2012 LG PM9700 Series Discussion Thread - Page 2

I also saw this tv at the store yesterday. I currently have the 55LM7600 but I'm returning it do to extreme flashlight issues. When I saw this TV, I first thought it was and LCD. I did like the bezel, black brush aluminum. I don't know much about black levels but I did compare the colors to the 55LM7600 which was behind me and the bright colors where perfect or better then LED. I liked it in my personal opinion

what stores has this plasma on display??

Yes, I turned it off. I own 3 LG tv's and I'm pretty familiar with their menus.

See if you can get the pm9700 and an ST50 or a GT50 next to each other and compare them. I am no panansonic fanboy...I have a 55LHX, 55LW5600 and really prefer LG. Until about 2 weeks ago, if you asked me if I would buy a panasonic plasma I'd have laughed at you. I just never liked the picture. Its just that this years panasonics have such a jaw dropping picture that it's tough to overlook it. I tried, believe me. I still have no TV because I' was waiting for the PM9700. It disappointed me in person and now for some strange reason I'm waiting for someone to test it to confirm what I already know. That the picture on the panasonic st50 I'll probably get just looks better.

However, it is a very elegant design and if you want the motion advantage of plasma but are putting it in a bright room with poor light control, this could be the holy grail of tv's. No glare, no blooming, no motion artifacts or judder but with excellent color (which I couldn't achieve). So maybe as I said in my initial impression, LG is going for a niche that is currently unfilled by anything affordable (subjectively speaking).

Please post some photos of it once it arrives. I'm sure people would like to see the screen finish. It showed almost zero reflection of the room I was in. Even when I turned it off.

I just ordered one from Amazon (60 incher), which should arrive by the end of the month.

I am replacing a 2007 Sony KDL-52XBR4, and wanted to go with plasma for the better image quality (i.e. no motion blur for sports) and less input lag for gaming.

However, the room it's going in has lights in the ceiling near the tv and so the thought of traditional plasma glare worried me.

I bought this set sight unseen, but, seeing as it's being billed as LG's top-of-the-line model with less glare, I figured that it would be the best option for me.

I'll let everyone know my impressions, etc.

Should I plan on doing the 100-hour break-in?

Oh Rats! That's not what I want to hear.

Sounds like the matte screen may be great at reducing glare but at the expense of color depth. It would be pretty sad that the 6700 has better color saturation than the flagship model. Well the darn TV is coming tomorrow. I just want it to be competitive with the Samsung PN60D8000 I returned because of the excessive buzz it had. Very frustrating since I thought the PQ was stunning.

It was just my perception of the that particular unit. In your home it may prove to be a far better picture than I was able to achieve in 20 minutes with 100 sets around me. It was also next to a sharp 52" LCD probably set to vivid, which probably didn't help its case much. Post some photos if you can!

The PM9700 I saw had hockey on for the first 10 minutes, then ESPN HD on. So it was not a 1080P signal. I'm guessing it was directv but I'm not sure. It was also the signal that feeds about 100 TV's so it's split and maybe that had some effect.

Anyone please correct me if I'm mistaken, but my understanding was this really isn't necessary any longer. At most you can just avoid long periods of watching ESPN, CNBC or any other channel with static banners and/or images on the screen for the first couple of weeks -- just to be doubly sure.

Yeah, it seems like everyone goes back and forth on this. An official LG UK blog (available online) says that you should keep the contrast and brightness below 50 for the first 100-200 hours, but that could all be CYA type stuff and not be grounded in reality.

Meanwhile, the break-in "gurus" suggest that you crank the contrast and turn up the brightness while running the slides/images for the first 100 hours. It's all so confusing and completely unclear....

my local Fry's electronics

I received my unit yesterday as this one had no physical damages!

1) A very non reflective screen.

2) Blacks appear as dark as the Samsung PN59D8000 I returned due to excessive screen buzzing. The LG is as quiet as a mouse in comparison.

3) Whites are extremely bright for a Plasma.

4) This TV is in dire need of calibration. The Samsung looked great out of the box. Anyone know of any calibration settings please let me know - the advance ones.

I'm pretty optimistic once the colors/settings are dialed in this will have a great picture.

