THE Official LG "55LHX" Owners Thread - Page 99

Just picked up a used Darbee on Amazon. I'm excited to get it and see the results. Heard nothing but great things!

Myself and Konica Tech are currently trying out a new method of calibration to try and stabilize the 55LHX. The Service Menu White Balance Cool, Medium and Warm, are all being calibrated to just the Warm settings. (Never use Medium or Cool anyways.)
So far appears more stable, definitely gives a better and flatter Grayscale, and on my set with the 125 Point 3D LUT, better result here as well. Will keep in touch to further findings.

Sounds good, will you post the latest settings once you guys are done testing? Thanks!

The Warm settings seem to be working out OK, but the 55LHX is still somewhat unstable. So have put all the Grayscale 2/10 Point and CMS values back to Zeroes. Despite Grayscale not being Linear, dam good looking PQ! Will now use the VQ and AutoCal, despite my thoughts I end up with a better result for Grayscale and CMS, to do the Grayscale and CMS, thus taking the Pressure off manipulating the LG, and the wear and tear on the Remote.
All that will be calibrated on the LG now is, SM WB Cool, Medium and Warm to Warm setting values only, plus the normal Brightness, Contrast, Colour and Sharpness.
From the LG calibration from the night before, at first turn on, my calibrated Flat Grayscale looked like this ` V'. With the Tips of the V being 10 and 100IRE. After putting all the values to Zeroes, now the Grayscale looked like `/\', with again the Tips at 10 and 100IRE. After 4 hours, Grayscale was Flatter towards the Reference line.
May let go my pride, and let the VQ and AutoCal do everything and see if now off loading the settings to the external device, the LG behaves better.
So far 55LHX behaving very good. Looks great as well.

The Service Menu White Balances Cool, Medium and Warm, all adjusted to Warm values. 10 Point, Plus CMS left at Zeroes. Calman 5 AutoCal for Grayscale, add the 125 3D LUT AutoCale. Unbelievable how this set now looks!
Since I'm always watching this TV straight on, and my wife within a 30 degree angle, the blooming is not a problem. (Still waiting for the wife to be away so I can tweak hers the same, except with the iScan Duo.)

Gave up on tweaking the TV's Grayscale: messes things up. Leave everything at whatever the AutoCal and Lumagen XE come up with. With the New Beta Calman 5, still having problems, but Excellent results. Have to force myself to go to bed some nights because the 55LHX is looking SO GOOD!

New improvements in the Calman 5.1 Beta, leaving the 2/10 Point setting on 2 Point, and allowing the XE or Duo do the AutoCal on the 10 Point and CMS, the 55LHX is now a sheer joy to watch!
Edited by p5browne - 1/28/13 at 9:40am

Anyone have any recommendations on the best way to sell one of the LHX55's? I am looking to get rid of my set and potentially get one of the new panasonic plasmas. Not sure the best way to maximize return on investment (or what to even expect as a reasonable price for it), especially since I don't have the original packing materials.

Look at getting the 55LHX Calibrated with the New Calaman Beta 1100, and my methods above, you'll no longer want to get rid of the 55LHX!
Edited by p5browne - 2/2/13 at 3:43pm

Just popped back in here after months away, mostly to see if any of these sets were still available out there in the world. And p5browne is still trying to calibrate his set! I swear, he's been at this for over a year now, at least! Every time he says he's now got it down for sure, a few days later he's at it again with some new calibration gadget he's found. He will never be satisfied.

OTOH, I haven't touched mine since I took it out of the box and it still looks perfect to me. Some guys have the strangest hobbies. But at least the DSE talk has died down.

I'm a, and not ashamed to admit it, a Clickaholic!
Over the last 3 years, Calman Calibration software has improved immensely. Have gone from the Duo, to now the Lumagen XE (Great prices at www.curtpalme.com re Lumagen sale prices, with a Darbee thrown in) , plus additional ideas thought out between myself and Konica Tech (Now gone over to the Panasonic VT50 Plasma Side), have greatly increased the quality of the PQ of the 55LHX! Each increase in PQ, addicts you to trying to squeeze out another % here, another % there. During this time a lot of education has taken place, some going down blind alleys, others leading to an even better PQ! I'm sorry, but I seem to Love this set!

