Feb 15, 2014 02:29 AM
6777 Views
(Updated Feb 15, 2014 03:01 AM)
I have bought this TV about a year ago for watching movies only. I rarely have time to watch broadcast TV so it's not even connected to any DTH or cable-TV. I watch HD movies on it with pendrive, portable hard-drive and from the HDMI and the VGA ports of my PC too with VLC player.
While playing on PC the audio from PC is connected to the TV 3.5mm stereo jack input. The advantage of playing on PC is the VLC player's abilities to resize video and many many supported formats. So I need the wide choice of connectivity ports which this LG model has - I found no other TV in this range with so many useful input / output ports.
It has almost everything other than a LAN port or Wi-fi. The first HDMI port on the back is hdmi+ dvi, i.e it directly takes the DVI output from my PC's AGP video card with a cheap DVI-to-HDMI cable. Newer models from LG and other new TVs have left out most of the ports this TV has. Even latest Samsung LED TVs cannot play portable hard-drive, it's USB ports doesn't supply enough power for an hard drive - but pendrive plays ok. Most other TVs are having various connectivity limitations like this. None I have found on this LG plasma yet.
It also takes VGA output from the 15-pin VGA port of the PC and then you can use it same as PC monitor, native resolution set to 1024x768 i.e. can be directly used for office conferences and meetings instead of the LCD-projector setup.
Most current TVs don't have a 15-pin VGA port that is standard on PCs and laptops. I have even used this TV as a second display on my ubuntu-Linux PC with dual-display Nvidia AGP card to play PC games on the large 42" screen - and it was amazing fun! Xorg ran perfectly in this set up and auto-detected the TV as a second monitor and automatically configured it.
Onboard player, playing from USB port cannot re-size or eliminate black bars on top & bottom. But it does play every format of video I could find from DivX to MKV or XVID excellently. With few MKV files with 6-channel DCA audio, sound does not play.
But otherwise the build-in player plays excellent and full screen directly from USB pendrive / harddrive once the movie file has been reformatted(on a PC with video converter software) to 720p HD 16:9 ratio.
Picture quality is quite astounding for a Rs 34000 TV of this size. You'd be hard pressed to find better picture quality even in double priced TVS. Unlike LED and LCD picture is great from all angles, even from extreme side - no distortion or blurs at all. Better blacks and rich vibrant colors than LED.
I have latest 32" Samsung LED downstairs to compare with, that one is on Airtel dish for other family members watching soap. I like my LG plasma much much better than my LED TV for watching movies - experience is just next to cinema screen.
Only problem with screen is that it is glass(strong) and quite reflective, so you'd need heavy dark curtains on windows in daytime. I use it for watching movies at evening - so this never bothered me.
Sound is OK for private movie watching and quite loud even in a large room . For additional bass you can connect it to amplified speakers etc, again it has almost every possible audio in / out ports including an optical SPDIF port.
The unit is quite heavy and robust. Screen glass is very strong. LG provided strong large wall mount bracket that is fixed to the wall with 12mm bolts, their technician came and fixed it in a jiffy - no problem. Table stand is also provided in the box.
