LG 60PZ950 Plasma TV - A Blacker Shade of Pale

The Smart 3D Connection

As things have been for a while, Panasonic, Samsung and LG are the only three plasma display panel (PDP) makers left standing in the industry. Question is, however, how long can plasma televisions sustain their reign in the HDTV market? Panasonic has stopped plasma panel production at one of its Amagasaki plants recently besides banishing 1,000 employees from its workforce. This may be a simple move to reduce redundancies, but it does not bode well for the plasma faction on the whole. On the other hand, while LCD TVs still command a larger share in global television sales, this does not imply PDP models do not offer a competitive edge of their own. For instance, PDPs are considerably cheaper than LCDs at larger screen sizes which gives them the retail advantage for consumers looking to secure a bigger television display. That said, LG revitalized their HDTV line-up earlier this year with improved 3D and Smart TV features. One plasma model which marries these two traits is the flagship PZ950 - a 60-inch PDP that promises both smooth 3D images as well as 2D to 3D conversion on the fly. Will its relatively affordable price tag of $3999 lure consumers back into the big black plasma web?

This mammoth display still bears the hallmarks of active-shutter technology, unlike LG's recent FPR (Film Patterned Retarder) asset as seen in their LED-based Cinema 3D models. At the heart of the PZ950 is a standard 600Hz sub-field drive panel, powered by LG's recent 3D XD Engine. A PDP panel works very differently from LCDs so don't get too excited about LG's 'lightning fast' 600Hz ratings. To put things into perspective, a typical 60Hz source is processed by the TV which fires approximately 10 pulses per frame. Technically, this amounts to 600 pulses, or 600Hz as rated for most premium PDPs. Similarly, a slower 8 pulse-per-frame rating would yield a sub-field drive of 8 pulses x 60 frames, or 480Hz. These rapid pulse rates also ensure a PDP panel is less prone to image ghosting and motion blur. Moving on, the PZ950 boasts some new additions as well, and that includes LG's "TruBlack" filter designed to minimize screen glare and enhance black levels. Apart from its Smart TV credits, the PZ950 is also one of the few 3D models in the industry which boasts of a THX certification and THX picture presets. It all sounds deliciously sumptuous on paper, but can it deliver ultimately? Hit that jump if you want to know more. 

Design

Before we discuss its aesthetics, we would like to emphasize that this set weighs almost 45kg (including its stand). If you don't wish to break your back, it's best to assemble this 60-inch display with some assistance. That said, LG continues its 'one sheet of glass' implementation here; a design which made its first appearance with last year's INFINIA range. While it may boost contrast levels by a fair bit, this layer of plexiglass is also guilty of augmenting the PZ950's weight and reflective nature. Measuring about an inch thick, the inner bezels are observably chunkier than Samsung's recent '+1' design. On the other hand, transparent rims along the PZ950's perimeter do lend the TV a nice contemporary vibe. And as with most of LG's premium sets, a row of touch-sensitive controls are present in place of hardware buttons. While this model isn't small by any means, the panel is still able to swivel on its rectangular plastic-top stand, which is rather hefty by itself.

Connectivity

The majority of analog and digital ports are congregated behind, including two component inlets and two HDMI ports. The breakout panel by the side holds two of the remaining HDMI and USB ports, as well as a composite input. On that note, you'll have to make the necessary space allowance for wall-mounts if you plan on using the rear-facing jacks. LG has made little changes to their remotes since last year's INFINIA release, so you can expect the same wieldy remote with generously-sized directional keys. One useful item in the PZ950's package is the Magic Motion Remote. In our opinion, this wand is an indispensable accessory since it facilitates the Smart TV experience with its convenient gesture-controlled navigation. As for its active-shutter glasses (model S250), they are somewhat clunky, but feels relatively light when worn. They are rechargeable, and pairs with the TV via an RF (Radio Frequency) signal instead of IR (Infrared). According to LG, the S250 is supposed to last up to 40 hours with each full charge.

Features

The LG LV3730 and LW6500 have passed through our way before. Although they are both LCD models essentially, they do share a similar Smart TV platform as the PZ950 PDP. As such, we won't rehash our opinion on the TV's multimedia and Internet features, but feel free to visit both links to find out more about our experience with their Internet suite. As it stands, LG's integrated web browser is yet unable to support embedded Flash 10 content, although the TV does support Flash 8 (or below) and HTML5. According to LG, future updates are planned for in the pipeline. What's noticeably different with the current Smart TV package, however, is the final availability of LG Apps. For those who aren't in the know, the Koreans' app store wasn't ready following the PZ950's launch earlier this year. At a glance, LG has a wide array of news, gaming and entertainment apps to offer. Although they have a handful of video streaming apps available, LG has yet to secure any video-on-demand (VOD) partnerships with the local ISPs, such as rival Samsung's venture with Singtel.

