Official LG xxLD550 xxLD520 xxLD650 Owners Thread - Page 7

The 3 settings are just for the OTA (antenna) or Cable input using the TV tuner: (I have HDMI settings in post #61)
1. "Cinema" Picture mode which is a preset mode. I use it for my wife's daytime viewing of her programs, when the TV is on while she does household tasks and just for her daytime talk shows, etc. Also may be preferred for sports at times or in rooms with a lot of light from windows. It is also a quick setting when a person just has purchased their xxLD550 for people who are not used to the more natural calibrated picture.

2.ISF Expert1 Picture Mode is calibrated closest to the 6500K light temperature of so called "natural" sunlight. This setting is best for rooms with diffused daytime lighting or at night where the best natural picture is desired. If a room has a lot of light a person may prefer the above Cinema.

3. ISF Expert2 Picture Mode is calibrated to be just a bit "cooler" and brighter than Expert1 for times when a person prefers it. I use it at times when watching older black & white movies on network TV, news, and sometimes sports.

The point of the several adjustments is the very reason TV makers provide them. It gives us choices, but hopefully sensible ones by adjusting these settings to a more natural range. I feel my settings also correct the tendency of yellow to look too green and greens to look to bright. I have tried KNDs settings and these did not seem to correct this color discrepancy on my TV at least.
His settings appeared to be just for the HDMI input also. My original settings for the HDMI inputs are in post #61.

All these settings also optimize energy usage by turning the backlight down and still providing a vibrant image.
Another user in this thread found power usage of 180 watts at 100% backlight, while turning it down to the 30 range power was in the 80 watt area.

Oops, almost missed your post. The "bias" light behind a TV always helps reduce eye strain from the quick, bright changes that occur on the TV screen; while also improving the effective black level on the images your eye sees. I always use a 13 watt compact florescent bulb, but make sure it is a good quality "warm" color temperature bulb. My TV stand has equipment towers on either side so it conceals the small lamp I place behind the TV.

The "bouncing" or dancing colors you see on Dish (I assume it's standard definition Dish?) may be due to high compression of the video signal Dish uses. I had Dish up to a year ago and I got similar issues with it on my other HDTV.

Hmmm... "flashlighting" on a green grass background???? You usually get that with dark or almost black backgrounds. Unless your sharpness settings are too high or Edge Enhancemnt needs to be turned off. If it's the high contrast areas of a picture you are referring to, sometimes it is actually the broadcast signal having too much "boost" by the camera crew. My TV looks so life like and artifact free on golf, tennis, and football it is just breathtaking.
What kind of cable box are you using? Maybe it's your picture settings?

Maybe your cable provider has processed the network feeds or at least set video signal levels up to a level the TV has problems with. For instance, in the analog TV days, if a signal was set too high, the TV AGC might clip the signal. We always assume that the signal we get for cable, or even from a local antenna feed is pristine and not processed. A real eye opener is to see some black and white content from local TV feeds and see how much they can be off. B&W can have green, red, or blue casts to it right from the station if their equipment isn't set right. Some local stations even compress the feeds they get from a network to squeeze more into the bandwidth for subchannels. If you take a look at the "local HDTV' threads there are posters who either work, or have worked at TV stations and tell of all sorts of trade offs that are made for economic and other reasons.

At any rate I've had tennis, golf, and football on all day and I have not had what you are describing. I tried KNDs settings and had them in my Expert2 picture mode for a few days , but find them too blue, and reds " bloom" and are over saturated, along with some other issues. If you set the TV into one of the internal patterns and look at the small gray scale you can see red shift on the higher IREs, at least on my TV. I would also check sharpness settings, and edge enhancement for the Expert modes. Also, his settings omit color level (50%?) and some other pertinent settings.

Lastly, and I hate to even think or mention it; maybe there are different LCD panels in the xxLD550 line. There may be different panels, but with LG I've always felt a little better about the "panel lottery" than Samsung and some other makes. I went through that with my first large screen LCD. But that was for banding, clouds, uniformity and more. I haven't seen any of that in this line of LG TVs, which is what attracted me to them.

First of all, try and relax and enjoy, take your time learning a few things, and congratulations on the new TV! It is best if you have something like the Avia DVD for home theater, but that will only help for HDMI, Component, or other inputs. I provided gray level settings for the tuner if you are using it, besides HDMI. By plugging in the following settings, you TV will look much better than the factory settings. Make sure you selected "Home" when you first ppowered up the TV and it asked on the screen for Home or Store.


This is for the Off The Air antenna input or Cable if you have it, but it will be close for HDMI also. I have other settings for the HDMI inputs , But try these first to get you going. Before you make any adjust ments, go into the Expert Control and tun off all the other things like Dynamic Contrast, Dynamic Color, etc, set Gamma to low, etc. These setting are mentioned in Post #177.

If you wish to get close to a good grayscale, go into the Menu,, Then Picture, and select ISF Expert1. Then go to Post #177 here in this thread. Plug in the values for each setting that is shown and you will have a good starting point. In the "Expert Control" you have to set the R (red), G, (green), and B (blue) values by starting at IRE 100 and set Red to 3, Green to 4, and Blue to -5. Then step back up to 100 IRE, depress the left < arrow on the remote and select IRE 90. Repeat for each IRE point down to 0 ( make sure you select 10 point method previously, not 2 point). Once you set these, you can check the gray scale using the "Expert Pattern" feature in the menu, and select Pattern 2. This will show a test screen with color bars, a small gray scale, and more for sharpness settings.

Don't be afraid, you can always do a picture reset and start over. It will just take a little familiarity if you are the kind of person that likes tweaking things!
It would help if you read page 5 and 6 also in this thread as some questions are answered. You can always ask more questions. Have you ever done gray scale settings on any TV?

What post are you referring too and what thread? Who says to change luminance levels , unless you mean the IRE levels for each IRE window.
My settings for HDMI 1 Expert 1 and Expert 2 in Post #61 of this thread are from using the Avia DVD (on a Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player) calibration screens using IRE 0 to IRE 100 windows and step patterns and a Spyder 3 Pro. This required many hours as the steps between IRE values do interact somewhat. Also, the resulting gray scale was checked with a light meter.
Lastly, the OTA settings were derived from using the same Avia DVD passed through an RF converter. Finally, I used the first 6 minutes of "Seabicuit" on DVD to check real world results. The first 6 minutes of this DVD contain plenty of shades of gray to verify grayscale in themany B&W photos at the beginning of the DVD. Also, red and green push can be checked, as well as subltle flesh tones.

Yes, a DVD or meter is best, but the idea of the settings supplied here is that since it is the same TV, the settings should be close, and you can check ir with the internal Expert Pattern 2. There is also an "inner" IRE field pattern aboove "Method" in the setting menu.

With the HDMI input, yes the Expert Pattern will be grayed out. Sorry, was thinking of the OTA/Cable input. But I think the Inner pattern (above method) should still be available and provide IRE fields. AVIA or Video Essentials would be best to use.