Customer Reviews

LG 47LD520 47-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Picture quality is good, although I had to mess with the color settings a lot (I'm still not sure I've got it 100% correct). There is some slight discoloration around the edges, but this is only noticeable when the TV is displaying one solid color.

I can't stand to have the smoothing option (called TruMotion) turned on. It's supposed to make TV look better, but I think it makes everything look like a soap opera. Luckily, it's easy to turn off (Menu>Picture>TruMotion). Note: you'll have to turn off TruMotion for each individual input. TV will look a little juddery without the smoothing, but it's a limitation of all 120Hz TVs, and it's a whole lot better than having TruMotion turned on (in my opinion).

That said, movies and video games look fantastic with the smoothing turned off. My Xbox 360 and PS3 games look great, as do Blu-ray movies.

I maxed out the 3 HDMI ports pretty quickly (Xbox 360, PS3, DVR), but I figure if I need another one, it'd probably be time to get a receiver anyway. It should be noted that there is only one set of component inputs.

Speakers are fine, nothing to write home about but they get the job done.

Remote requires you to point at a pretty specific spot (the lower-right corner of the TV). Kind of annoying, but I got used to it (I sit about 10 feet away).

The swiveling stand is nice (I turn it to face the kitchen when I'm making dinner), but it only turns about 20 degrees.

Overall, I'm very happy with what I got for the price I paid!

Since owning this television, I've since changed my "perfect settings" about 12 times.

What was throwing me off was the CONTRAST LEVEL. I kept wanting to pump it up to 100, and thought it was the means to the better picture. I was WAY off.

So try these settings out, let me know what you think:

Aspect Ratio: For things like computer input, set it to Just Scan. For things like TV, or Blu Ray, you can select Set By Program for smoother tru motion. (Basically, Just Scan sometimes finds lines on the outside edge, and this actually causes tru motion to look a bit choppy at times.)

Picture Mode: Expert 1
Backlight: 100
Contrast: 82 - THIS IS IMPORTANT. You must fight the temptation to push this higher. It will be worth it.
Brightness: 47 - 53 (set to preference.) Mine is at 50.
H & V Sharpness: 62 (again, set to preference.)
Color: 63
Tint: G6

Dynamic Contrast: Low (works very well with Contrast at 82)
Noise Reduction: Low
Digital Noise Reduction: Medium
Black Level: Low
Real Cinema: Who cares?
Color Gamut: BT709
Edge Enhancer High
Color Temperature: Medium
Gamma: 1.9

The rest can be default.

So why would Contrast at 82 matter? Well, if you read other reviews, you'll see that people bitch about the blacks. Specifically, the mid to upper blacks. Contrast takes care of this. At 82, with Dynamic Contrast at Low, you'll get a very smooth transition from the darkest darks to the lightest blacks. These "mid to upper blacks" are controlled by Contrast, and if you set Contrast to 100, you fade these black levels.

I've had this TV installed for a couple weeks. It was easy setup although upon first look it was not quite what I expect. That is 100% attributed to the fact that I didn't purchase any HDMI cables so I had to hook up my HDMI cable box from time warner using RCA cables. Let me tell you the picture is pretty bad if you aren't using HDMI cables. Once I bought those the next hurdle I had was Time Warner's HDMI channels were unviewable, they kept blinking on/off and was really strange. It wasn't until I called Time Warner and had them resync my cable box that everything came to life. Wholly canolies what a difference. CBS, NBC, Discovery... all the HDMI channels were awesome. It then took me an hour plus to go to all my DVR recordings and change from regular tv to HDMI channels. Even a basic news reports is dang near spectacular viewing via Hi Def. I have watched a few Netflix movies and DVD movies utilizing the 1080P up-convert on my DVD player and it is quite awesome however in comparison to my buddies Blue Ray player it's not quite the same. That being said I have no complaints at all, the TV looks great! I did purchase a new LG surround sound system to support the Fiber Optic Audio output being that the TV has just has adequate audio. The presets on video are good and the video wizard to help setup the video for your specific environment is good. For $800, no tax, free shipping and "same as cash financing" (with signing up for an Amazon card) I'm very pleased with this TV. Usually a purchase of this size brings buyers remorse but I'm still stoked :-)

