Black: 0.033
White: 47.00
Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: 1,424:1

All of the readings were taken with the LG’s Contrast set to 90 and Power Saving on zero.

In the THX Cinema Picture mode (the Before Calibration chart shown here), the LG’s color tracking (gray scale) was off by a surprising degree. The deviations were confirmed with two colorimeters, our Photo Research PR-650 (used for the published charts and numbers here—apart from the contrast measurements, which were taken with a Minolta LS-100 light meter) and a Minolta CS-200. The color temperature in this mode ranged from a low of 6013K to a high of 6357K over the brightness range from 30 to 90 IRE. The delta E ranged from 6.73 to 13 from 30 to 100 IRE. The THX Cinema mode’s color gamut (not shown) was only slightly oversaturated. (Delta E is a figure of merit that shows the likelihood that the eye will see a deviation from a perfect D65 white point. Errors of 4.0 or below are generally considered undetectable. See this month’s Hook Me Up for more.)

I performed my calibration in the Expert1 Picture mode. I also performed all of the tests and viewing sessions in this report with this calibration selected. The color tracking here is nearly perfect, with the color temperature ranging from 6374K to 6561K from 20 to 100 IRE, and the delta E from 0.16 to 1.94 over the same range. The calibrated color gamut, adjusted by using the set’s color (saturation) and tint controls for each color (measured with the Photo Research), is nearly spot on, apart from slightly oversaturated reds. Attempts to pull the red color point closer to the HD standard reduced the red intensity to an unacceptable level.

The LG’s HD resolution was outstanding in HDMI and component, apart from 720p component, which was merely average (but still responsive to the maximum frequency burst available from our test gear—37.1 MHz). SD resolution, which required a slightly higher setting of the Sharpness control than HD for best results, was just slightly above average overall. The set produced a clean 1:1 source-to-screen 1080i and 1080p pixel map (in the Just Scan aspect ratio setting).

The set’s overscan was zero on all sides in HD, apart from an insignificant 0.5 percent on one side in 720p. It averaged less than 2 percent per side (a picture loss of under 8 percent overall) in 480i and 480p.—TJN