With a 60-inch (diagonal) screen and a cabinet only 5 inches deep, LG's largest plasma HDTV, the DU-60PY10, has the kind of measurements both home theater buffs and interior designers will find enticing. But unlike many of its industrial-style plasma counterparts, this panel is very much a traditional, self-contained TV. The speakers are permanently attached, a tabletop stand is included, and if you plug cable and antenna wires into the back, you can watch both analog and digital programs — including high-def — without needing an add-on tuner or cable box. Illuminated icons along the left side of the bezel indicate the active input and TV sound mode. The LG is also one of the first sets to offer both a slot for a CableCARD, which unscrambles premium cable channels (see “Wild Card”), and an on-screen program guide.
SETUP Connection and setup were fairly straightforward after I convinced one of my coworkers to give me a hand lifting the 189-pound TV onto a table. The set's EZ Scan feature conveniently set up all available digital and analog channels. The built-in HDTV tuner handily outperformed both a Dish DVR-921 satellite receiver and a Samsung SIR-T160 tuner that I had on hand, finding all available over-the-air high-def channels despite difficult indoor reception conditions.
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To go with the CableCARD slot, the LG offers the TV Guide On Screen electronic program guide (EPG). Unlike a standard digital cable box, CableCARD is a one-way system that can't use the cable company's EPG, which requires a two-way connection between your TV and your cable provider, so it's good the set has its own EPG. TV Guide On Screen displays eight days of program information, categorizes shows and allows keyword searches, and can control a cable box and VCR with infrared (IR) blasters, scheduling recordings on the VCR — functionality that far outstrips Time Warner Cable's own EPG.
Setting it up was simple: I just followed the foolproof onscreen instructions and plugged the cable from the wall and the antenna into the TV. It takes 24 hours for the EPG to acquire the eight days' worth of listings. Unfortunately, the system didn't work quite as advertised. When I returned the next day, I saw listings for a few cable and over-the-air channels, but they were highly disorganized (channel numbers didn't match Time Warner's assignments and many channels were repeated), and the EPG detected only a few of the hundreds of channels available. You can customize the listings — by changing channel mapping or adding and deleting channels manually — but there's no way to get listings for missing channels.
A representative from TV Guide On Screen talked me through some fixes, but I was never able to get information for every channel, and sometimes all the listings would disappear, forcing me to wait another 24 hours. Your mileage may vary, depending on your local cable service, and TV Guide's rep promised an automatic update to fix the disappearing-listings problem.
My other setup experiences were more satisfying. I needed to use a converter cable to digitally connect my HDTV signal generator and the DVI (Digital Visual Interface) output on my Bravo D1 DVD player to the TV's HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) input. I found plenty of inputs for my other gear, and the side-panel A/V input was a convenient perk.
I liked the large, fully backlit remote. It's easy to use thanks to the generous spacing between buttons. The set's menus offer plenty of picture-adjustment options, including a series of picture presets. Happily, each input can also remember its own custom settings for contrast, brightness, etc.
I'm a big fan of the LG's numerous display modes (aspect ratio settings): there are six for standard-def sources and five for HDTV, plus a 16-position Cinema Zoom that let me expand the entire picture in tiny increments. The only mode not available for high-def sources is a nonlinear stretch that expands the sides more than the middle. Three so-called ISM (Image Sticking Minimization) settings are designed to prevent ghost images from burning into the screen. Burn-in shouldn't be a problem, however, if you avoid leaving static images on the screen for long periods.
PICTURE QUALITY After calibrating the LG using test patterns (see “in the lab” on next page), I sat back to see how well it performed with DVD movies through its progressive-scan component-video input. Although Van Helsing was a critical flop, it's certainly a more entertaining DVD than the Avia Guide to Home Theater that I used for setup. This dark, monster-chasing adventure opens with a black-and-white sequence that turns into color in Chapter 2, and throughout the beginning of the flick I noticed two things: 1) I wanted to get as close as possible to the big screen so I could feel more immersed in the action, and 2) the closer I got, the more I noticed noise in the picture.
Specifically, after I adjusted the set's brightness — making it as dark as possible without losing shadow detail, which turned out to be very dark for a plasma — I could see a faint veil of snowy interference, especially in black and near-black areas of the image. When I watched the same scenes using the Bravo's DVI output, the noise was less apparent, though still noticeable. According to LG, this TV is tuned to reveal every bit of the source material, and unfortunately that includes video noise. The noise was less obvious from farther away and with the lights turned on, and it was much lower with HDTV programs.
Colors looked good, especially in brightly lit scenes, like at the beginning of Chapter 13 when Van Helsing's assistant, Carl, is awakened by a shaft of morning sunlight. His skin was just golden enough to seem sunlit, and the red of his sleeping companion's curly hair was vibrant and lifelike.
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The big screen also brought out lots of detail. As Van Helsing traveled by coach through Transylvania , I could see the bolts, screws, and metal bits on Frankenstein's head. Other monsters looked less realistic — the computer-generated nature of the vampire offspring was obvious, especially when they exploded in slimy bursts.
Next I turned to HDTV, catching a little of the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men via the LG's off-air digital tuner. I noticed minor video noise again in places like the background woodgrain in the restaurant and Charlie Sheen's dark suit. Picture detail was excellent, however — much sharper than DVD. I could easily read the label on the bag of cookies his brother Allen was eating (Pepperidge Farm Milanos). Colors looked even more potent than on the DVD, and I noticed the subtle variations in the face of Charlie's on-the-make neighbor, Rose.
Finally I tried the highest-quality source I had on hand, the 1080i D-VHS version of Digital Video Essentials, delivered over the FireWire connection. The restaurant sequence looked absolutely superb, with stunning detail, vivid color, and quite a bit less video noise.
BOTTOM LINE Unfortunately, no picture — or source — is perfect. LG's DU-60PY10 is undoubtedly an advanced piece of engineering, and if you hanker for a huge flat-panel TV with integrated cable and over-the-air tuners, there aren't too many other choices.
In the Lab
Color temperature (Low and Movie mode before/Custom after calibration)
Low window (20-IRE) .............. 5,320/6,551 K
High window (80-IRE) ............. 6,617/6,465 K
Brightness (100-IRE window before/after calibration) 49.1/41.6 ftL
The DU-60PY10's Movie mode, which automatically engages the Low color-temperature preset, was closest to the standard of 6,500 K, but was still quite red in the middle and lower part of the grayscale and blue toward the top. After calibration it was much more consistent. Peak brightness before calibration was quite good. (Calibration needs to be performed by a qualified technician, so discuss it with your dealer, or call the Imaging Science Foundation at 561-997-9073.)
DC restoration was below average for a plasma panel — the level of black changed noticeably with varying brightness in other areas of the screen. The set was able to display the full range from above-white to below-black via all inputs. Overscan was 4%, which is slightly below average. With sharpness adjusted properly, there was no sign of edge enhancement. The color-decoder check from the Avia DVD revealed that the set deaccentuated green significantly (–25%) but decoded red perfectly (0% error). I counted 20 dead pixels, but that's probably because the TV was a preproduction sample. According to multiburst patterns, the set couldn't resolve every line of a 720p signal, although HDMI was clearer than component video.
— D.K.