PLUS, let's not forget our Sponsors:

http://shop.avscience.com/Lumagen-Radiance-Mini-3D-Darbee-Darblet-Bundle_p_538.html
Edited by p5browne - 2/2/13 at 6:07pm

If you saw how Good my 55LHX looks now, you'd quickly want to proceed to Maximizing your PQ as well! Just finishing up with the New Calman 5.1 Beta 1100 and the Radiance XE-3D 125 Point. Between these two - one software and the hardware - just outstanding, and both are still trying to improve things more!
The 55LHX out of the Box, already has the Service Menu White Balances Way Off LG's Specs!

Also check out www.curtpalme.com and http://shop.avscience.com/Lumagen-Radiance-Mini-3D-Darbee-Darblet-Bundle_p_538.html for some great Specials on Lumagens with Darbees thrown in as an enticer.
Edited by p5browne - 2/3/13 at 7:36am

Firmware was updated on my 55LHX during a recent repair and I now have no way to turn on local dimming. It's greyed out on all inputs and picture presets. I know a previous poster had this issue over a year ago but I don't believe a solution was provided.

Local dimming and the excellent blacks were a major reason I bought this set. I can't believe LG would omit this huge feature on a local dimming TV....

Is reverting back to the previous or original firmware possible? Went through the tv reset procedure with LG but obviously that did not affect firmware.

How do I get local dimming back?!?!

It's probably been turned Off in the Service Menu. Who ever did your repair should come back with the Service Remote and turn it back On.

Is using the service remote the only way to do this?

Not confident that our local tech (who has been helpful through our repair ordeal) can accomplish this - long story.

I'm not even sure he used or has a service remote - he replaced the main board, backlight inverter board (?) and updated the firmware. Pretty sure the firmware update is to blame.

This is what the Service Remote looks like and the Model #.

http://www.newremotecontrol.com/lg/catalog_item.php?catnum=105-201M

InStart Key > #4 > #14 > Dim= On/Off Should be On. > Exit Key (Password to Enter is 0000 (4 Zeroes))

You could also PM Nony to see if he can help re serial Cable and Serial Commands.

Supposedly, there's also a way to program a harmony remote for the required key commands.
Edited by p5browne - 2/5/13 at 9:16pm

Thank you for the quick and excellent replies and help. We were able to roll the firmware back one version which solved the problem - now have local dimming back and the set looks terrific! Wish I had some of your expertise so I could really tweak it to look fantastic....

Again, many thanks!!!!

Still work in progress: as Calman gets better, so does the 55LHX and 42LH90. After much experimenting we're now doing the following.
#1. It appears that calibrating the actual 55LHX and 42LH90, seems to stress the TVs. On my 55LHX, have now off loaded the calibration onto a Lumagen Radiance XE-3D that I picked up on a Black Friday special pricing. (Even better deal now currently re: open box special at www.curtpalme.com with Darbee thrown in - 3 left). My wife's 55LHX and 42LH90 calibration are now off loaded onto an iScan Duos. The Theatre Room LG 55LV9500 is also off loaded onto an iScan Duo.)
#2. Calibration is done on Expert 1. The Backlight, Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness and Tint values are placed in all the other Modes. (Backlight, Contrast, Brightness calibrated inside Calman. Colour tweaked inside Calman) All the other Modes have Colour set to Zero. All Modes have any 10 Point IRE's, 2 Point, and CMS values set to Zeroes. All Modes have Gamma set to Low on the 55LHX, Medium on the 42LH90 and White Balance to Warm.
On the 42LH90 and 55LV9500, all HDMI Inputs are zeroed, excepting the Input I'm working on. (Input 2.)
#3. Service Menu White Balances for Cool, Medium and Warm, RGB Gains and Cuts, calibrated for Warm setting values.
#4. The Expert 1 2 Point values are calibrated from within Calman during calibration, and the Expert 1 2/10 Point selection, is left on 2 Point.
#5. Once everything is setup, calibration is done with a Spectracal C6, profiled from a i1Pro, using the current Calman 5.1 version, and AutoCal is used for the 11 Point, and 125 Point 3D LUT. On the iScan Duos, AutoCal for 11 Point and CMS.
Since moving to this form and structure, have had far less problems with the LGs - leaving the stress to the XE and Duos. PQ now looks like watching out your front window to the world, after cleaning the window, and adding a Darbee (on my set only) to enhance the experience!