In terms of picture presets, the PZ950 is armed with ten whopping choices including the THX Cinema and THX Bright Room modes. Since they are pre-calibrated settings, do note that you won't be able to edit the picture settings with these two selections. 

Calibration - Spyder3TV Report

To maintain a standard across our review units, we calibrated the LG PZ950 with Datacolor's Spyder3TV Home Theater Color Calibration kit prior to our visual tests. This is to ensure we assess the HDTV based on optimal display settings and not on visual estimation alone. Using the TV's Standard preset, we've also disabled all the necessary enhancement features.

Here are the recommended picture settings after calibration - Brightness: 40, Contrast: 81, Color:54 and Tint:1. Black and white luminance values were rated at 0.098 cd/m2 and 102.571 cd/m2 respectively. Compared to Panasonic's VT20S, LG's PZ950 achieved marginally darker black luminance levels although the VIERA did fare better in terms of white luminance readings (130.224 cd/m2). Despite the aid of their TruBlack filter, LG will have to work just a little bit harder to beat their opponents on both counts. For those who'd like to calibrate the TV further, LG's advanced 10-point calibration option is still available via the Expert 1 and Expert 2 selection.

DisplayMate Tests

DisplayMate is an application which generates a sequence of test patterns to determine the capabilities of imaging devices, like color and gray-scale accuracies for example. For our tests, we've hooked up the PZ950 to our display test-bed PC via its HDMI connection. To be fair across the board, we have also disabled all visual enhancements on the TV in order to reduce the variables involved. 

Screen Uniformity

We used three test patterns (red, blue and green) with different tints to test the PZ950's uniformity. As expected from a plasma panel, results were exemplary with all three colors, and especially so for the brighter tones. However, noise levels became more prominent when we toggled the colors to the darkest hue (step 6 of 6) possible. We'll see if these noise grains would affect video sources during our HD and SD tests or is it only present with static digital images. 

Dark Gray Scale

The PZ950 produced satisfactory blacks, although the darker gray blocks weren't discernible with our calibrated brightness setting of 40. We had to increase the brightness dial to 61 before we could perceive the darker gray blocks on the test scale. As far as Blu-ray or video feeds are concerned, you might have to fiddle with the brightness levels in order to find a sweet spot for the best shadow detail.

Color Scales

Each color block was well defined with no signs of color misrepresentations. The PZ950 also demonstrated an effective ease at producing vibrant tones and gradual color gradations. The only gripe we have is how rapidly the darker blocks faded to black. As a result, darker images with subtle differences in hue might not be translated by the PZ950 very well.     

256-Intensity Level Color Ramp

This test image is visibly more demanding than the Color Scales pattern in that it challenges the panel to reproduce 'crease-less' gradients on the white, red, green and blue bands. Results were mostly positive on the PZ950 where only minor compression (or color banding) artifacts were apparent towards the darker end of the color bars.

IDT HQV Tests

IDT's HQV Tests are designed to assess image quality and the handling of digital displays and players through a variety of video signal processing tasks which includes decoding, de-interlacing, motion correction, noise reduction and film cadence detection. We've programmed the Blu-ray player to playback in 1080i in order to stress the TV's video processor. This compels the TV's processor to convert interlaced signals into progressive to accommodate the HDTV's panel. Here are the results we noted on a few of the most crucial tests:-

Digital Noise Filtering

The PZ950 is equipped with four noise reduction levels: Off, Low, Medium and High. On a positive note, LG's algorithms were able to filter a decent fraction of noise grains without sacrificing image detail. However, little difference was perceived between the High and Low noise reduction settings.   

Diagonal Filter Test

LG's PDP was delightfully adept at processing moving interlaced images, judging by how the rotating bar was almost free of "jaggies". In other words, the PZ950 should cope well with 1080i HD broadcasts, such as those delivered by Starhub's HD set-top box or Singtel's mio TV.

Film Resolution Loss Test

The PZ950 does not offer any auto film cadence detection. However, its inverse telecine feature also known as Film Mode, is clearly one of LG's best enhancement attributes given how 'strobing' was almost nonexistent on the SMPTE pattern. In other words, this TV is comfortable with decoding 1080i60 broadcast signals sourced from 1080p24 content. 

High Definition Tests

Corpse Bride (Blu-ray)

Tim Burton's stop-motion comedy makes an ideal choice for evaluating a television's black levels and contrasts, given the film's dark backdrops and well defined characters. For starters, Corpse Bride is watchable on the PZ950 by its default Standard settings, minus the picture enhancements. Images were crisp, while motion was fluidly rendered with little traces of ghosting. Black levels were decent, but it wasn't as pitch black as we've liked to see in a plasma panel. Noise present in the DisplayMate tests did not manifest here apparently. The TV's Dynamic Contrast feature is useful if you'd want to give the picture a sharper and brighter treatment, although we'd recommend setting it to "Low" to avoid an excessively sharp and saturated result. To add, LG's Super Resolution did not produce any obvious improvements to the picture quality either. We also checked out the THX Cinema mode, tuned by THX engineers for optimized black levels and video parameters. Colors were perceptibly muted but delightfully natural on this global picture setting. Images were visibly softer too.

