LG 32LX2R 32" HD LCD

Windle · 21 Jan 2006 at 01:49

Anyone got one of these? Pretty sure it's the one for me after seeing it in store, it has such a superior picture both in digital source and standard and looks so good too. Has all the connections, and can be had for 850 delivered

Just wanna see if anyone on here has one of these?

FrankJH · 21 Jan 2006 at 08:07

I have the 26" version and to be honest after m y all too brief experience with the Sammy , i am disapointed.

I read the reviews which seem to be positive, but I just cant see it at the moment especially in picture quality

MrMoon · 21 Jan 2006 at 14:06

I have the 32" and cant complain its good picture quality on High Def, and has HDMI, DVI and componant and 3 scarts and composite, its a good TV and I cant fault it, unless you are using non digital TV

Windle · 21 Jan 2006 at 16:38

Any pics MrMoon?

Frank any more information? I compared the 32" directly against the 32" Sammy (i presume you mean the one they've been using in the 360 pods?) and picture for picture the LG was better?

Is yours the 26LX2R or the RZ26LZ55?

Mr Moon, any pics for me? Particularly with the 360 running, as this is my main reason for getting it? Whats your opinion on a standard source running through it, ie a dvd player through scart? Did you have to mess around with settings to get a better picture?

Cheers...

FrankJH · 22 Jan 2006 at 08:14

Its Definitely the 26LX2R variaty that I have

I am using the onboard tuner, as well as a little stb for freeview. I have palyed several dvd's from my sony dvd / hdd recorder that I also used on the Sammy and the quality doesnt seem as involving or crisp.

I havent done a side by side comparison so go with your own impressions and I am sure you will be happy, I had my heart set on geting a Sammy and couldnt - maybe thats all it was

PsiFox · 22 Jan 2006 at 13:42

see here for a possible problem re hdcp on the hdmi

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17521909

Windle · 22 Jan 2006 at 13:53

According to quite a few people, as long as you get new stock the firmware comes pre-updated and doesn't have a problem so should be ok hopefully, if not LG are doing free firmware upgrades.

GordyR · 22 Jan 2006 at 17:21

Windle said:
According to quite a few people, as long as you get new stock the firmware comes pre-updated and doesn't have a problem so should be ok hopefully, if not LG are doing free firmware upgrades.

Indeed... No problem here with DHCP on the HDMI port. Also the LG has 1:1 pixel mapping and thus is superior to the samsung if your hooking it up to PC, which was the main selling point for me (along with the fact that is has both DVI and HDMI inputs).

The only drawback of the LG is that it isn't quite as good with SD sources. Not bad by any means just not quite as good as some of its competitors. However hook it up to an upscaling DVD player and it looks simply awesome.

Windle · 22 Jan 2006 at 18:55

Cheers Gordy, any chance you could tell me which firmware version yours has then?

FrankJH · 22 Jan 2006 at 19:52

GordyR said:
Indeed... No problem here with DHCP on the HDMI port. Also the LG has 1:1 pixel mapping and thus is superior to the samsung if your hooking it up to PC, which was the main selling point for me (along with the fact that is has both DVI and HDMI inputs).

The only drawback of the LG is that it isn't quite as good with SD sources. Not bad by any means just not quite as good as some of its competitors. However hook it up to an upscaling DVD player and it looks simply awesome.

Sammy DOES have 1:1 pixel mapping ( I had my previous Sammy running at 1366*768 thru the vga port with no problems at all)

I really wish I was able to have side by side text, as my Sammy 26" surpassed my LG in every tv / dvd source thru hdmi and scart and upscaling or not. The Sammy was simply far superior - but this is just my own opinion

GordyR · 22 Jan 2006 at 20:07

FrankJH said:
Sammy DOES have 1:1 pixel mapping ( I had my previous Sammy running at 1366*768 thru the vga port with no problems at all)

Interesting, everything I read stated that it does not have 1:1 pixel mapping. If I remember correctly you cannot get 1:1 pixel mapping due to overscan. Just because you can select the resolution doesn't mean you are getting 1:1 pixel mapping. This could have course be my error, I will see what I can dig up

FrankJH said:
I really wish I was able to have side by side text, as my Sammy 26" surpassed my LG in every tv / dvd source thru hdmi and scart and upscaling or not. The Sammy was simply far superior - but this is just my own opinion

All I can say is that I have seen them side by side and the LG blew it away in all aspects other than SD sources. Outputting from PC was where I noticed the biggest difference however. As you say this is down to opinion however.

