LG 50PK550R Owner's Discussion Thread

[shaiju_o_thomas]

Btw, I booked Tata Sky HD today. Will be installed in 5 "working" days. :yahoo:

 

[Mannu]

Congrats Shaiju, I also booked Tata sky HD today itself, they said it wil be installed within 5 working days, also they are giving super value pack and gold pack free for 2 months (4 HD channels are star sports HD, ESPN HD, NGC HD, Discovery HD ), total price was 2599/- also they said something about the wiring, but i don't remember it exactly, extra charges for wire if required amount exceeds was 50/-, if it exceeds 20 m then 100/- and so on.

Also i haven't seen any dancing green pixels on mine, i wonder why that is? i cranked up every setting to 100 and turned ON all advanced settings, but i didn't see anything dancing around on my blacks, I used many different images. Also not being able to calibrate isn't bothering me too much since i don't have the equipment to calibrate, and also buying those meters etc will cost around 10,000 Rs, so that can wait another year or so and, since none are available in India so they will have to be imported, and they too aren't very precise. I know calibration makes a huge difference, but then i just wanna enjoy my priced possession for now, I hope you also get to enjoy it soon enough

Best Of Luck !!

 

[shaiju_o_thomas]

I have a Tata Sky connection, so they will replace the existing box and provide 12 months of free 4 HD channels. Not much of a free deal but will do considering an HD box for such a low price.

I doubt the green pixels will be visible on static images. You have to play a letter boxed movie to notice them on the black bars (i.e. if your display has a similar problem).

Just noticed them on Travel & Living and Sony MAX with brightness set at 54, contrast at 48 and others at default.

 

[Mannu]

Well after reading yoru post i went and played MGS4 on my ps3, cranked up all the setting but i don't see it even now, and i was up close with my nose almost touching the screen, then i tried uncharted drakes fortune level 18 (have been stuck at it for quite sometime) it is almost played in total darkness with zombies appearing from nowhere, and nothing still, i wonder it might kick in later i will update you all if I see them. I saw dithering on the display model that was in the showroom, and it was pretty bad, completely ruins the experience, but fortunately my display doesn't have it as of now.

 

[shaiju_o_thomas]

A good sign that your display is problem free. Hope it stays that way.

You did see the the dithering on a display model and ain't it bad? Precisely why I almost fainted when I saw on mine. Makes me doubt the quality control at LG.

 

[Mannu]

yes it was quite bad on that display model, it was set to vivid mode, and playing a DVD of some foreign songs.

 

[viveknath]

Tried all the settings and things like Mannu and even Travel & Living and Sony MAX with brightness set at 54, contrast at 48 and others at default.

Didn't see any so far. Touchwood. Will keep posted if anything comes up..

 

[shaiju_o_thomas]

Guys, thanks for checking your display and kind of reassuring me that there are problem free panels out there (somewhere).

 

[viveknath]

Shaiju,

Do let me know if there is anything in particular you might want me to look for further ? And any other channels or DVD/ CD etc. Also if you can put a picture of the exact problem on your set. Accordingly I too will play the settings and post back a picture of my set.

 

[shaiju_o_thomas]

Vivek,

Play a letter-boxed movie; black bars on top and bottom of the screen. I use DVD which is at 1080p resolution.

On LG my settings are:
Aspect ratio = Just scan
Cinema mode
Contrast = 48
Brightness = 54 (increasing / decreasing this will make the problem obvious)
Color = 49
Sharpness = 40
Tint = 0
Color temp = W30
All dynamic = Off
Gamma = Medium
Black level = Low
ISM = Orbiter

Now, check the top balck bar specially at the corners . I see very visible green sparkling dots. They start appearing a centimeter or two away from the corners.

Check the link below. Mine is worse.
AVForums.com - View Single Post - The Official LG PK250 Plasma Thread

 

[dotMac]

Out of curiosity I was looking into the manual of PK550(US model). So I wanted a few clarification based on features available in US model. I have not received my TV yet and hence I am asking you. Also I could not find the online manual for 550R

1. Doesnt the TV have a simple(RCA/TRS) Audio Out? I only see optical-out on the US model. My HTIB does not have optical-in. It has only the other two
So any solution for routing the Terrestrial cable TV signal audio to my HTiB? Even if it has a head-phone jack it will do for me.
I hope once I have the DTH, the STB would have the required Audio-out.
Can someone confirm that the STBs do have audio-out?
And in case of HD STBs where HDMI is used to connect to TV, can i still route the audio from STB via ?

2. Is the USB slot capable of playing movies? Or is it just for audio and pics?
Is the audio support limited to MP3 and pics to JPEG.
Also it does not support HFS+ and supports only FAT32/NTFS.
This may not be a concern for many of you as you may already be owning a streamer.

