2011 LG XXLV5500 SMARTTV / Impressions - Page 2

Thank you very much for the info!

Out of curiosity, have you compared the picture with the Samsung xxD6000? I looked at the two sets today, and although there were some minor differences, for the most part, it was difficult for me to tell. However, this might have been due to the glare on the D6000, which was positioned right by a bright light inside of the store. The glare was awful

This will be my first LG tv and my first LED tv. Totally pumped!!!

Does Plex allow you to dvr stuff?

I do have direct tv, but the RVU stuff isn't a big deal for me.

Cheers for all the help!

I am going to try to pick it up after work tomorrow if I don't work late. I'll report back once I get it.

Can someone do a quick comparison between the LVs and D6000s? Seems like the big differences are the LVs have a matte screen and some sort of local dimming. Anything else?

I can't comment directly on the specs, and I am by no means an expert on tvs (this will be my first LED purchase), but I will say that when I went to the store to look, the LV5500 and the D6000 looked very similar PQ wise.

To me, and again, I am just an average person looking at TVs, I did not notice any significant differences. I will say though that the D6000 had a REALLY bad glare on the screen due to the glossy panel and being placed directly near a light source in the Best Buy store. The LG, which was right next to the Samsung, had a minor glare, but it was nowhere near as bad, and wasn't very noticeable.

I was originally leaning towards the D6000, mainly because I have several friends that have Samsung TV's, and they all have positive things to say about it, but after seeing the glare, I had no doubt in my mind that the LV5500 was the one to go with. My living room has 3 large windows.

If I don't stay late at work, I plan on going to pick up the TV after work. When I get it, I will report back with my initial impressions. I can also do some gaming tests with my xbox 360 if that is a concern for any of the readers here.

Please do, I'd be really interested in your opinion on it, especially the review of the xbox on it.

I just wanted to leave a quick note that I bought the TV. I had a crazy day, so I will update with my initial impressions tomorrow. Sorry for the delay

I was busy most of the day yesterday, but here are my initial impressions after playing with the set for maybe 1.5 hours.

At the first Best Buy I went to, the D6000 was right under the LV5500. The colors/brightness of the LV5500 looked kind of dim, and the picture definitely popped more on the D6000. With that said, I thought the colors on the LV5500 looked much more realistic. There was a scene in the demo video where they showed a volcano, and the lava on the D6000 looked overly red and bright.

I didn't think much of this because I knew both TVs had picture/color settings.

Anyway, the first Best Buy didn't have the 47LV5500 in stock, so I went to another Best Buy nearby. Before I bought it, I figured I would look at the two sets again. The LV5500 at this store must have been on a different setting, because it looked much brighter. The colors popped, but they still looked realistic.

The setup was very straightforward. I didn't wall-mount the set because I don't have that as an option in my apartment.

After getting everything set up, I plugged in the WiFi dongle (which is included with the 5500), and downloaded the update that was available. Once the update was done, I watched TV for about 30 minutes. The Travel Channel and the Food Network looked fantastic. I really like the fact that the colors are not over-saturated or overly bright, and again, I didn't mess with any of the settings. I am using the "standard" setting. The only thing I changed was the aspect ration which I set to "Just Scan".

Next, I wanted to see how my xbox 360 looked. I recently moved to my apartment and I didn't bring all of my games with me, so I played Call of Duty MW2. I left all of the settings how I had them. I did not change to Game Mode. Maybe it is because I am not a hardcore gamer, but I really did not notice any significant input lag. I will do more testing on this tonight with a few other games. A friend of mine suggested that the best way to test input lag is to use a game like rock band where timing is important, but I don't have any games like that. If anyone has suggestions on the best way to test input lag, let me known and I can try it out tonight.

Last but not least, I thought I would mention the matte screen. I have a VERY bright ceiling light in my living room, and even with that light on, I have difficulty noticing the glare. Just to give you a better idea of what I mean when I say "very bright light", most of the time I have to turn the light off because it makes the room too bright. I mainly use it when I am eating dinner.

Again, I just want to remind everyone that I am a noob when it comes to this stuff. Please, do not consider my opinion an "expert" opinion.

If anyone has any questions, or would like me to take pictures or do any tests, please let me know. I've been reading this site for awhile now, and I feel like it is finally my time to contribute since I finally bought a new TV.

So far, I am incredibly happy with my purchase!

EDIT: I think there might be a rock band 2 demo in the xbox market place. If so, I can download it and try it out, but I just want to warn everyone that I have never played a game like this before, so if I find it difficult to time things correctly, it may have nothing to do with the TV. I mainly use my xbox to play NHL 11.

Yes to both. I have HD with direct TV and I am using the built-in speakers. I think the built-in speakers sound great!

Today when playing my Xbox, I decided to test out game mode. I noticed that game mode made my input seem faster, so if you are going to game, you're going to definitely want to put the TV in game mode.

One thing I noticed today was that during an entirely black screen, if a small object that is bright appears, there is a band of light that stretches across the width of the TV. The band is as big as the height of the object.

Is this normal?

For example, if you go to an all black screen and you use the magic remote, wherever I move the cross-hairs, I notice a light band whose height is about the same height as the cross-hairs that stretches across the width of the screen.

i.e.
"=" means it is dark.
"0" means a light spot. (it is not really a "spot", the entire row is lighter.)
The "+" is the cross-hair for the magic remote.


