I've had my 42 LW5700 setup and have spent a little bit of time with it watching different material. Here are my initial observations. I'm no expert and this is my first HDTV, so please bear that in mind while reading this.
- Looks: This is quite subjective. I personally quite like the brushed metal strips at the top and bottom. They break the monotony of the black very well. The Matte screen has very little reflection and is a big plus.
- Overall Picture Quality (SD): I have a Tata Sky SD connection. Tata Sky SD looks much better than I'd expected based on reviews at stores. It's a little soft but there's very little blockiness/artifacts from my viewing distance of 8 - 9 feet. There's some variation across channels but it's quite watchable.
- Overall Picture Quality (HD): I've watched a couple of 720P rips of Planet Earth through USB. They look fabulous, well detailed and with fantastic colours.
- Overall Picture Quality (3D): I've downloaded and watched a blu-ray rip of Under the Sea 3D. It looks fabulous with bright and colorful images and excellent 3D effect. I haven't seen any crosstalk. I can't comment yet on resolution loss as I haven't been able to watch the same film in 2D.
- 2D->3D Conversion: I haven't been able to get this set quite right. While there is some illusion of depth, the TV can't quite keep up with the screen at all times. I see many instances of the TV interpreting the depth incorrectly. At the moment, I believe this is more of a gimmick. Perhaps with some change of settings, I'll be able to make it work.
- Clouding: There is some clouding at the 4 corners and it is noticeable when watching in the dark with a medium/high backlight setting and no local dimming. I've been able to remove it to a level where it doesn't annoy me much when watching the TV near dead center by adjusting the backlight and brightness setting and having the local dimming set to high. The Local Dimming Setting is not available when watching something through the USB input.
- Motion: I'm the sort who likes really smooth motion. I'm quite sensitive to jerky motion when panning and can see it easily when watching movies at the cinema hall. Glad to say that I haven't yet seen any judder on the LW5700 with a high de-judder setting.
- Black Level: With room lights on and local dimming on, blacks are quite good. If, however, you are interested in watching movies in the dark, this TV might not be the best option.
- Off-Angle Viewing: With a dark screen, I can see the black becoming purple as I move off-center. It's not much of a problem when viewing actual content though.
Gaming Lag: I have a ps3 and I've tried the following games: Uncharted, Resistance: Fall of Man, Motorstorm and a few game demos. I'm not a pro-gamer and I tried them all put together for only an hour but I didn't notice much of a lag. Will get to know more about this as I game more over the coming days.
Calibration: The TV has plenty of settings for calibration. I'm still in the try and see phase on the various settings posted by users on different forums. But given the extent of options available, it should theoretically be possible to get the TV to quite close to industry standards and more importantly, to your personal liking.
Will keep sharing my findings as I explore the set more. Do let me know if you have any questions which I can answer.
