OK, I love this television. It is completely silent, cool running, amazing picture (after adjusting the settings properly) and had all of the features I wanted for a price point that couldn't be passed up.
Pros:
* 3 HDMI ports
* Silent even with my ear right next to the set
* Rotatable stand (my wife hates being off center but her chair is far to the left so she can rotate it to face her)
* Decent speakers (get loud enough but nothing mind blowing but not bad either)
* NO BLUE LEDs, infact when the set is on NO LEDs are on at all. Just a small red one for standby which turns off when the set turns on
* Loads of advanced settings available without having to enter into locked service menus.
* Picture is bright in my opinion (not LED TV bright but more than enough for my needs)
* Price (paid 6 c-notes during Fry's easter deal)
* Super fast response time (no lag at all in any games)
* No real burn-in issues even with games being played (after the first 100hr burn-in time where static images were avoided).
* After calibration great rich blacks.
Neither here nor there:
* Touch sensitive buttons on front panel (cool as hell but can be a bit annoying trying to hit a button in the dark).
* USB video and pictures (don't really use this at all)
Cons:
* No bells and whistles (not a con for me but maybe for others).
* Like any shiny TV glare is an issue.
* Settings out of the box leave something to be desired at best.
* Not 3D (once again I didn't want this but for others this maybe a con).
Now with all of that said, if you don't use a good advanced calibration profile this TV can be pretty off on the picture at points (whites a bit yellow, over saturation on certain colors, dim screen etc.). I used the calibration settings posted by blacknoir at the avsforum and then did the picture wizard to tweak it a bit further and the difference is nothing short of incredible. Crisp whites, excellent contrast, skin is the proper color, etc. This set became by far the most natural looking set I have seen in a long time. Now mind you this natural looking set wouldn't sell in stores next to the heavily over exposed settings they use to catch your eye. It wouldn't help if I talked about all of this without posting my settings for you. So here we go.
If I have any comments or explanations I will post them next to the setting. Also, these will not replace the quality of a professional calibration because all panels are slightly different. That being said this will get you pretty close.
Settings used:
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Energy Saving: Off
Picture Mode: Expert 1 (Expert 2 is fine as well, these are just 2 slots to store an advanced profile and access the advanced settings)
Contrast: 77 (will likely change after Picture Wizard but this is a good starting point)
Brightness: 53 (will likely change after Picture Wizard but this is a good starting point)
H. Sharp: 39 (will likely change after Picture Wizard but this is a good starting point)
V. Sharp: 50
Color: 50
Tint: 0
Color Temp: W30 (This setting is hidden to find it, click on tint-->you will get the gray bar at the bottom of the screen to adjust tint-->press the down arrow and there it appears
Now select Expert control
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Noise Reduction: Off
Gamma: Medium
Black Level: Low
Film Mode: On
Color Gamut: Standard
Edge Enhancement: Off
White Balance: Warm
Method: 20 Point IRE
Pattern: Outer
Now comes the IRE part. This part is a bit confusing in how it is implemented. Basically, each time you select an IRE value treat the values below it as a new set of values. Why they did it this way I have no clue. Anyways here are the values (as you will see some are REALLY far off):
Also incase you can't figure it out r=red g=green b=blue.
5 ire r=0 g=0 b=0
10 ire r=-16 g=0 b=-36
15 ire r=0 g=0 b=0
20 ire r=-17 g=-13 b=-34
25 ire r=-9 g=0 b=-37
30 ire r=-6 g=9 b=-29
35 ire r=0 g=0 b=-13
40 ire r=9 g=17 b=-25
45 ire r=0 g=0 b=0
50 ire r=-10 g=0 b=-42
55 ire r=-18 g=0 b=-10
60 ire r=15 g=20 b=-37
65 ire r=-18 g=0 b=0
70 ire r=5 g=30 b=-31
75 ire r=-9 g=9 b=-29
80 ire r=-6 g=19 b=50
85 ire r=0 g=0 b=0
90 ire r=-8 g=16 b=-9
95 ire r=0 g=0 b=0
100ire r=-5 g=0 b=-24
Red color 0
Red tint -1
Green color -6
Green tint 0
Blue color -8
Blue tint 0
Yellow color -5
Yellow tint 11
Cyan color -2
Cyan tint -2
Magenta color -3
Magenta tint -10
There we go. As you can see it will take some work to enter these in. Don't forget after entering these to run the picture wizard to tweak the brightness and contrast and stuff. After all of this you will have an AMAZING lifelike set.
PS: All TVs should have this done because even the best TV makers design their presets to sell the TVs not to have the most natural look (vivid sells in the store but looks like crap at home). LG 50PV450 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV
I've owned this plasma for a week now and bought it in the store for $800 plus tax. Im a videophile and am a picky person when it comes to my tv's. This is the 3rd set ive owned in 2 years. The first was an lg 1080p 55 inch, well that's went south quick because fast moving images would become blocky so I took it back. Then I bought a 32 1080p sony LCD and it the picture looked good somtimes but most of the time it had blotchy colors and terrible shadow details no matter what setting you used, then the screen started to band (dark lines on it). Then I went to samsung LED and the back light bleed in all corners ruined movies for me the tech came to fix it and made it worst, took it back the next day.
Ok so I went looking for a new plasma, which ive heard always made movies look better, and plasmas are favorites by most people who watch a lot of movies. Ive always been scared off by the burn in effect. So after a lot of research I got this one the price and picture was I was looking for. I will say this on the picky side of things for movie lover. The 16x9 black bars you see on most films with not be pitch black, they are VERY close but no matter what ya you do they will be a few shades off. They are even in color and it doesn't bother me compared to the LCD/LED ones that are black in the middle and grey on the ends. Also this tv has some sort of Fluid motion tech built into it, much like 120 hz Lcds have it makes the motion more fluid. No plasmas don't need this because they work differently, but LG must think people want movies to look more life like, but the fluid motion ruins movies and makes them look cheap and make the motions look too fast for their own good. My only complaint is I don't know how to turn this feature off. I see a film mode option, but it wont let me select it?????? The image colors are rich and sharp and if you tweak them you will find what your looking for.
It does have burn in protection options, no problems with any burn in, but im careful and dont leave static images on for very long. Now let me give you a heads up on ghosting/ image retention. Sometimes if you leave for ex: a dvd menu with static images on for about 5-10 minutes and then you go to a dark screen you will seen some of that menu still. DONT BE SCARED, this will go away within a minute and is normal, its just the phospers fading away and as soon as another images comes on the screen it washes all the old stuff off, it will NOT effect the pic quality. So after 2 LCDS AND 1 LED I went to plasma and am finally happy with the sturdy quality of the screen and the 600 hz the tv has to offer, no more shuttery images and back light bleed.'
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