71 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is barely a 3D television, November 9, 2010
This review is from: LG 47LX6500 47-Inch 3D 1080p 240 Hz LED Plus LCD HDTV, Espresso (Electronics)
Length:: 0:31 Mins
==Updated Jan 20th==
My first impression was positive, the hardware is beautiful and appears well made, the interface too initially seems pretty good. The 2D picture is great and the price is very appealing.
That said... Be warned the 3D crosstalk on this television is TERRIBLE! We bought it with hopes primarily of enjoying a bunch of 3D games on our PS3 (Call of Duty: Black Ops and Gran Turismo 5) only to be confronted with staggering crosstalk and ghosting. It was bad enough that my wife asked "Is the TV broken?" I find that the 3D crosstalk makes playing some games dizzying, annoying and fatiguing. In particular scenes with black on a bright (usually white) background will have your eyes crossing and head aching. For the record, we've tried with both 1.3x and 1.4 HDMI cables to no avail.
(Note: As of Dec 8th the following seems to no longer be an issue) Furthermore after viewing 3D content on the PS3 and then returning to the XMB we'd be in a very messed up state where the LG UI was corrupted and remained so until another 3D movie was played. Really screwy stuff. Hopefully we'll get a firmware update on the PS3 or LG end soon?
Update (Nov 29th): Please see the user images above for examples of the crosstalk in 3D video.
Update (Nov 30th): We've called LG twice about the crosstalk, the first call consisted of a 45 minute wait before they insisted we end the call and try against another kind of 3D content (we did, the problem persisted). The second call resulted in a 60 minute wait, speaking to a person for 2 minutes to confirm my name and phone number, then a 10 minute wait before being accidentally hung up on... LG is _really_ not impressing me here.
Update (Dec 2nd): We just had the LG Tech over about the 3D crosstalk issues. He confirmed that the 3D glasses and IR Transmitter were all functioning properly. After insisting there was no problem by examining some low cross-talk videos (like under water scenes) we showed the tech the scene I attached screenshots of (to user images above) and he was finally convinced that the crosstalk was really bad. He then left to his van for a bit (I assume to talk to his boss) and returned insisting that '3D is in it's infancy and you can't expect the 3D to work very well'... What?! If you know it doesn't work, why are you selling it?! We suggested to him that maybe the white/black (or light/dark) refresh rate of LG LED TVs might not be adequate for 3D but he insisted that the refresh rate is perfectly fine for 3D (I beg to differ!). The tech finally offered to replace the IR unit in the TV but claimed he 'didn't think it would help at all.'
So we confirmed that the TV is fine, the glasses are fine, the 3D content is fine (and the LG tech insisted that the light/dark refresh is fine) but somehow because 3D is in it's "infancy" there is horrible crosstalk?! That doesn't make any sense.
Update (Dec 8th): So the LG technician came by again yesterday to replace the part (the one that he said had no chance of resolving the 3D crosstalk problem). He (and I) were right, replacing this IR board did nothing at all to effect the 3D crosstalk/ghosting issues. I've confirmed the same amount of crosstalk in the PS3 Sizzler video and in MotorStorm 3D Rift. The technician explained that replacing the part is all he can do and from here on out it's between us and LG support... I love it when an employee of a company absolves themselves of helping you... /sigh.
Update (Dec 13th): Minus one star because LG is making this whole crosstalk problem so painful for us. We just ended our 8th call with them and they're insisting on sending another tech to look at our TV rather than giving us a replacement.
Update (Dec 15th): I've done an analysis of the crosstalk on this TV with a high speed video camera, you can see it here: [...] I think this is very convincing evidence that this TV suffers from strong crosstalk.
Update (Jan 20th): So we've now made two dozen calls to LG and had six technicians check out our TV. Although every technician agrees with us that crosstalk is a major problem on this set LG is stonewalling us and refusing to exchange or replace the TV. In the executive service reps words "we don't deal with customer service issues" and "in eight years here I've never seen a replacement offered to an unsatisfied customer". I wish those were LG's official mottos because if they were I could have saved myself a lemon of a purchase.