======
======
000+000
======


Is this normal?

It isn't a huge issue, mainly because it ONLY seems to occur when the screen is entirely black except for one small area. This doesn't happen that often, at least in my case.

EDIT: I am not longer using the default settings. One of the things I turned up was the back light. Would that be the cause of this problem? I notice when I put the TV on game mode, this doesn't happen, or at least the brightness of the lighter row is much less significant.

Yes - As I stated, I *did* have a local dimming option when I originally got the set and the first firmware update (I've actually had two) removed the option and forced it on. Originally I had Low, High, and Off for options. Now the option is gone and it seems to be set to what was originally "High".

I have just minor nitpicks with the set, but overall I'm very happy. I think if they can add the same video processing options (ISF Modes, User Mode TruMotion) for the DLNA modes I'd be completely happy with my purchase.

I do have the say that I love the magic motion remote. At first I thought it would be "neat" but stored after the first time playing, but I find myself using it quite a bit.

I have had some lock-ups using DLNA mode where I would start playing a video, the sound would start, no video and then nothing. Sometimes the TV would just turn off, other times I would have to hit the power control on the TV - remote wouldn't do anything. Each time it was fine after. Also, once I had a problem where the TV was ignoring the volume controls from *any* remote. The TV status light would blink showing that it was seeing the request but the volume display wouldn't come up and the volume wouldn't change. Turning the TV off and on made the problem go away.

I suspect that most of this will be tweaked in future firmware updates, so I'm not too worried.

Thanks for the explanation. I remember reading somewhere that the set had local dimming when I was researching TVs.


I totally agree.


I have an Android phone. I can test this out tonight.

I download the LG Remote app on my Android phone yesterday, but it says it only works with LG Bluray players.

When you run the app, you first connect to your wifi network and it tries to discover devices. It doesn't find my TV.

You downloaded the wrong app.

Try 'LG TV remote' in the app market rather than 'LG Remote'. I don't have this TV yet but I looked at the app market to read about the apps.

Thank you for the info.

I am going out of town this weekend, but I downloaded the LG TV Remote app and will test it out when I get back.

Does anyone know if the 47le5500 is the 2010 version of the 47lv5500? Most of the specs look the same but I wasn't sure.

I downloaded the LG TV Remote app, but I am having trouble getting it sync'd with my TV.

My phone and TV are both connected to my WiFi. I open the app and it attempts to discover the TV. A small box on the TV opens up in the bottom right that says something like "Pairing Key" which has 6 dots.

In this video, the 6 dots turn into a code, and the TV shows up in the list of devices so that you can select it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pam2...layer_embedded

However, in my case, the 6 dots never turn into a code, and the TV does not appear in the list of available devices on my phone. Any ideas?

Is there anything I need to do on the TV?

The only three things I could think of are:

1. There is something else I need to do on the TV to get it to sync.
2. There is a bug with the software generating the pairing key.
3. The request from my device to my TV is making it through my router (which is why the TV displays the pairing key box), but my router is blocking the response back from my TV to my phone. Not quite sure why this would be the case, but it's a possibility.

EDIT: I just loaded up the Android debugger and there doesn't appear to be any errors on the phones end, or at least errors that are being written to the log.

I believe the le is 2011 European version. See this link: http://www.avforums.com/forums/lg-fo...00-led-tv.html

After playing around with the set for some time now, I actually find this supposed limited local dimming to be rather annoying.

When I am watching something that has a lot going on, the limited local dimming is fine. However, take for example a car commercial. Usually at the end of the commercial, there is an all black screen with the car maker's logo in the center. When this happens, the entire screen is black, except for the row where the logo is. The tv is lighter in that row.

I saw a commercial the other day that was black and white. It wasn't a very "busy" commercial, and it was mostly dark. If a row had any light object, the entire row was noticeably brighter. So for example, there was a part of the commercial where there was a white object in the upper right-hand corner, and the entire top row of the screen was lighter than the rest of the tv. It didn't help that the object was moving around, so I could see the white row moving around the entire set.

I notice when I turn game-mode on, this doesn't happen.

I read a lot of comments on how the LV5500 performs well in bright rooms. I'm looking a purchasing a new TV this year (kind of want to wait for the 2011 Vizio line to come out to compare) but how does the LV5500 look at night with limited light? I'm going to be putting my new TV in my "man cave" in the basement so there is not much light other than from lights in the ceiling.

HDUDE, I've had an 47LV5500 for a few weeks now & am quite pleased with it. I usually watch it in a large room lit with one 150 watt table lamp. To my eyes, the 5500 picture is very bright & sharp.

If the room is dark, the picture dims some what. Frankly, I would prefer that it was a bit brighter in that lighting but it's not too bad. When I get a chance, I intend to talk to LG Customer Support about this to see if there is a way to tweak the brightness.

For what ever it's worth, I spent some time looking at picture quality of the Samsung 6000 Series as well as the 5500. IMHO, although the Samsung was good the LG was superior.

Update: Local dimming can be tweaked by using the Energy Saving button on the LG remote. I found that selecting "off" eliminates dimming in a dark room. It's in the manual which you can get on LG's web site.

Jonnale, I have never seen my 5500 do what you describe. You might want to contact LG Customer Support about that.