Vantage Point (Blu-ray)

Our first observation of Vantage Point was the bold colors portrayed by the PZ950. Essentially, brighter hues such as the reds and the yellows were more fiery than usual, based on the Standard preset. Similar to our observation on Corpse Bride, LG's PDP had no difficulty in tackling the fast-paced action of Vantage Point. Essentially, there weren't any distinct image trails we could detect. Another feather in the PZ950's hat would have to be its wide viewing angles, for we did not detect any signs of contrast or color shifts even at 70 degrees off-center. The TV worked well in Film Mode with little instances of judder or frame drops. The PZ950 also showed no signs of phosphor trailing, which suggests its phosphors has a brief decay time. For all its strengths, the PZ950 isn't perfect. Noise grains were more obvious on Vantage Point compared to Corpse Bride. Setting its noise filters to "Low" might help. We noticed that darker details can be obscured  based on the calibrated settings. Switching the TV's Black Levels to "High" or increasing its brightness might help, although purists would scoff at the compromised blacks.

X-Men: The Last Stand (DVD)

There were a number of scenes with camera pans which caused some minor stutter. This little setback detracts from the PZ950's commendable de-interlacing processing so far. Apart from this minor niggle, however, up-converted content from the DVD source was nicely scaled to suit the panel's native Full-HD resolution. There were no signs of distortion on the 16:9 screen. Details were relatively rich as well, considering this TV has 60 inches of real estate to fill. Although pixelation artifacts were present around moving subjects, such as the top-down scene of Cyclops on his Harley (23:10) for instance, they were negligible for the most part since they are only distinguishable if you are sitting up close. The 'X-Men: The Last Stand' DVD was definitely watchable on the PZ950 with its ghost-free images, but try not to leave a "frozen frame" on the TV for too long since image retention is another concern LG will have to deal with.

Monster vs Aliens (3D)

We rate a television's 3D performance based on three main factors: depth, clarity, and crosstalk. The PZ950 offered very satisfying depths, even more so than its passive LW6500 cousin. Observably, subjects in the foreground and background are rightly displaced, thus giving the viewer the impression that some objects are coming right at you, such as pulsating lasers or flying asteroids in Monsters vs Aliens for instance. Clarity was top notch as well. LG did a laudable job in setting the appropriate 3D picture parameters, and this also meant increasing the panel's gamma and brightness levels to compensate for the glasses' dimming effect. However, one negating aspect is the inability to edit the picture settings when the TV is in 3D mode. Crosstalk did not present itself under most circumstances, although it is vaguely perceptible with fast moving subjects. We also noticed that the glasses did not darken when viewed vertically as with most active-shutter LCD sets.



Note: The following images were shot in 2D for illustration purposes.

The Final Word

Let's do a quick recap. The PZ950 is a very decent effort by LG, although we won't rate it as the best plasma display for 2011 till we've reviewed the Pansonic VT30S and Samsung D8000 PDPs (stay tuned for those reviews). Cosmetically, this television has its share of redeeming traits such as an all-glass facade, transparent bezels, and a swiveling joint. However, the reflective panel is a definite annoyance under brighter lighting conditions. Connectivity wise, LG has catered for an ample offering with HDMI and USB ports. The analog ports are colored and coded appropriately, while the breakout panel at the side isn't too deeply recessed. We did not perceive any major changes to the standard remote's design, although LG's inclusion of the Magic Motion wand is a definite plus for its Smart TV platform. It's also good to see that the LG Apps store is finally accessible as well. However, we hope LG is able to design a more responsive and 'supportive' web browser with regards to newer Flash content, so to speak.

For our display benchmarks, the PZ950 nailed most of the static and video patterns with a minor exception of the noise filtering test. The plasma panel from LG also demonstrated good de-interlacing skills and film cadence qualities which makes it ideal in dealing with native 24p sources, or 1080p24 content broadcasted in 1080i60. Its THX picture presets also makes it easy for anyone who wants a cinematic picture treatment without having to calibrate their set. What do we like about the PZ950 mainly? Crisp image quality, a fast response time, and minimal phosphor trails can be put down as some of the PZ950's strengths. On the other hand, palpable noise grains, slight image retention issues, and less than inky blacks unfortunately detract from the PZ950's otherwise hearty performance. At the 3D end, we were impressed by the stereoscopic depths and clarity this TV was capable of, plus its lack of crosstalk under most circumstances.

To sum up, LG's flagship PZ950 is a Smart 3D TV worth considering for those on the hunt for an active-shutter plasma; just as long as you aren't a purist who desire the deepest black depths. Factor in its price point and its shortcomings might not really matter as much.

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