One thing I've noticed since doing this, when I do a complete reset to all zeroes, the PQ is now looking pretty good. The calibration just makes it look that much better!
Edited by p5browne - 2/24/13 at 9:07pm

Anyone having trouble with this model? (LG 55LHX LED). The media box loses connection with the screen; I have owned my set since May 2010 but only recently experienced sesion-ending continuous disconnections. I have tried every advice in the manual: in front, no objects in the middle, slightly inclined, the works. It disconnects even when there are 4 out 5 bars in the signal strenght icon invoked with the "info" key.

Most Forum Members who have this set, directly send the signal from their AVRs or VQs to the set.
If you're using the wireless capability, all kinds of things can interfere with the signal. Cell phones, microwave ovens, or other electronic interfering apparatus.

Thanks for your prompt reply, p5browne, but I want to use the media box features because I have most of my devices connected to it: cable signal (on AV1), Wii (on AV2), Apple TV (on HDMI2), BluRay (on HDMI 1). I have seen the proposed solution of using the "service ony" HDMI port on the media box as an HDMI "out" port, and the HDMI 5 port on the panel as the "in" one and connect both port with a high-end HDMI cable, but I wonder whether by choosing HDMI 5 as in input will exclude choosing any of the other signals, i.e. HDMI 1 to watch a BluRay movie. Thanks again.

I would like to share this link: http://www.wirelesshd.org/about/faqs/
it speaks wonders of WirelessHD, nothing seems to interfere with it, but I noticed that only the next model of LG, 55LH95 is compliant and allowed to bear the WiHD logo. This thread is about LG 55LHX which is equivalent to 55LH85.

This my last post on wireless problems of LG's 55LHX. Thanks to this forum I connected the HDMI "service only" port in the media box with the HDMI 5 port in the panel. I first turned everything off (but without pulling the power jack), made the connection, started up the set with the remote. The immedate image is an even grey one, then it goes directly to the last input used (in my case AV1 - cable). At first I was confused because I was supposed to select HDMI 5 with my remote, but what ensued was interesting: the media box and the panel behaved as one device when connected; since HDMI 5 is occupied internally it no longer appears in the input menu. The signal intensity icon invoked when pressing the Info key neither shows up anymore. One thing puzzles me: if the new 60Hz WirelessHD standard meets expectations, wireless devices should have all these problems, perhaps newer LG WirelessHD models will not come with these flaws.

By the way, this forum is the best in its field, keep it up!

LOL!!! Archiguy.....

P5BROWNE!!!!

I must say, that we are lucky to have a die-hard perfectionist like P5browne in this thread, he's extremely helpful with anyone's issues, and even myself, I had a hick'up with my LHX, P5browne came to the rescue, which was awesome!

I've been using a Panasonic AE4000U projector with a projector screen, with using the LHX for 50 percent of the time, the rest with the Projector, once you try a projector and screen, you'd never look back! Having your speakers behind a PJ screen, really takes the movie experience to a whole new level......

Keep up the great work P5browne!

