LG Electronics 50PY3D, Computer Monitor?
by
, September 19th, 2007 at 03:51 PM (2015 Views)
I finally got around to testing the TV as a computer monitor this week. My initial impression was to be quite impressed.
1920x1080 native resolution makes for a very nice desktop, and the TV handled the finer points quite well. Text was nice and clear, with no muddied areas that I could see, which is something I noticed on just about every 1366x768 monitor I used, something I attributed to having to run 1366x760 on the video output for whatever reason.
The one thing I noticed is that most of the hard, dark lines would produce a sort of inversed ghost slightly to the right of themselves. I'm not sure if this was a product of my laptop's output, a cheap VGA cable, or the TV. It wasn't really noticeable at more than two feet away anyhow.
I also gave some compressed DVD video a whirl. Using an h.264 encoded video at 704x396 with AC3 audio and no post-processing via ffdshow, the resulting full-screen video was still quite clear. I know that the same video on a 1680x1050 computer monitor produces some grainy images, so I'm hazarding a guess that the TV's XD Engine® did a little bit of picture smoothing, even with the input at native resolution. This isn't altogether a bad thing, considering what the unprocessed video of certain satellite and cable providers often looks like even in high definition.
Unfortunately I have no true high definition devices or content to play on the TV, so I can't say how that might turn out via HDMI. I expect it will be good, considering the overall goodness the panel seems to have.
With plasma and LCD now leaping into the 1080p display market, things are looking pretty bleak for the comparatively high-maintenance rear projection sets. In fact, I don't think a single RPD has left the store in two months, whereas the number of plasmas and LCDs has increased by a good 200%, most likely thanks to large price drops on both technologies and an increasing consumer awareness of what's to come in less than two years.