Excellent product from LG. Ordering was easy, the delivery company was efficient, courteous, and professional. I've now been using this TV for a little over a month now, and have had no issues with it at all.
120Hz - The 120Hz feature, while not necessarily revolutionary, is still a nice evolution of display technology, although with two drawbacks that I've noticed with my short time using this feature. First, it took time for my eyes to adjust to the smoothing effect - older black and white videos appeared almost too smooth, while other more recently produced programs appear to have little difference between 120Hz and normal viewing modes. Second, when filling in blank frames to achieve the smoothing effect, the TV will occasionally "guess" wrong and the frame may distort slightly for an extremely brief moment (so brief I only notice it very rarely). As far as I can tell this is a natural drawback of the 120Hz effect, but occurs so infrequently as to be a very minor complaint. 120Hz can also be turned off
Stand - The display stand works well, with the left/right pivot feature being a nice bonus.
Sound - The TV's built in speakers work quite well, with above average sound quality and a nice range of volume.
Ports - A good range of ports with an extra HDMI, standard video, and USB on the side of the TV for extra convenience.
Picture Quality - Excellent. Absolutely no complaints with the picture on this TV. Colors stand out well and the viewing angle is great.
This TV is an excellent purchase when it is on sale or has special deals attached. Without those deals it seems the price/quality ratio is lessened, and other options may offer better value.

Just before Christmas my Sony Grand Vega 42 started to display the blue screen of death. I knew that I needed another TV but figured I had time so I ready reviews for over a month. I finally decided on a 50 inch plasma Panasonic GT25. It is a beautiful TV. The prevailing wisdom was that plasma was the best choice for cost vs quality. We have kids who love to use XBox and Wii so burn in was a consideration. I wanted a LCD but the plasma seemed a better buy so I bought it just after Christmas. Set up was easy and we have experienced no burn in or any problems in the 45 -50 days we have had the TV. My daughter moved out to go to college and took our 32" Samsung LCD. We decided to replace it with the LG LD47520. It does not have the internet capability of the Panasonic but thought it would be better for gaming. It actually has a BETTER picture than the Panasonic. The Panasonic was $1300.00 and the LG was $719.00. I wish I had bought two LG's. I have a Blu-Ray internet ready DVD player and it is easy to set it up for internet so both now have internet / NetFlix. Hope this review helps,when I was readiing reviews there were a lot of tech talk but not really a review. LG is a great product and I would buy it over the Panasonic plasmo and the Samsung LCD.

So I finally took the plunge and purchased my first HDTV.

Been researching and comparing models for the past five years, but never had the room to put the tv. I also wanted to wait for the price point and features to be a real value.

Purchased a Playstation 3 last Christmas for myself and just bought a few blu-rays of movies that I really like to test out the new tv.

You can spend $2000 for a high end tv or you can try to find something in the $900-1200 zone. This model has dropped to $700 and for the features and brand, I think it's a real bargain.

I think auto motion plus (120hz) is already enabled when you power up the first time. It makes things a little strange on movies, because it pulls a weird zoom feature across the screen and gets a bit annoying. I set that to low or off depending on the movie.

Haven't tried it with sports yet, but from what I hear, that's what the 120hz function is intended for.

Spent the last few hours playing with settings and different movies, from different time periods (80's comedies, 90's dramas, recent animated CGI titles on blu ray and older concert videos on regular dvd).

I like Cinema mode, helps smooth things out and I also dropped the back light a bit. Other than that I would suggest to keep tinkering with picture wizard and adjust the individual settings with an HD source. I expect to refine the picture over the next few days and maybe consult a message board to find other users settings.

Great product overall, but I will have to update after a month of regular use to high light some of the features I haven't gone through yet.

One last thing, I have to comment on the CEVA shipping. I see a lot of bad reviews on various sites as well as Amazon.

