LG 50PG60 Plasma Television

The LG 50PG60 Plasma Television is one of the sets with a THX display certification. But what does that really mean? Well, THX stands for Tomlinson Holman’s eXperiment. THX was developed by Tomlinson Holman at George Lucas’s company Lucasfilm in 1983 to ensure that the soundtrack for the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, would be accurately reproduced in the best venues. THX certification is basically just a seal that the television can provide a high-quality, predictable playback environment to ensure that any film soundtrack mixed in THX will sound as near as possible to the intentions of the mixing engineer.

However, even with the LG 50PG60′s certification, this is not a guarantee of great picture quality. Why is this? Well, the 50PG60′s blacks are a bit less black and its color a bit less accurate, and the inability to adjust the THX mode makes those defects difficult to address.

But everyone must know, the certification wouldn’t be just given to every device in the market without some good points. The 50PG60 can still produces a commendable picture, and for people who like to tweak beyond a single picture preset, it certainly has plenty of settings to adjust.

Then we have the 50PG60′s design which is absolutely beautiful. Even with its deficiencies, the 50PG60 still presents an attractive package and is easily highest-performance LG display out in the market.

Out of the box, the LG 50PG60 cuts an elegant figure that is a bit different from LG’s other models. The television is ronted by a single pane of glass, behind which appear the screen and the black border around it. Below the screen is a simple angled-back horizontal strip, accented only by the chrome arc of the power switch on the left side. The sides are edged in metallic silver that matches the pedestal on the swivel stand, which is shaped in its own arc mirroring the power switch.

The 50PG60, with its stand, measures around 48.6 inches wide by 33.4 inches high by 14.3 inches deep and weighs 100.7 pounds. Without it, it goes down to 48.6 inches by 31.2 inches by 3.1 inches and weighs 91.9 pounds.

As mentioned, the LG 50PG60′s THX certification is its main selling point in the HDTV market. Like most LG HDTVs, this plasma features a number of picture adjustments to its picture modes. These modes can save your prefered settings independently per input.

The 50PG60 includes a healthy five manual-aspect ratio modes and a sixth that detects incoming content and attempts to adjust aspect automatically. LG chose to call its zero-overscan mode Just Scan, and is very useful with HD content.

LG threw in a variety of settings to combat potential burn-in, such as an all-white screen, an inversion mode that shows colors in reverse, and a pixel orbiter that slowly shifts the entire image around the screen. We also appreciated the three levels of power saving, which limit light output to cut down on the plasmas thirst for electricity.

As for its connection options, the LG 50PG60 includes every jack you’d expect in a high-end HDTV, starting with four HDMI inputs – three on the back and one on the side for easy access. Connectivity is as strong as expected on the LG 50PG60. Two component video jacks, a VGA-style PC input (1,920×1,080 maximum resolution), an AV input with S-Video and composite video, an RF input or antenna or cable, both optical and coaxial digital outputs, and an RS-232 port for custom installation round out the back panel. Another composite video input is stashed on the side panel, along with a USB port for digital photo display and MP3 playback from USB thumbdrives.

As for its performane, the LG 50PG60 does produce a very good picture, but not really as good as most plasmas in this category. The THX mode resulted in relatively accurate color, although it could be improved especially in saturation and shadow detail. False contouring also showed up in some scenes.

One negative bit for this set is its black level. The LG couldn’t come as close to true black in darker scenes – which is a must for a plasma TV. Shadow detail, also appeared less distinct on the LG than on other plasmas.

The LG, however, exhibited excellent primary colors in THX mode, balanced by a somewhat bluish overall color temperature and less accurate color decoding. Also LG showed no problems here on video processing. It displayed every line of 1,080 resolution sources and providing as sharp an image as expected.

With standard-definition sources, the LG turned in an average showing. It removed jaggies from moving diagonal lines to a large extent, but didn’t eliminate them completely. The noise reduction did a fine job of squelching the moving motes and video snow in low-quality shots. Finally, 2:3 pull-down kicked in quickly and effectively.

Via a digital HDMI connection PC performance is as perfect as any 1080p TV out there. With every detail resolved, no edge enhancement or overscan. Via the VGA input the story is similar.

Sources:
http://review.zdnet.com
http://www.my411family.com