LG 42PG6000 Calibration

Greyscale

If you're not intending to calibrate your LG 42PG6000 plasma TV, [Picture Mode] "Cinema" should give a greyscale closest to D65. However, according to our measurements it was still bluer by between 50K to 100K from 30% stimulus onwards:

Pre-calibration CCT with [Picture Mode] "Cinema"

Pre-calibration RGB tracking with [Picture Mode] "Cinema"

Making full use of the white balance controls in the [Expert Control] submenu after setting [Picture Mode] to either "Expert1" or "Expert2", we brought greyscale on the LG 42PG6000 much closer to D65, with delta errors (dEs) of less than 4 from 30% stimulus onwards:

CCT after calibration in [Picture Mode] "Expert1"

RGB tracking after calibration in [Picture Mode] "Expert1"

Colour

Initially green primary was oversaturated and deviated towards blue (just like most plasma televisions we've tested). Red was oversaturated, and magenta was off:

Pre-calibration CIE chart with reference to HD Rec. 709

Greyscale calibration improved matters somewhat (magenta in particular). But the ace in LG 42PG6000's pocket is its full-fledged colour management system (CMS), which allows you to map the six colour points (RGBCMY) to high definition Rec. 709 specification. In the colour management system, [Colour] would affect both saturation (i.e. the distance from white point) and intensity (not seen on the CIE chart); whereas [Tint] would affect hue (i.e. rotation around the white point). Here's the result after calibration:

CIE chart with reference to HD Rec. 709 after calibration

We were unable to reduce the saturation of cyan and yellow any further as we'd reached the lower limit of [Cyan Colour] and [Yellow Colour] respectively. Even though all three primary colours were almost spot-on, there remained some colour decoding discrepancies, but at least there's no red push (the most bothersome colour decoding error to most people's eyes).

Benchmark Test Results

Black Level

The LG 42PG6000 plasma HDTV generated a lighter shade of black (observed subjectively and measured objectively) than the Panasonic PX80 and – this probably goes without saying – the Pioneer Kuros. We're not sure if this is specific to our review sample, but our LG 42PG6000 also failed to display blacker-than-black (BTB) data (tested over component and HDMI with a variety of test patterns).

Video Processing

Overall video processing on the LG 42PG6000 is better than that found on its main competitor (in terms of specification and pricing) the Panasonic PX80. Scaling of standard-def content was above average; and minimal jaggies were seen on the rotating wheel, bouncing bars and waving flag test patterns.

With [Film Mode] engaged, the LG 42PG6000 plasma television successfully detected 3:2/ 2:2 cadences and applied the relevant film mode deinterlacing to 480i/ 576i and 1080i material. However, the [Film Mode] option is greyed out (and therefore film mode deinterlacing cannot be applied) if the source device is connected over HDMI.

Common Plasma-Specific Issues

The LG 42PG6000 exhibited more image retention than the Panasonic PX80 series, though these were generally washed away within a few minutes of use. Pulse-width modulation noise (the shimmering pixels you see on plasma TVs due to the way the cells are driven) was also obvious on the LG 42PG6000, however these shouldn't really present a problem as long as you sit far enough (8 feet for us) away from the screen.