My experience was 9/10. I will explain.

I take one star off for them not calling me after 5 days. Now let's be clear, I choose the free super saver shipping, which most people do. In doing so, you should expect it to take longer, and be a slight hassle in scheduling. If you want to pay for the extra shipping charges and go with another method, then do that. But don't expect something different from a freight service which is different than UPS or Fed Ex. You send a tv of this size through UPS and it has to be around $80. For Free, I'm not complaining at all.

Back to CEVA. I had to place an inquiry through their website, copy and paste my purchase information and provide my cell phone number asking to be contacted to set up a delivery date and time. To their credit, they called me back within a day and tried to schedule the delivery for Monday at 11-3 pm. Unfortunately that would not work for me, since I don't get home until 4:30-5 pm most days. I asked for a later afternoon/evening delivery, but they could not do that. The rep offered Saturday delivery (so I'd have to wait a week), but I said that will work. They provided a window of 11 am to 3 pm.

The delivery guys showed up at about 12:55 pm, which was great. They were nice and offered to bring it to whichever room I wanted. I declined and just had them open the box for me and leave it free standing on the base of the box (with the styrofoam) and I could bring my PS 3 over and test it out. Screen was fine, no cracks or anything so I signed for the tv and that was it.

And I gave them a tip because they were helpful and most of all, on time. You just dropped some change on a new tv, that was brought right to your doorstep, into your home and unpacked for you. Have a heart and realize these guys haul crap around all day and probably don't get tipped very often.

Just my two cents- Moral of the story, upgrade your shipping if you expect a personalized service. Otherwise, if you're cheap like me, expect about 1-2 weeks to get your tv if you can't set up a regular delivery time during the business week. As long as you are ok with that, save yourself over $200 from Best Buy. I'd rather wait, save money on the tv, and add some blu rays to my collection.

UPDATE: After reading a comment, I updated my settings a bit and I like these even more!

This isn't the best TV on the market but it's good for the money. The black levels get awfully gray when viewed from certain off angles. I notice it the most if I ever find myself sitting on the floor in front of the TV or standing somewhat near it. If I stand about 6 or 7 feet away and a little to the side, it gets really bad. My much older Samsung was much better in that respect. Obviously you probably wouldn't choose to watch your favorite movie or show from 6 feet away, but I always notice it if I'm walking by and stop for a minute to look at something, or if I'm fiddling with my media center PC.

Aside from that, the picture is pretty decent once you get it setup right. I've found these setting to give the best, unexaggerated picture without losing detail in dark areas, having bright areas look washed out or having colors look a little too "neon."

Backlight: 50
Contrast: 90
Brightness: 50
Sharpness: 75
Color: 60
Dynamic contrast: medium
Dynamic color: low
Clear white: high
Gamma: medium
Black level: low
Color gamut: standard

Oh, and turn off TruMotion! It was on by default when I got my TV and I thought something was wrong. Everything looks like it's being fast forwarded. It looks really unnatural. I can't imagine ever using it, even for sports. I wish LG hadn't bothered developing/buying the technology and passed the savings along instead.

Update: 4/1/11
I'm still very happy with the TV after almost 2 months of use. I've had no problems. A few things to add:
-One thing I've discovered that makes the picture look even better is the use of a bias light. This is a light you place behind the TV to light up the wall, it reduces the strain on your eyes and really makes the picture pop. I'm no expert, I just read about it and gave it a shot. Makes viewing in a dark room amazing.
-I really like the swivel stand. Sometimes I like to sit to the side on the floor, and viewing from that angle lessens the picture a bit. By swiveling the TV it looks great.
-I love watching sports on this TV. I've watched tons of NCAA basketball, and it's been great. Yesterday was opening day for baseball, and I was mesmerized by how sharp the picture was. This was the first baseball I've watched on the TV and I was stunned. The angle from behind the pitcher, seeing the catcher signal and the batter set up, was just fantastically detailed.
-I've used Tru-Motion on and off a bit. I didn't like it at first, and then I loved it, and now I've decided it really depends on a show by show basis. Sometimes it makes the picture seem really smooth, other times it increases the jitter. A lot of programming doesn't seem to be affected too much with it on or off. Lately I've just left it off because I got tired of going back and forth.
-Blu-Ray, DVD, PS3 games, and Netflix streaming are all great looking.