The Good:
* The 2D image is really great in most situations (No complaints watching Avatar, playing GT5, COD:BO, etc. in 2D).
* Good value for the size and features.
* The firmware for this TV is being actively supported by LG.
* This is the only TV I've ever owned that doesn't letterbox when connected to my wife's Mac mini.
The Bad:
* 3D crosstalk/ghosting ruins 3D functionality for almost all movies and games.
* Terrible telephone support from LG.
* Horrendous flash-lighting on blank black screen (especially with auto-dimming off)
* Overall the brightness seems very uneven in dark scenes, with or without local dimming enabled.
* Local dimming is a joke, there appear to be only about 24 dimming fields. This is not enough resolution to be practically useful.
* The UI is mediocre, you will be shown an annoying pop-up every time you enable 3D or DLNA. I hate pop-ups.
* If you have any problems LG will be completely loath to help you, we're 8 calls, 2 tech visits and countless hours into dealing with them and have no resolution in sight.
* LG, admitting problems with the 3D technology in their LED TVs is moving to another, passive, tech for their next generation of 3D sets.
Note: DON'T BUY FROM ADORAMA unless you are VERY sure you are going to love your TV. Their return policy is "No Hassle" only in as far as it's no hassle for them since they will not accept returns.
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27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE ASAP! (See update #3); 3D could be better, but really isn't THAT bad... (See update #3 as well), November 5, 2010
This review is from: LG 47LX6500 47-Inch 3D 1080p 240 Hz LED Plus LCD HDTV, Espresso (Electronics)
While there is a lot to like about this TV (and why I still rated it 3-stars [CHANGED TO 5-STARS! See update #3]), I will choose to focus my review on what I feel is (was) the only real issue with it.
(You can go read the other reviews to hear about how nice the image quality is, how thin the TV is, how well the DLNA works, how polished the menu system feels, and whatever people might think about the various apps.)
The reason I chose an LCD over a Plasma comes down to the 120/240 Hz smoothing. (Colors, black-level, and input lag [mainly for gaming] weren't high on my list of considerations.)
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IF YOU KNOW ABOUT THE WHOLE "LCD VS. PLASMA" THING AND JUST WANT TO READ MY THOUGHTS ON THIS SPECIFIC TV, SKIP THIS SECTION.
======================================
Yes, I know plasmas refresh at 600 Hz, but it seems the manufacturers of those TVs have chosen to focus on delivering the 24/30/60 Hz source material as true to the original as possible. As such, you get your 60 Hz television feed as 60 discrete images shown to you over the course of a second. (Ok, I know it's like 59.6245 Hz, but we're going to go with 60). I do not like way that looks. That's not how the world looks and that's not how CRTs generally worked. And that's why I went with the LCD.
With an LCD, you do get some blurring between frames, but I kind of like that. I find it more pleasant to look at than the "chunk, chunk, chunk" look of "here's a frame, here's a frame, here's a frame" plasmas give. On top of that, 120/240 Hz LCDs now almost all (as far as I know) have the ability to "interpolate" (essentially "make up") new image frames to go in-between the frames it is being fed. (So, when you feed your TV a 60 Hz signal, it will take those 60 frames and actually figure out what the frame in-between any given frame will look like and show that to you, too.) This (combined with maybe a bit of the blurring) is what yields the nice, smooth images you seen on LCDs.
So, I think I found maybe one plasma TV that would do the 60 Hz => 120 Hz interpolation? Due to this, plasma did not seem like a viable solution for my needs.
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RESUME REVIEW
======================================
Now, as far as the Trumotion (240 Hz interpolation) for this specific TV goes, here is what I have found (for cable TV and DLNA streaming):
*Whenever there is a panning landscape or a panning generally-static scene, the imagine looks fabulous! Trumotion makes such a huge difference. With it off, it's so blurry and awful.