I'll try to find out about the 1:1 pixel mapping on the Samsung.

FrankJH · 22 Jan 2006 at 20:12

I have to admit I havent tried my pc yet - so I have that to play with

Maybe I have got the pixel mapping wrong then , I just guessed that as I was able to set my destop resolution to the exact panel size of 1366*768 of the Sammy then that would be a 1:1 ratio?

GordyR · 22 Jan 2006 at 20:16

FrankJH said:
I have to admit I havent tried my pc yet - so I have that to play with

Maybe I have got the pixel mapping wrong then , I just guessed that as I was able to set my destop resolution to the exact panel size of 1366*768 of the Sammy then that would be a 1:1 ratio?

It is a common misconception that in order to get 1:1 pixel mapping all you have to do is output at the TV's native resolution. This isn't true. The screen has to be specifically designed for it as most sets overscan.

Ruthlessly ripped from another forum...

There are many display devices - LCD panels, plasmas, LCD and DLP projectors that will not 1:1 pixel map even if you feed the display it's native resolution.

Many display devices will over-scale even its native resolution in order to overscan the display borders.

To verify if you are really 1:1 mapping, you need to feed your display a 1 pixel pattern such as:

http://www.marky.com/files/hometheater/testpatterns/tracking-and-phase.gif

and verify there is no noise, moire patterns, or periodic light/dark vertical bands in the tiled test pattern. Simply tile the test pattern on any Windows or Linux desktop, i.e. unscaled by the PC, then set the desktop resolution to the native res of your display at 60Hz.

One recent example that caused quite an uproar in the digital projectors forum is the Sony HS51 projector.

As i'm sure you are aware the LG has the option for "PC mode" on both the DVI and HDMI inputs. This mode enables the 1:1 Pixel mapping.

EDIT: On the Samsung website there is no mention of 1:1 Pixel mapping at all under the specifications. I'm pretty sure it would be mentioned if it was capable of it. Still, i'll continue to dig a little futher. I'm interested in the answer to this myself.

GordyR · 22 Jan 2006 at 20:42

Right according to avforums the Samsung does not support 1:1 pixel mapping over the DVI port which would account for the huge difference in quality I noticed when comparing the two side by side.

I'm still trying to find out whether it supports true pixel mapping over the VGA port however. My gut instinct is that it does, however I have been reading that the Samsung disables the backlight when using the VGA port.

Just to clarify the LG does support true 1:1 pixel mapping over VGA/DVI/HDMI. It's fantastic PC support is the LG's main selling point.

FrankJH · 23 Jan 2006 at 08:40

Ok well I cant quantify that as I dont have the Sammy any more - but while that is obviously right - doesnt it sound stupid? I mean if you have a X res panel, why not use it to its full capabilities no matter what mode / input you use?

Not sure about *** backlight issue regarding Sammy and VGa, all I know was that it didnt seem any less bright over vga, DVD@ full screen looked identical over hdmi or vga

smit101 · 23 Jan 2006 at 17:36

I've got an LG32LX2R being delivered tomorrow,will be hooking my HTPC and 360 up to it,looking forward to finally being able to navigate around windows without the eyeball strain brought on by the blurriness of text and fonts on my old crt TV.

I'll post a few pics when she's up and running.