Hi venus933

Looks like LG dropped the THX certification on this one, it's pretty well spot on with my PX950 with only a minor adjustment needed.
What do you feel needs to be done with regards to calibration and did you check the black levels in a dark room?

can someone please start an official owners thread on this TV

I took my USB drive with the movie "Drive" in it to Fry's. I tested the same Scene on four TV's. Samsung PN64E7000, LG 65LM6200, Panasonic Viera ST550, Sharp 60LE745, LG 55LM7600. I think it looks best on the Samsung. Both LG looked about the same. 55LM7600 had better blacks. I didn't like Panasonic. It looked to Dark. Sharp didn't look so impressive. ok Now the 60PM9700. I ddin't see so much difference between both LG LED models. It almost looked like you were watching an LED not a Plasma. Colors where bright. Image was sharp. The cool thing is you could enable truemotion in case you like soap opera effect. I'm still debating if I should buy this. I had one 55LM7600 and returned it. I don't want to risk getting another one with so much flashlight. I want to stick to LED. But 55 is kind of small for my being distance. And they don't have a 60" and the 65" is too expensive. I also like passive 3d alot. Will see.

Hello Robert,

No, this TV has THX certification. I just don't think it does much for the picture.

The color depth is pretty much as Chad B described it for the PM6700 before calibration.

I sat in a dark room for about 20 minutes before checking out the blacks and they look good to me.

For now I think I'll use CNET's calibration settings of the PZ950 to see how that works. Of course if anyone has a better suggestion please chime in. Thanks.

With its matte screen one of LG's weaknesses, performance in a bright room, should become a strength. Not that I'll be doing any viewing in such an environment. Black levels may not have leapfrogged anyone but I think it's no longer a glaring weakness either.

OK, interesting, I was looking at US specs but THX was not listed in the picture settings

http://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-60PM9700
"Picture Mode8 Modes (Vivid/Standard/APS/Cinema/Game/ Photo/ISF Expert 1/ISF Expert 2)"

We'll see how it fares once the tweakers get their hands on one.

Robert, look under PANEL SPECIFICATIONS and you should see it.

Very encouraging. I need to find another location to view this set I guess...I will for sure give it another chance. I don't want to spend $1800 on something I need to remove 900 screws from and tweak to get great blacks out of, but if you really think they compare to a D8000 in a controlled environment it's worth another look. Again, the unit I saw was pretty flat so please keep us posted as to how it dials in.

On a separate note, does anyone know what the "protective skin glass" is all about? Is it anything like gorilla glass, as in it really protects the tv from say a 3 year old throwing a toy and it hitting it, or is it just some marketing jargon? I have the aforementioned 3 year old and last night realized that this is a very possible scenario. TV is wall mounted but you never know...

It had a THX cinema mode...no bright room mode which is kind of a shame. My LW5600 has bright room and it looks great.

Any word/suggestions on whether a break-in is necessary on this thing?

Well, there is a 123 page topic on burn-in in this forum...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=949107

Yes, but that doesn't help anything.

As I said, those "gurus" say you should turn up the contrast and brightness during the break-in, but that differs with the LG blog. Further, it's not clear that the LG blog even applies to the new PM9700.

Simply put, if your rotating full edge to edge color slides the whole panel (all pixels) are equally primed so you can boost the contrast and brightness, the alternative is full screen broadcast or movies but because the pixels are now being randomly exposed, light/dark it's best to lower the contrast and brightness for the first 100 or so hours.

Thanks! You the mang!

60hz?

And it would be very cool, if you could make two screenshots. One of the pluge pattern of the AVS709 disc and another of the green screen, that is always just before movie trailers.

Thanks in advance.

Anyone? My set will arrive on Thursday morning. I'd like to hear some impressions.

Well, my first impressions didn't last that long.

I'm very disappointed in the video processing of this television. The picture becomes very unsettled/choppy whenever there's motion and it's terrible with any kind of weak signal.

Why does a plasma have a tru-motion setting anyway? I tried all the variations including off and it doesn't matter. It's the crappy processor regardless.

I noticed this earlier to a smaller extent from the television's media streaming (VUDU, Netflix) but I thought it was just a problem with bandwidth. So I didn't mention this problem in my earlier post.

Text scrolling with sport scores from ESPN/MLBN are washed out and not crisp. I'm not someone coming from a LCD as the TV I'm rolling over is a 3 1/2 year Panasonic plasma so I'm not being overly picky.

It's a beautifully designed TV and the blacks are quite good but I watch a lot of older content and the 9700 is not even close to delivering an adequate picture with 480p or less signals.

This was my first LG and it will be my last for the foreseeable future.