3. Does the remote have illuminated keypad?

4. When you turned on the TV for the first time, did you hey a welcome screen asking for the mode. The available modes are Home Use and Store Demo.
This can be a hint on whether you got a new TV unused outside the factory.
Also just-in-case it does not appear(if someone has already made that choice for you ), can the setting be changed?

 

[BLASTO]

1) I dont think any TV has it for 5.1. Many LG Tvs have RCA for with volume adjustment for sterio (2.0). You can use this for getting prologic 5.1 sound from the receiver.

2) It pays movies from both NTFS and FAT32. Iam not sure if it plays the HD content from mkv files though.

4) This can be activated even in a used piece by activating "Factory Reset". Cannot be used for finding it it is used earlier. And yes the selection can be made any number of times.

Out of curiosity I was looking into the manual of PK550(US model). So I wanted a few clarification based on features available in US model. I have not received my TV yet and hence I am asking you. Also I could not find the online manual for 550R

1. Doesnt the TV have a simple(RCA/TRS) Audio Out? I only see optical-out on the US model. My HTIB does not have optical-in. It has only the other two
So any solution for routing the Terrestrial cable TV signal audio to my HTiB? Even if it has a head-phone jack it will do for me.
I hope once I have the DTH, the STB would have the required Audio-out.
Can someone confirm that the STBs do have audio-out?
And in case of HD STBs where HDMI is used to connect to TV, can i still route the audio from STB via ?

2. Is the USB slot capable of playing movies? Or is it just for audio and pics?
Is the audio support limited to MP3 and pics to JPEG.
Also it does not support HFS+ and supports only FAT32/NTFS.
This may not be a concern for many of you as you may already be owning a streamer.

3. Does the remote have illuminated keypad?

4. When you turned on the TV for the first time, did you hey a welcome screen asking for the mode. The available modes are Home Use and Store Demo.
This can be a hint on whether you got a new TV unused outside the factory.
Also just-in-case it does not appear(if someone has already made that choice for you ), can the setting be changed?

 

[dotMac]

1) I dont think any TV has it for 5.1. Many LG Tvs have RCA for with volume adjustment for sterio (2.0). You can use this for getting prologic 5.1 sound from the receiver.

I think only Optical-out can do 5.1 or higher. RCA cannot.
However I am looking for a plain stereo sound as that is what we get in local cable. I would not prefer the head-phone jack as it is not pre-amp out.
But guess thats all I can get. Any idea whether LG has a pre-amp out with stereo on RCA?

2) It pays movies from both NTFS and FAT32. Iam not sure if it plays the HD content from mkv files though.

My HDD is in HFS+. So need to get that WD TV live I guess

4) This can be activated even in a used piece by activating "Factory Reset". Cannot be used for finding it it is used earlier. And yes the selection can be made any number of times.

So if someone has used and forgot to do a reset, he will be caught :thumbsup:

But is it correct in expecting that this menu has to come for a new TV? i.e. is there a possibility that manufacturer/dealer do run it once for confirming the quality of the TV before dispatching to the end-user?

By the way, anyone did get their TV without this menu?

 

[Mannu]

Out of curiosity I was looking into the manual of PK550(US model). So I wanted a few clarification based on features available in US model. I have not received my TV yet and hence I am asking you. Also I could not find the online manual for 550R

1. Doesnt the TV have a simple(RCA/TRS) Audio Out? I only see optical-out on the US model. My HTIB does not have optical-in. It has only the other two
So any solution for routing the Terrestrial cable TV signal audio to my HTiB? Even if it has a head-phone jack it will do for me.
I hope once I have the DTH, the STB would have the required Audio-out.
Can someone confirm that the STBs do have audio-out?
And in case of HD STBs where HDMI is used to connect to TV, can i still route the audio from STB via ?

2. Is the USB slot capable of playing movies? Or is it just for audio and pics?
Is the audio support limited to MP3 and pics to JPEG.
Also it does not support HFS+ and supports only FAT32/NTFS.
This may not be a concern for many of you as you may already be owning a streamer.

3. Does the remote have illuminated keypad?

4. When you turned on the TV for the first time, did you hey a welcome screen asking for the mode. The available modes are Home Use and Store Demo.
This can be a hint on whether you got a new TV unused outside the factory.
Also just-in-case it does not appear(if someone has already made that choice for you ), can the setting be changed?

1. Here is the link to the pic of the connections that are available on this set ( it's not the quality of pic that is bad, it's the print of the manual that was like this, so i apologise if you can't make out from what has been written, i tried my best), the pic is from the manual but i have cross checked the connections with my display and they are the same as depicted in the pic, so as u can see the inputs are different from the US model.

2. i haven't tried any HD movies, but i read it on avsforum that USB did not support it, i played a DVD rip (DivX) movie and it could be easily played, but it looked like crap, so i don't know if it will serve any purpose for playing movies, maybe full DVD rips might look a little better, but then if that is the case i would use my ps3 to play 4 gb HD rips.