GordyR · 23 Jan 2006 at 17:53

smit101 said:
I've got an LG32LX2R being delivered tomorrow,will be hooking my HTPC and 360 up to it,looking forward to finally being able to navigate around windows without the eyeball strain brought on by the blurriness of text and fonts on my old crt TV.

I'll post a few pics when she's up and running.

You will love it, trust me mate.

Just connect your PC straight up to the DVI port, enable the DVI PC input (you can Choose DVI DTV or PC in the input menu) and set your desktop resolution to 1360x768 and voila. Perfect picture.

You can of course use the VGA lead instead but if your PC has a DVI output I would recommend using DVI to DVI. Something you can't do on most other LCD's.

FrankJH · 23 Jan 2006 at 18:33

GordyR

One thing I have also noticed which is a difference from the Sammy TV, when I program my sony dvd recorder / hdd (HXD710 - connected thru scart) the LG forces it to a 4:3 picture ( even though dvd / hdd video output is set to 16:9 on the sony device) and the Sammy auto detected this and put the EPG options down the side of a 16:9 picture as it should. Is this another "glitch" do you think with the panel or the PGB scart input on the LG?

I have forced AV1 manually to output to 16:9 from the LG menu now, but it was set to "original" prior to this and strictly shouldnt be necessary, dont you think?

Just out of interest and incase anyone else comes across a similar problem.

I have also been noticing - especially before and after advert breaks but also occasionally during dvd's - that the LG picture formatting seems to be a little "loose" ie it seems to loose what it should be outputting momentarily and seems to flash between the original format and what the tv is set to using "ARC " button. I hope this makes sense, wasnt sure how to explain it.

Another thing which I think is a fault of Peter Jackson, I was watching LOTR the other day on this set and noticed the bars are exceedingly large am I right in thinking that this is because it was filmed in 2.35:1 ratio ( ie 21.15:9) therefor to fit on a widescreen set, the horizontal bars are horrifyingly big?

smit101 · 23 Jan 2006 at 19:23

GordyR said:
You will love it, trust me mate.

Just connect your PC straight up to the DVI port, enable the DVI PC input (you can Choose DVI DTV or PC in the input menu) and set your desktop resolution to 1360x768 and voila. Perfect picture.

You can of course use the VGA lead instead but if your PC has a DVI output I would recommend using DVI to DVI. Something you can't do on most other LCD's.

Dvi to Dvi is what I had intended for the PC,hopefully there is a dvi lead supplied with the set as I've just realized I haven't got a spare,will have to use my main pcs lead for a while if not.

One point I'm slightly curious about is setting the desktop resolution,I was hoping to be able to specify 1366x768 as opposed to 1360x768,I know its only 6 pixels difference but after spending around a grand for the set I'd like to be bang on 1366x768 tbh.

I'm using an Nvidia card which I know has had problems with resolutions that aren't a multiple of 8 but since the implementation of the Forceware drivers there is an 'advanced timing' tab within the 'screen resolutions and refresh rate' setting in the driver control panel,where custom resolutions including those not of a multiple of 8 can be set.

Cheers for the advice Gordy,by the way your previous posts regarding the LG's and there PC friendliness are what initially drew my attention to them,did some thorough research thereafter and then decided to get one.

GordyR · 23 Jan 2006 at 20:43

smit101 said:
One point I'm slightly curious about is setting the desktop resolution,I was hoping to be able to specify 1366x768 as opposed to 1360x768,I know its only 6 pixels difference but after spending around a grand for the set I'd like to be bang on 1366x768 tbh.

Thats my fault for not explaining properly mate. Don't worry you can use 1366x768 with 1:1 Pixel mapping no problem through the DVI port. I said "set it to 1360x768" as thats what the LG set defaults to for some reason.

When you choose "DVI-PC" on the LG, the menu gives you some extra options. One is which is the "XGA" option. From there you can choose which resolution to display at. You can select either 1360x768 or 1366x768 as well as a host of lower resolutions. Just be sure to choose one that matches the output on your PC.

Hope that clears that up.