonstrated optimum deinterlacing on film- and video-based 1080i material and properly handled the 3:2 pulldown with 1080i film-based sources.

The set’s color performance was excellent, even when I didn’t use the user menu’s 10-point color temperature option and CMS. I did most of my viewing and other tests in the Cinema mode. I adjusted its settings as needed and calibrated the set’s white balance/color temperature in the code-protected service menu. Fleshtones looked completely natural, except when they were altered by the variations common in program material. Greens were thankfully less Crayola-like than you’ll see on most digital HDTVs.

At first I found the picture to be creamy-looking in a way that will please most viewers. But I also got the sense that the display was smoothing out subtle detail. This was more evident with standard-def material, even when I used a good upconverting player to externally convert the source to 1080p before I routed it to the display.

Once I fiddled a little more with the setup, the results improved. The Sharpness control operated in an unusual fashion. At low settings, it significantly softened the image. Then, around a setting of 30 (out of a maximum of 100), it started to add edge enhancement without first passing through a zone of natural sharpness. A setting of 40 proved to be the sweet spot on the review sample.

Standard definition now looked fine. It looked a little less crisp than the best I’ve seen, but it was perfectly acceptable. On high-def material, the LG’s resolution more than held its own. While Legends of Jazz: Showcase (Blu-ray) was just a gnat’s hair shy of the crispness I’m used to on this very familiar disc, no one could call it soft. I could clearly read the label on the AKG C 414 microphone in the Dave Valentin cut “Obsession.” And I had no complaints at all with the detail on Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut, one of the best-looking Blu-ray releases of the past year.

False contouring was rarely an issue. Off-axis viewing looked average for an LCD. I wasn’t particularly impressed. It’s OK if you’re sitting on a couch 10 feet or more from the screen, but the image starts to fade when you move further off to the side.

The 120-Hz TruMotion feature virtually banished motion lag and smear. In doing this, it appeared to soften the picture slightly and make film-based material resemble video. Both of these side effects are common to motion-smoothing features I’ve seen on other 120-Hz sets. You may find this an acceptable trade-off for the motion benefits. For me, it made the movie look like the editor lost the film and produced the final cut from a 60-fps HD video used on-set for a quick replay of each take.

The one unresolved issue I have with the 42LG60 is the persistent nemesis of LCD displays: poor black levels and mediocre shadow detail. However, among recent sets I’ve tested, the LG was well below average. It was inferior in this regard to the much less expensive Sceptre and Westinghouse displays we took a look at in July’s “Warehouse Wonders” story.

I experimented extensively with the Backlight, Black Level, and Fresh Contrast controls, and that did help. A Backlight setting of 15, Black Level set at Low, and Fresh Contrast turned off produced the best numbers. With these settings, the image did not look unacceptably dim in a darkened room. But the picture lacked punch, and many viewers would find it too drab and flat-looking at those settings. A Backlight setting of 25 and Black Level and Fresh Contrast set at Low perked things up considerably without being over the top. But some bright programming did look a little too vivid with Fresh Contrast engaged, even in the low setting. The high setting always looked processed and over the top to me. Fresh Contrast also crushed the blacks, but a couple of upticks in the Brightness setting (with Fresh Contrast set at Low) easily solved that problem.

With these settings, the 42LG60’s black-level issues were rarely evident with mid- to high-brightness programming. Since the eye uses the bright part of the image as its reference, it can’t judge blacks well on bright material. When the dark areas of the image start to dominate, the dark and black areas on the LG were a medium gray. The low-level details looked washed out, and the picture looked like the action was taking place in a light fog. The tough belowdecks scenes at the beginning of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (DVD) were not convincing at all.

Conclusions
With its excellent video processing, fine color, great color adjustability, and good detail, the LG is poised for the LCD wars that rage in the aisles of video retailers.

But it needs one additional weapon to prevail. Its blacks need to be deeper. Without that, this otherwise solid performer doesn’t stand out from the crowd.

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Letztendlich ist aber der eigene Geschmack ausschlaggeben. Bevor man billig Plasma TVs kauft, einfach in den Laden gehen und den Flachbildfernseher raussuchen, der einem das beste Bild bietet. Dann hat man später auch den Besten.

I'm so jealous.

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Bis jetzt hat es diese Reihe nicht gegeben, was auch der Grund sein dürfte, warum sie bei so vielen Leuten beliebt ist. :lol:

Dieses Werk ist unter einer Creative Commons-Lizenz lizenziert.

Wie zB letztens, als ich das Gespräch dreier Freunde mitbekommen habe, die alle schon an die 30 Jahre alt gewesen sein dürften. Die haben sich doch tatsächlich darum gestritten, wer den größten und besten Flatscreen zu Hause stehen hat!! :) Ich sage ja nichts, wenn das pubertierende Jugendliche sind, aber in diesem Alter noch so kindisch?

A propos Flatscreen - dazu gibts in Kürze einen Post.

Webtipp für Multimedia: Quelle Online Verand

Viel Spaß.

From Microsoft:

With Windows XP, ClearType delivers improved font display quality over traditional forms of font smoothing or anti-aliasing. ClearType improves readability on color LCD displays with a digital interface, such as those in laptops and high-quality flat panel displays. Readability on CRT screens can also be somewhat improved.

Use this online tuner to turn on and tune your Windows XP ClearType settings. If you experience problems download the Windows XP PowerToy version of the tuner. Please note that the online tuner does not currently work with Windows Vista.

Shiny black 46in tellies look silly on a kitchen worktop, while humping one into the bedroom requires a small crane and a team of haulage experts. Sounds like you need a portable flatscreen – not one of those 14in CRT monstrosities found in caravans and kids' bedrooms, but the Bravia B4000 series.

Now in less eye-squinting 20, 23 and 26in guises, they're the perfect size for a second telly – or a main one, if you can touch all four walls of the living room from your couch. With a built-in handle, they're also worthy of the name 'portable'.

White and 'mocha' flavours help them blend in around the house, and there's been no skimping on the features. HD-readiness, virtual surround sound and Sony's visually pleasing Bravia Engine are all on board, plus Freeview to banish the need for a set-top box.

There are also two HDMI slots for your movie and console needs, and you can even give your green halo an extra buff: they draw a miniscule 0.7W in standby. If only Max and Paddy had found one before they nicked that plasma.

From Stuff.tv

Is there a guideline or regulation governing monitor type and suitability for school use? I want to buy flat screen models but my board have opted for the cheaper CRT models. Is their any scary reports I can quote to back up my preference?