*Whenever there's a generally static background with moving people/actors (like on a talk-show), the Trumotion looks great.
>>THIS IS THE PART I AM MOST UNHAPPY ABOUT<<
*However, when these two are combined (e.g. moving camera and moving people), lots of artifacting crops (i.e. little chunks of the image which just don't look quite right... This mostly occurs at the border between stationary and moving objects).
>>THIS IS THE PART I AM MOST UNHAPPY ABOUT<<
[As an aside: I bought my parents a
Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-46V5100 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV, Black for Christmas last year and never noticed any of these artifacting issues I am experiencing. Maybe I wasn't looking closely enough and they're there? Or maybe sitting a bit farther back helps? Or maybe their cable box helps smooth-out some of these issues? Please, feel free to leave some comments here about your experiences with this!]
I still have yet to watch any Blu-ray movies (or DVD for that matter), so I can't comment on that. [Will be sure to update my review for that.]
Also, I have had minimal exposure to 3D so far, but it has been mostly disappointing. All I have gotten to watch is split-screen left/right videos I've found online, and they have mostly had lots of crosstalk (i.e. the "ghosting" that shows up when your right eye sees a bit of the video meant for your left eye and vice versa). [Will also update my review for this when I get some Blu-ray 3D movies to watch.]
Lastly, I just wanted to point out that there was already a firmware update for my TV when I got it. It didn't make much difference for me, but others pointed out it helped in a few regards. So, if anyone from LG is reading this review, please work on some firmware updates for the Trumotion artifacting and 3D crosstalk issues!!!! I will certainly update my review for a new firmware which helps remedy these problems!
UPDATE 10/6/2010:
Just watched Iron Man 2 on Blu-ray. Still had the same artifacting issues with the Trumotion (anti-)Judder turned on... (FYI, I had my [LG] Blu-ray player set to 1080p/24.)
Also, was looking through the manual for this TV. It mentions in the Trumotion section that if the Judder control causes "noise" to set it to "off"... Basically, they're admitting that it's half-cooked? (FWIW, I checked the manual for the Samsung UN46C7000, and it basically says the same thing. However, I've never noticed this much noise on any other 120/240 Hz LCD TV...)
UPDATE 10/8/2010:
2D Video:
I realized that, while I've been trying to minimize the amount of image processing the TV does by turning off everything under "Advanced Control" (under picture settings), I bought this TV because of the "Trumotion" image interpolation. That there is a lot of image processing... So, I decided, "what they hey! Why not try the 'Noise Reduction' settings."
I'm going to have to experiment with "Noise Reduction" and "Digital Noise Reduction", but I have them both set to "High" and I like what I'm seeing. It seems like, instead of showing the image will all of the artifacting and noise, it just drops the framerate back down to the original source data. This is a huge improvement on what I was getting before.
3D Video:
So, I got my copy of
IMAX: Under the Sea 3D in the mail today from the LG Blu-ray player promo. All I can really say is, it's a good thing I got this for the price I did and I really don't care too much about 3D! The amount of crosstalk is absolutely horrible. Clearly the display can't switch between black and white quickly enough. Here's hoping a later firmware update will help with this a bit... In the mean time, IF YOU'RE BUYING FOR 3D, GET A PLASMA!!!
UPDATE 10/12/2010:
LG must have just released a new firmware in the last day or two and, I must say, now I love love LOVE my TV! It fixed most of the Trumotion issues I was experiencing! So glad they made this fix. So, as soon as you get your TV, UPDATE THE FIRMWARE!
Also, just wanted to say, the 3D really isn't THAT bad... Last night I watched through
IMAX: Under the Sea 3D since I hadn't watched more than 5~10 minutes yet. There were definitely some really obvious crosstalk issues when it's trying to switch between black-and-white for the left-and-right frames... However, I found it was largely watchable on the whole. So, I guess I'll just continue considering it a bonus and not something I bought the TV explicitly for...
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