LG 47LK520 LCD HDTV Review

Motion Performance

To better display moving objects, the LG 47LK520 comes equipped with a great overdrive processing feature called TruMotion. This setting is fully customizable with four levels: off, low, high, and user controlled. High puts both the judder and blur up to 7, in user you can put it all the way up to 10 which is what we did to score this test.

Fully engaged, TruMotion mode helped a lot with our tests. The 47LK520 displayed great detail in motion, faces were very recognizable and fine detail was retained. The biggest problem we saw was some stair stepping, jagged offset parts of an image that occur when the processor cannot move two areas simultaneously. These jaggies were not just at the edges, as we usually see, but intermittently all over the moving object. This is probably due to the interpolating of the TruMotion mode not quite making perfect middle frames, thereby resulting in some jagged flicker. High frequency, high contrast patterns were a problem, appearing to be unaffected by the TruMotion mode, displaying warping and very jagged edges through the whole object.

We liked the user control aspect of the TruMotion Effect. Being able to control the intensity of the interpolation is a great response to the Soap Opera Effect we see with many similar functions. You can get smoother motion without it looking cheap by controlling the extremity to which this function is switched on. You can get your picture smooth up to the point where you do not like it, and then back it off one or two points for an optimized picture in every way. Good job LG. More on how we test motion performance.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps

This LG has a true 24fps mode that works as advertised, detecting content recorded at 24 frames per second and adjusting accordingly. We watched it take a second to detect the content and then switch over with our STMPE patterns, flickering at first and then becoming smooth and even, like well buttered toast. There was some flicker every time the pattern hit an edge and changed direction, but it was slight. We look at a pan of a football stadium in 24fps, inspecting the scene for mosquito crawl among the seats, something hard to eliminate entirely. The LG 47LK520 showed some serious processing power here by showing hundreds of individual seats in a pan at 24fps without any noise, or mosquito crawl. More on how we test 3:2 pulldown and 24fps.

Resolution Scaling

In its native 1080p resolution, the 47LK520 showed some color artifacts when displaying moire patterns that were otherwise displayed very well, with no other resolution problems. More on how we test resolution scaling.

480p

At 480p, a few of our moire patterns banded together, probably because of the 2% all around overscan at this resolution. Overscan will force the display to map a picture to an incorrect matrix of pixels, and mapping problems will occur.

Fonts were about the same as 720p, but it managed all of our high frequency high contrast patterns with no problem. There is less information to display at 480p, so this test should be easy.

720p

There was no overscan at this resolution and not a single problem in the moire patters. Most fonts were legible and only the most high frequency, high contrast pattern banded, and only slightly at that.