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By Philip Wong, CNET Asia
Jul 25, 2008

Integrated Digital TVs or IDTVs may not be new, but they have yet to catch up on prime-time with LG being the second vendor to roll out such panels following Samsung. This slow pickup rate could very well be due to the relatively limited HD broadcasts in Asia. Nevertheless, it's an encouraging progression which could hasten our regional digital TV transition. After all, such quality-digitized telecasts are almost standard in the US, Japan and Europe. It's time to take a closer look at the Korean chaebol’s latest offering, the LG50.

Design

From afar, the LG 47LG50FD may look worlds apart from its loud and attention-grabbing Scarlet siblings. Still, we're sure you'll be pleasantly surprised by its various special touches, including rounded corners, a slim frame, curvy power button, blue LED and silver accent. There's even a metallic red bottom which mirrors Samsung's Crystal Design and complements its overall piano finish well. Same goes for its matching thin swivel tabletop stand molded in the shape of an elongated D. Coincidentally, its designers have also concealed the speakers in the bezel's bottom, similar to its compatriot's Series 6 panels.

For the second year in a roll, the Korean chaebol has made the same old mistake of mounting the side A/V inputs on an overly recessed panel--a full 23mm deep, which most probably renders the ports redundant for most wall-mounted units. Fortunately, the situation is much better when it comes to the onboard TV controls. These are well within reach, comprising four clever directional arrow keys for one-glance broadcast station and volume adjustments, among others. To keep the rear tidy, simple cable management is catered for by a factory-installed extendable bracket wide enough to manage a sizeable bundle of cords easily.

It is about time a belated facelift was undertaken to liven up the stale 2007 remote design. Anyway, you'll still be greeted by a nice glossy top, plus multifunctional DVD and VCR control. While we care less about the obsolete analog recorder, its disc player portion is particularly versatile. It can be further programmed to operate 23 other brands and has auxiliary dedicated playback buttons. In addition, there're a couple more shortcuts to facilitate common chores, from firing up an electronic program guide to toggling between analog and digital TV broadcasts. Missing though are direct input keys to hasten external video source selection.

Diving deep into its software menu was another déjà vu, considering its structured albeit familiar user interface. Amateur users should be more than satisfied with its respectable spread of settings covering all the essential basic video and handful of in-depth XD engine post-processings. Most notably, a new backlighting adjustment to dial in the black level and options to disable automated contrast and color optimizations. These are stored in either User 1 or 2 preset with an independent memory for each video input. Alternatively, you can rely on the four factory-tuned picture modes such as the sensor-based Intelligent Sensor.

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