3. No the Indian remote does not have an illuminated keypad, the US model has that, not the Indian model.

4. Well as blasto explained that it could be reset, but if it helps you then i did not see that screen since i was busy beating the crap out of my dealer, since after the episode that went down between me and my dealer, i went there and told him to open it before my eyes, so i am sure that mine was not a display piece, it's just that i was so busy sorting the crap out of him that I didn't notice when they had it up and running. So maybe someone else could comment in this area.

 

[shaiju_o_thomas]

I remember seeing a screen asking to chose between modes - Store or Home use - when the brand new TV was installed.

It can be changed from the menu but I think the initial confirmation screen is shown only once.

 

[BLASTO]

I think only Optical-out can do 5.1 or higher. RCA cannot.

6 RCA outs one for each channel gives 5.1 out and is used widely in DVD players and not on TVs.

 

[dotMac]

1. Here is the link to the pic of the connections that are available on this set ( it's not the quality of pic that is bad, it's the print of the manual that was like this, so i apologise if you can't make out from what has been written, i tried my best), the pic is from the manual but i have cross checked the connections with my display and they are the same as depicted in the pic, so as u can see the inputs are different from the US model.

Thanks a ton. I could read everything except that port 8 on which I am very curious. I could read the 2nd part which says "Audio Out" and it has two ports meaning stereo. So I am excited that I could get that to my HTiB and get the audio out. :yahoo:

2. i haven't tried any HD movies, but i read it on avsforum that USB did not support it, i played a DVD rip (DivX) movie and it could be easily played, but it looked like crap, so i don't know if it will serve any purpose for playing movies, maybe full DVD rips might look a little better, but then if that is the case i would use my ps3 to play 4 gb HD rips.

My HDD anyway is formatted with HFS+ and hence no much luck with this. Getting streamer seems the only solution. Until that I will have to stay with DivX. Was just curious to see some HD videos.

@pk550 owners :

What stabilizer have you used? Especially people who got an AVR and a console.

As per the dealer here, VG Digi 100 would be sufficient for my TV and HTiB(Sony).
Shortly, I may get an HD DTH + WD TV. On a not so near future, I may get an AVR.

@adder on the other thread had suggested to go for Digi 200 as I had included AVR(consumes ~ 250W) in the list.

The price the dealer has quoted are 2500K for Digi 100 and 4500K for Digi 200.

Since D200 has a 2K premium, I am planned to settle for Digi100 IF it suffices for everything I said above except AVR. i.e. TV+HTiB+DTH. My plan is to get another Digi100 when I get an AVR/Console as the incremental cost is same as the premium I pay for the D200 model now.

My apologies if I am too off-topic. But I wanted one last opinion from the PK500 owners.

 

[dotMac]

6 RCA outs one for each channel gives 5.1 out and is used widely in DVD players and not on TVs.

Yes you are right. I remember the Philips DVD player I used before had it.
If I am not wrong it was 7.1. Not sure.

 

[Mannu]

Thanks a ton. I could read everything except that port 8 on which I am very curious. I could read the 2nd part which says "Audio Out" and it has two ports meaning stereo. So I am excited that I could get that to my HTiB and get the audio out. :yahoo:

My HDD anyway is formatted with HFS+ and hence no much luck with this. Getting streamer seems the only solution. Until that I will have to stay with DivX. Was just curious to see some HD videos.

@pk550 owners :

What stabilizer have you used? Especially people who got an AVR and a console.

As per the dealer here, VG Digi 100 would be sufficient for my TV and HTiB(Sony).
Shortly, I may get an HD DTH + WD TV. On a not so near future, I may get an AVR.

@adder on the other thread had suggested to go for Digi 200 as I had included AVR(consumes ~ 250W) in the list.

The price the dealer has quoted are 2500K for Digi 100 and 4500K for Digi 200.

Since D200 has a 2K premium, I am planned to settle for Digi100 IF it suffices for everything I said above except AVR. i.e. TV+HTiB+DTH. My plan is to get another Digi100 when I get an AVR/Console as the incremental cost is same as the premium I pay for the D200 model now.

My apologies if I am too off-topic. But I wanted one last opinion from the PK500 owners.

well i was so busy in getting the pic right, that i forgot that there was a detailed info on these ports given right underneath that pic, so i am posting that as well, maybe that can help clear any doubts that u might have. Here's the link.

On the second part i am afraid i can't help you much since i am not using any stabilizer or a UPS as of now, i have it connected straight to my wall outlet, maybe other owners can jump in and help you out in this department.

 

[Srinivas29]

Got my Tatasky HD connection. WC 2010 just got better for me. ESPN HD is awesome, still tinkering with the settings to get the most natural looking settings.