Thanks for the accolades. Thanks also has to go out to Konica Tech. Between him and I the results shown above came about. We each had plus and minus ideas that have now resulted in what works for my 2 55LHXs. Plus, must not forget all the trouble Nony went through to get us the FW updates, and the education he gave us.
Got to keep it going to the OLED 4K with passive 3D becomes available in this Pensioners price range!
The 55LHX is an eccentric TV like no other. My 6th sense says that the Great PQ is in it somewhere, you just have to find what makes it happy! Wife liked it so much, had to get her one.
The problem with calibrating this set is, since it is like no other TV on the market, you have to do work arounds, trial and error testing, and different combinations of calibrating equipment and softwares. Original Calman 3 and 4, plus ChromaPure got you in spec, but not in a proper PQ. It wasn't until Calman 5, and now Calman 5.1 that I was now able to have the right options to calibrate it correctly!
My set went originally from AVR input, to the iScan Duo, and finally to the Radiance XE-3D with the 125 Point AutoCal. Now the PQ is more than satisfying!
The 55LHX just had to wait for everything else to catch up! The wife's set still has the Duo, and after 3 years of trying, she now tells me it looks very good!
Plus - look at all the calibrating experience I gained in the mean time!
(Out of the Box means it's running at 9500K on Warm, 12500K on Medium, and 15500K on Cool because the Service Menu White Balance settings are wrong! OK if that's the way you like to watch TV! Wife loves her 9500K Samsung she has in the Family Room Area.)
Edited by p5browne - 3/12/13 at 11:55am

Refined my methods:

Did the re-calibration tonight. 2 Point values reset to Zeroes. VQ reset. Let set run for 2 hours.

ALL CMS and 10 Points in ALL Modes are set to Zero. Colour on ALL Modes is Zero except the Expert 1 that I'm calibrating, and it's set to 50.

Corrected the mistaken idea to use 20 instead of 30 in the SM WB Cuts. Now Gains on Cool, Medium and Warm all set to 100 Warm values. Cuts all set to 30 Warm values. Takes about a half hour of going back and forth, using Calman.
Calibration for Backlight is set for 40 in Calman.

Contrast and Brightness are set on Calman's Dynamic Workflo - 90, 100, 105, 107, 108, 109. Go back and forth between C & B to get the calibration to virtually Zero. Set these values in the other Modes. Again, takes about a half hour.

Set the 2 Point Values on the LG using Calman. Turn off for 10 seconds, turn back on for 10 seconds, then re-tweak.

AutoCal 21 Point. Turn off for 10 seconds, turn back on for 10 seconds, then re-AutoCal.

125 Point 3D LUT AutoCal. Shut set off for 10 seconds, turn back on for 10 seconds, then re-AutoCal.

The results tonight are the closest to Zero I've ever gotten. Don't care what they say that the average person can't distinquish differences below 3 - horse feathers! Same people that say no differenses between a $1.95 HDMI and a Monster. It's all in our heads! Once all the above is done, S&M for the Sharpness.

Except for the Cuts being changed, Gains Virtually never changed except to compensate for changing the Cuts. 2 Point virtually no change except those due to the SM WB changes.

This set is Very Stable now!

Even viewing prior to calibrating, the PQ looks very good with all Zeroes! The calibration just fine tunes the PQ. Have absolutlely no wish to get a new set for now. Even wife comes in and marvels at my picture. (In my room now she's off work, watching my set!)

Lumagen after me to replace more Duo's. As long as I'm getting a good PQ on the wife's sets with the Duo, they stay. Next upgrade is for a 64X64X64 4K Lumagen to go with the OLED 4K 60" set for my room. At current prices, will probably be awhile!

The Only Values that change on the LHX is the BL, CT, BR, Sharpness and 2 Point, plus the SM WB. Rest stay at Zeroes.

Have now done my calibrations with Calman 5.1 AutoCal, followed by the DDC Control fine tuning. PQ is better even more so.
Edited by p5browne - 3/23/13 at 7:53am

Hey guys, I've been contemplating getting a new set or getting the old 55LHX calibrated for the last few months. I finally decided to just keep the LHX and I'm in the process of getting a date scheduled for Chad to come and do it. I haven't had 1 problem with the set, I have zero dead pixels, etc. and I still think the black level on this set is pretty good. Long live the LHX!

