BOTTOM LINE
LG’s 47LX6500 3D LCD TV has lots of things going for it: good looks, plenty of mediastreaming options, solid 3D performance, and an ability to be adjusted so that it delivers near-perfect color. And its picture quality remains consistent no matter what seat in the room you flop down in. I was less impressed with its local dimming feature, which caused movies with dark picture content, including 2.35:1 aspect ratio films with black letterbox bars, to appear somewhat less than uniformly dark. For me, that’s a big drawback. But I’m sure many other folks will find that the 47LX6500’s pluses tend to outweigh its minuses.

TEST BENCH
The LG 47LX6500’s Cinema mode delivered the most accurate picture of its three picture presets, measuring within ±928 when the Warm color-temperature mode was also selected. Compared with other TVs we test, most of which provide at least one preset mode that comes fairly close to the 6,500-kelvin grayscale standard, the LG’s out-of-box performance here was disappointing.

After I made adjustments in the ISF Expert mode, the set’s grayscale tracked the standard through much of its brightness range. The TV’s color points for the most part matched the SMPTE HD standard, although green drifted slightly toward yellow — a situation that could be remedied by using the Color Management System controls in ISF Expert mode. Color-decoder error measured via an HDMI input was minimal at just –5%.

With the TV’s Just Scan aspect ratio setting active, overscan checked in at 0%, and it was 3% in 16:9 mode. Picture resolution was excellent with all inputs/signal formats, including standard-def signals delivered via a component-video connection. Care needs to be taken when adjusting the TV’s sharpness control, however, since settings below the middle (50%) threshold reduce resolution. Motion-resolution tests mirrored what we’ve seen with most “240-Hz” TVs: In regular mode, motion test patterns max at around 700 lines, while turning on the LG’s TruMotion modes bump that number up to around 1,200 lines.

The TV passed virtually all tests contained on my various high-def video-eval Blu-rays, properly deinterlacing fi lm- and video-sourced material. Standard-def upconversion was also very good, with the TV only tripping up on a 2:2 pulldown test from the HQV DVD. — A.G.