LG 47LX6500

3D Effect & Experience

We think LG really dropped the ball with the 47LX6500’s 3D effect. None of the current generation of 3D HDTVs is very good, but the LG’s is bad to the point of needing a firmware update. For starters, there’s no way to calibrate the TV once its in 3D mode. In fact, you can’t really do anything without turning 3D mode off first. This is especially annoying since you’re locked in to a calibration mode that appears to keep motion processing on. We definitely noticed some sort of timing issue between the left and right 3D channels, and it could be caused by motion processing. Between the crosstalk and other issues, the 3D effect drops out constantly and inconsistently, making some scenes downright painful on the eyes. Further, we noticed the TV seems to flash green or acquire a dot crawl effect when the 3D mode is on. At its worst, the image strobed between the intended image, static, and flat green.We ran into the problem less when the TV was hooked up to an LG-branded Blu-ray player, but it still cropped up from time to time. If you’re buying this TV, definitely get the LG Blu-ray player with it to cut down on this issue.

3D Black & White

Switching 3D mode on typically does bad things to picture quality, especially to the TV’s contrast ratio. Initially, the LG 47LX6500 had a mediocre black level of 0.36 candelas per square meter (cd/m2). In 3D mode the black level dropped a bit, but the peak brightness absolutely plummeted: it dropped from 327.84 to 56.06. We typically see horrible contrast ratios in HDTVs displaying 3D content, but this was even bad for that group.

Here’s some handy links to the 3D performances of other manufacturers’ flagship 3D HDTVs: Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony.

3D Color

The 47LX6500’s color temperature was very noticeably cool. For the most part the color shift was uniform, but the odd spikes and dips make some shades look either more blue or more red than they should.

Heavens to Betsy! Look at that RGB graph! We ran this test several times because we couldn’t believe the results. Consistent results and our own eyes confirmed it, though: the red and blue in 3D mode are downright horrible. They hit peak luminance about half way through their spectra, meaning there’s a tremendous amount of lost detail in both channels. If you look at a gradient on the screen that displays all 255 possible shades of red and blue, you can clearly the brighter half is just flat color. LG typically scores better than other manufacturers on our color tests, so the 47LX6500s’ poor RGB representation are surprising.

The TV didn’t have too much trouble with its color gamut, thankfully. The green got a bit oversaturated and the blues were slightly undersaturated, but considering the 3D performance is essentially uncalibrated, we thought it was pretty good.

3D Crosstalk

Current 3D technology depends on the TV flickering between images intended for your left eye and images intended for your right. The 3D glasses flicker in sync with the TV, so your right eye doesn’t see the image intended for the left and vice versa. Crosstalk is when the TV can’t quite keep the left and right separate.

The LG 47LX6500 had some serious issues with crosstalk, to the point where it really breaks down the 3D effect. The TV really had a problem separating out dark colors. Any time a dark object was in a bright area, it would be flanked on either side by half-shadows of itself. This effect caused specific areas of a 3D object to suddenly lose their 3D effect, which really exacerbated eyestrain.

3D Glasses

We didn’t have any real problems with LG’s 3D glasses. They felt a bit cheap, yes, but they were lightweight and not uncomfortable like some other manufacturers’ glasses. No complaints here.

NOTE: Our 3D HDTV testing is under development, which is why these sections have no scores. You caught us mid-rubric. We can collect data and share it with you, but the results in this section have no bearing on the overall score of the television. For more about how we score, read our How We Test article.

Other Models in the xxLX6500 Series
For more information on other models in this series, check our Series Comparison Page.
LG 55LX6500 55 in.