**********
Original Review 2/17/11:
This is the first flat screen I've ever purchased, and I researched for months to settle on it. I initially discovered this line of LGs from a Consumer Reports review a few months ago. Since then I have been following reviews on Amazon and other retailer's sites, as well as reading forums. The LD520 series has gotten great reviews. I didn't need internet connectivity because I have a PS3 to stream Netflix, etc. I wanted a TV that was 120 Hz, 46+ inches, that will last me for quite a few years, but didn't cost over $1K with a warranty.

This TV has fantastic picture. My girlfriend came home the day I set it up and just stood in awe. She owns a 32" LCD we had been using, and this is so much larger and sharper, it's incredible. I was initially thinking I wanted a 55", but this is plenty big for viewing from 10 feet away for us. The picture can be adjusted in a million ways to suite your needs. There is an extremely long thread at avsforum that goes into all the tweaks other owners have made to get the perfect picture. I plan on spending this weekend really digging in. For someone that doesn't want to go into the nitty gritty, the picture wizard is easy to use to get a nice picture. That's all I've done so far and am happy.

The screen has a bit of a matte look, which cuts down on reflections nicely. We have a bright living room with some large windows, and it does well in the light.

The built in sound is pretty good, obviously not as good as a dedicated system, but it works for me. There is a clear voice option that can be tweaked for listening to dialog. I think that is a nice feature, and the amplification it adds is adjustable. I found one of the lower settings was nice; turned all the way up the voices become overpowering.

I played around a bit with the PS3 Move last night, and it was a ton of fun on the large screen. Very sharp picture and I didn't notice any lag between the controls and the TV response (in game mode).

To anyone worried about the other review about not accepting a 120 Hz signal, that won't affect 99% of people. TV is typically at 30 fps and film is at 24 fps. 120 Hz is great for both of these because it is an even multiple. So a signal sent at 30 fps has each frame displayed for 4 frames (4*30=120) and a signal sent at 24 fps has each frame displayed for 5 frames (5*24=120). If you choose to use the True-Motion feature instead of displaying the signal frame for the above number of frames, the TV interpolates to "guess" what would happen in between frames. Personally, I have this feature turned off. I played around with it a bit the first night and didn't notice any benefit with it on.

One final note, the price on this fluctuates a lot day to day. It dropped to $699 the other day and that was what made me pull the trigger finally. I recommend checking every day for a week or two.

Hope that helps, if I come across anything in the next few weeks I'll update.

I have had the TV for about 3 weeks now. The picture quality is simply amazing and it is really easy to navigate the menus and set up the display exactly how you would like it. The only thing i have found to complain about about so far is the speaker system. I dont exactly have a large living room and the TV by itself can be difficult to hear at times. I have recently bought a new surround sound system to compliment my home theater package and this is no longer an issue at all. I would highly recommend going ahead and doing yourself a favor and purchase a sound system of some sort to go along with the television. Besides the sound issue, there are no other complaints. I was weary of the TruMotion feature after reading some other reviews but I have found it to be absolutely stunning up to this point. The picture quality is great and looks really good with my blu ray player. I would definately consider buying another LG product in the future.

*I will lengthen this review after I've had more time with the TV*

My favorite feature so far has to be the "Picture Wizard." This tool only takes about 1 minute to use and makes noticeable differences in picture quality.

The ONLY complaint I have so far is that the "TruMotion" feature is a joke. Turning it on any level (1 to 10) makes the picture unbearable. Very hard to describe this but it looks like a "bad soap opera." I keep it turned off all the time. I wish I could have gotten the same TV without TruMotion.

Everything else works great as far as I can tell, and it definitely has a stylish look to it. Hard to go wrong with a 1080p picture, especially for the vast majority of consumers.