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Introduction
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01.Tour & Design
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02.Blacks & Whites
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03.Color Accuracy
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04.Motion
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05.3D
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06.Viewing Effects
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07.Calibration
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08.Connectivity
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09.Audio & Menus
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10.Multimedia & Internet
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11.Power Consumption
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12.Vs Samsung PN59D8000
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13.Vs Panasonic TC-P55VT30
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14.Vs Sony KDL-55HX820
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15.Conclusion
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16.Series Comparison
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17.Photo Gallery
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18.Ratings & Specs
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19.Comments
LG 50PZ950
Previous: Page 5
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CalibrationViewing Effects
You’ll get one of the best viewing angles on a television with this LG.
Formats (9.50)
The LG 50PZ950 is a 1080p television able to display all NTSC formats.
Viewing Angle (9.02)
LCD screens produce images by shining lighting elements through a colored filter. The minute thickness of this filter causes the quality of light to change when viewing images off center, drastically diminishing the contrast ratio. We determine the angle at which a television loses 50% contrast and mark in the chart you see here. The Sony is the only LCD model in the comparison and you can see the narrow area where you will still have a strong picture. Plasma screens have individual cells that activate right beneath the glass surface of the screen and thereby are not affected by a filter, maintaining contrast ratio at wide angles.
This LG has a fantastic viewing angle, even for a plasma screen, besting the two other models in the chart.
Reflectance (7.50)
We shine lights at the televisions as a test to see if external light sources will distract from viewing content. On the 50PZ950, we noticed the reflected pattern of lights was quite diffuse. The white light was broken down into its component colors, meaning that there is some filter on the screen to prevent the light from being reflected at full strength. With a little added angle, the light was really not that noticeable. Pair this knowledge with the fact that this plasma screen gets rather bright for its class, this LG will be very suitable for a range of lighting environments in your home.
Video Processing (4.00)
There are a pile of video processing modes on the 50PZ950. Depending on your environment, and your own personal preferences, you may like watching with some of these engaged. Just know that all of them affect the picture in a way that makes it inaccurate compared to how it was intended to be viewed.
| Setting | Claimed Function | Our Impression |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic Contrast | Adjusts the contrast to keep it at the best level according to the brightness of the screen. The picture is improved by making bright parts brighter and dark parts darker. | Enhances contrast by diminishing the range of blacks and whites used to describe a picture. It can make the picture look vivid, but it is losing some of the contrast ratio when engaged. |
| Noise Reduction | Adjusts screen colors so that they look livelier, richer and clearer. This feature enhances hue, saturation and luminance so that red, blue and green white look more vivid. | This function reduces some signal noise by blurring it, but not by removing it. The blurriness can be more distracting than the fuzz because you are used to seeing some signal noise, but not blotches of blur all over your picture. |
| Super Resolution | Provides a crystal-clear picture by improving the details in an area that has a blurry or unclear picture. | We saw no difference. |
| Gamma | You can adjust brightness of dark area and middle gray level area of the picture. Low: Makes the dark and middle gray level areas brighter. Medium: Expresses the original picture level. High: Makes the dark and middle gray level area darker. | This function finds dark areas of the picture and dims them, often dimming the entire picture as a result. Again, you will lose some contrast ratio. |
| Black Level | Sets black level of the screen to proper level. Low: The reflection of the screen gets darker. High: The reflection of the screen gets brighter. | We're not sure the manufacturer's description of this function is in English as we speak it. But our translation is something like: This function puts a gray haze over the entire picture. |
| Film Mode | Designed to best display 24fps content. | Works well for displaying 24fps video, like the content sent from a Blueray player. |
| Color Gamut | Standard: Displays standard set of colors. Wide: Increases number of colors used. | Slightly oversaturates colors. |
| Edge Enhancer | Shows clearer and distinctive yet natural edges of the video. This function works well over Sharpness UI 60 value. | Tends to create noise around objects by oversharpening. |
| xvYCC | This feature represents rich colors as much as a conventional video signal. | This function was grayed out in most inputs, we could not get access to it. |
| Color Filter | This is the function to filter the specific colors of the video. You can use the RGB filter to set color saturation and hue accurately. | This detracts all colors but the filter you have chosen. Blue, makes the entire picture blue. We are not sure how this would help to calibrate your television. |
| Other Models in the Series |
|---|
| For more information on other models in this series, check our Series Comparison Page. |
 LG 60PZ950 60 in. |
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