Product Listing

LG 42-inch LH50YD LCD TV - One Step Closer To The Movies

By Andy Sim - 19 Jul 2009

DisplayMate and HQV Tests

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 LG LH50 to the display test-bed 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. Here are some findings based on the relevant and critical test patterns:-

Circular Geometry, Cross Hatch and Dot
There are no chinks with the TV's aspect ratio here. The crosshatch and circular shapes displayed equal linearity without any geometric distortions or obvious color fringes.

Screen Uniformity
The LH50 shone in this particular test. Screen uniformity was even throughout without any cloying signs of hot and cold spots. It's not a trait we'd normally expect from LCD panels mostly. Also, the edges didn't bleed as much compared to other CCFL LCD TVs.

Dark Gray Scale
It was hard to pick out a number of boxes made up of darker shades (third line, boxes 12 to 32). While it is true that the screen managed to achieve deep blacks, certain details were lost for they were totally shrouded in the background. Those boxes mentioned were only discernable when we pumped up the brightness to levels 65 and above.

Color Scales
There's a slight gradational unevenness at the darker spectrum, given that the redder tones faded to black before the rest. Similarly, tone separation on the blue band weren't too distinct at the end of the brighter scale. Otherwise, no major irregularities were found.

256-Intensity Level Color Ramp
The TV was no slacker when it came to gradients . Based on what we've seen with other LCD panels, the four color bands happen to produce lesser ripples than most. Minor complaints include the negligible color kinks spotted in the middle, and how the red and green bands tended to fade to the darker bands a notch too soon. Horizontal viewing angles were satisfactory with minor color shifts.

DisplayMate's Color Scales Test : Gentle gradations were observed, but distinctions on the blue bands weren't too apparent towards the end of the brighter scale

Silicon Optix HQV Tests

Silicon Optix 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 will compel the processor to convert interlaced signals into progressive signals to accommodate the HDTV's panel. Here are the results we noted on a few of the most crucial tests:-

Digital Noise Filtering
LG's video processor wasn't extremely adept in coping with spurious noise. Although there was no apparent loss in detail, the noise levels were still relatively high with the TV's noise reduction features enabled.

Diagonal Filter Test
This is an area where the LH50's de-interlacing techniques really shone. It managed to reconstruct the moving diagonal lines with little apparent "jaggies".

Film Resolution Loss Test
We placed the TV's 24p Real Cinema feature to the knife here. Most of today's Blu-ray content comes mastered in 1080p24 while some of them are converted to 1080i50 via a telecine process, or otherwise known as 3:2 cadence. Looking at how the video processor coped with HQV's SMPTE test pattern, the difference in results says a lot. The boxes with striped horizontal lines were clearly 'strobing'. Vertical lines were also spotted at its side with the 24p feature turned off. However, a positive change was observed once we've enabled the feature back on. It's good to know that LG's video processor is the real deal when it comes down to its inverse telecine capabilities.

The LH50's video processor shone like the sun when tackling HQV's Diagonal Filtering tests. It showed off its video reconstruction skills without any signs of "jaggies".

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
8.0
  • HD Performance 8
  • SD Performance 8.5
  • Features 8
  • Value 8
The Good
Excellent 24p conversion
Healthy 480i upscaling
Relatively deep blacks
The Bad
Hard to reach side-panel
Poor noise reduction
Moderately expensive
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.