LG 50PC3D Review

LG’s 50PC3D is a midpriced example of the breed offering an attractive mix of features, if nothing spectacular. We were a bit underwhelmed by its image quality and disappointed by the single HDMI input–we expect two from sets such as this nowadays–but we appreciated the LG’s simple design and its ability to resize its image six ways.

When we turned to HDTV, the LG’s image, as expected, looked better, although it had many of the same issues we saw on DVD. During one of the many Red Sox vs. Yankees games on ESPN, the grass looked a bit softer than it should. Again, we could improve detail somewhat at the expense of making edges–especially visible in the borders of the visiting Sox’s gray uniforms–unnaturally sharp-looking. Colors were nicely saturated, although the grass looked slightly more yellow than it should have. We also saw too much mosquito noise, so called because it resembles a swarm of tiny mosquitoes, in the blue backstop behind home plate and other flat areas.

We looked at a variety of standard-def material, and the results were below average. While the set did a decent job removing jagged edges from video-based material, it failed to smooth out lines and otherwise pass any of our 2:3 pull-down tests, via either S-Video or component-video. As a result, we recommend you mate the LG with a solid-performing progressive-scan or upconverting DVD player to handle standard-def video-processing duties. You may still notice moving lines in some film-based standard-def TV sources, however.

Our biggest complaint with the LG 50PC3D’s standard-def performance was its inability to reduce much of the video noise inherent in low-quality images. The telltale mosquito noise, visible especially in skies and other flat images, was definitely more obvious on the LG than on other plasmas we’ve reviewed recently.