E-mailed Chad about my best method of calibrating the 55LHX, but have not received a reply. Most of what I sent him is contained in the above posting. This is 3 years of trial and effort, to stabize the LHX. Now, using the above methods, virtually no change between calibrations, and a Drop Dead PQ!
Proven tonight by watching the Reference Blu-ray Samsara! Amazing!
Edited by p5browne - 4/3/13 at 7:20pm

I was also looking at the Sony backlit sets but those only have 105 zones and they're overpriced IMO so I'll stick with my 240 zone LHX. I'm guessing Chad won't be available until summer time to calibrate my set.

Fewer LEDs as well! Nothing even close to the LHXs 3360 LEDS!
Calman now upping the Calibration threshold to a 96 Colours Colour Checker! Should keep me busy this weekend!

P5, can you please post your best settings including the service menu settings as well. I'd like to give them a go on my LHX. Thanks

Calman 5.1.1 - Tripod Mounted Spectracal C6, profiled off the i1Pro. Best calibration area are was found to be almost Mid Point between Center and the Right Side of the Panel, slightly above the Center Line Top to Bottom.

Service Menu White Balance Settings: Cool/Medium/Warm All calibrated out to the same Values when using x=0.313 and y=0.329 in each. (See what I mean by Stable! Wasn't always this way.)

My 55LHX

Red Gain: 188
Green Gain: 192
Blue Gain: 74
Red Cuts: 66
Green Cuts: 65
Blue Cuts: 65

Expert 1 settings, which were then placed in ALL the other Modes, except Colour which was left at Zero on the other Modes.
Backlight: 37
Contrast: 79
Brightness: 51
H Sharpness: 56
V Sharpness: 48
Colour: 50
Tint: 0
Gamma: Low
White Balance: Warm

2 Point: (The 2/10 Point Setting is left on 2 Point)
Red Contrast: 4
Green Contrast: 0
Blue Contrast: -6
Red Brightness: 11
Green Brightness: 0
Blue Brightness: -10

All 10 Point and CMS Values are Zeros: 21 Point Greyscale and 125 Point CMS AutoCal'd on a Lumagen Radiance XE-3D. (Mine)

Wife's 55LHX: AutoCal with iScan Duo

Service Menu White Balances: Cool/Medium/Warm : all calibrated to Warm Values: x=0.313 y=0.329
Red Gains: 158/153/152
Green Gains: 192/192/192
Blue Gains: 44/44/43
Red Cuts: 66/66/66
Green Cuts: 66/65/65
Blue Cuts: 66/65/65

Backlight: 43
Contrast: 82
Brightness: 50
H Sharp: 58
V Sharp: 54
Colour: 53
Tint: 0

2 Point:
Red Contrast: 4
Green Contrast: 0
Blue Contrast: -4
Red Brightness: 7
Green Brightness: 0
Blue Brightness: -11

Gamma: Low White Balance: Warm

All 10 Point and CMS are Zeroes: 11 Point and CMS Primary and Secondary Values are AutoCal'd on iScan Duo

Since my set is calibrated far more often then the wife's, my 55LHX seems to be more stable.
Edited by p5browne - 4/15/13 at 4:54am

I went ahead and tried them but the settings are too green on my set. I spent a few hours first zeroing everything out and trying to get the white balanca the best I could with just the service menu adjustments, then I did the 2 point from there. Not that anyone comes to this thread anyway but this is what I got.

Backlight 56
Contrast 85
Brightness 52
H Sharpness 54
V Sharpness 53
Color 50
Tint 0

Expert Control

Dynamic Contrast Off
Noise Reduction Off
Gamma Low
Black Level Low
Color Gamut Standard
Edge Enhancer Off

2 Point Settings

Pattern Outer
Red Contrast -1
Green Contrast 2
Blue Contrast 18
Red Brightness -2
Green Brightness -15
Blue Brightness -15

Color Management System

Red Color -4
Red Tint 0
Green Color 0
Green Tint 4
Blue Color 0
Blue Tint 2
Yellow Color 2
Yellow Tint 0
Cyan Color 0
Cyan Tint 2
Magenta Color -2
Magenta Tint 4

Service Menu White Balance Settings

Red Gain 192
Green Gain 175
Blue Gain 108

Red Cut 64
Green Cut 63
Blue Cut 64