LG 42LH50 42-Inch 1080p 120Hz Broadband LCD HDTV, Gloss Black

Comment: I resisted ditching my 32 inch tube Panasonic for a flat screen because I didn't see the price/performance benefit. That is until I saw this TV on display at the local electronics store. The picture was amazing and price was very affordable. I broke down and bought the LG. I've had it for 7 months now and my wife, 2 teenage boys and I are very happy. It took awhile to get use to the very realistic picture. Everything looked like a live performance! But over time and with the easy adjustment available (AV modes) for the picture we have been able to adjust the picture properly for the content being viewed. The sound is a bit disappointing as even at the highest level it is still not very loud. Decent but not what you would expect. I don't have a home theater hook up so we depend on the TV speakers for sound. Everything else exceeded expectations. The external hookups are plentiful. Even though the TV does not have a wireless connection we connected the Ethernet to a wireless hub and that works just fine. We love streaming Netflix right to the TV! We have a WII connected directly and that works perfectly also. LG as an extremely inexpensive extended warranty that gave us a total of 4 years of coverage. I couldn't match that anywhere. No regrets from my family in finally taking the LCD plunge with this TV.

Comment: I won't bore you by parroting the other good reviews, other than just to say I mostly agree with them.

My 2 cents:
- Netflix woks great with a hardwired connection all the way to your cable/DSL modem. I originally had the TV on wireless (plugged into bridged wireless router) and while it worked, the connection would occasionally drop, as wireless connections do, which meant the stream would break and have to rebuffer. Fortunately it never meant I couldn't get HD, if available. I dropped a network cable from the router that is connected to my cable modem and it was smooth sailing from then on.

- Never used Vudu since it's over priced, but the trailers are cool

- YouTube is... YouTube. It's "neat" and you aren't subjected to the IQ-reducing comments.

- The picture is as good as it should be, no better, no worse. The anti-reflective, semi-gloss screen IS actually kind of impressive: not as sharp as a good plasma, but not as soft as a matte LCD. Nice work, LG.

- LOTS of controls for OCD home theater peeps, especially for the price. On a related note, I am not a fan of the 60/120/240Hz hype. I don't care for the, uh, weird, artificially overly smoothed video game-like motion. Sure, I don't like motion blur and tearing, but that was only ever an issue on early and/or cheap displays. It's 99% artificial sweetener so they can charge more. Period.

OK, now the catch: THE SOUND SUCKS!

It just is plain horrid. LG should be ashamed and issue an apology.

Not everyone wants to use surround sound to watch TiVo'd Daily Shows or have an immersive aural experience when their kid just wants to watch Shawn the Sheep. If I spend hundreds of dollars on a TV, I should be able to just turn it on and watch it without wondering why it sounds worse than my 10 year old 13 in. tube.

Seriously, the volume goes to something like 80 or 100 (?) and if a show with low volume (the aforementioned Daily Show is notorious for this), you try turning it up and it's like nothing really improves after maybe 40. I kid you not it's really, REALLY bad.

I came so close to returning this unit just because the sound is that bad. It managed to JUST be livable enough though.

Comment: This TV has really turned up the entertainment level of our home! We replaced an aging 27-inch analog television with this for "over-the-air" television broadcasts. A few months ago, we kicked our monthly Dish Network subscription to the curb by purchasing Dish Network's DTVPal DVR. We currently connect the DVR to the LG 42LH50 using an HDMI cable, but we can also connect with the multitude of other options listed in the product description.

The remote for the LG has functions that can not be duplicated on most Universal Remotes, and the LG remote is not a Universal Remote for controlling other devices. That's a shame. Now I *must* keep at least two (2) remotes out at all times: One for the device I am using, and one to access the LG Netcast features. There seems to be no other way to activate the Netcast features other than using the supplied remote. If the LG remote gets lost or damaged, we are S.O.L.

Pros:
Intelligent Sensor Mode LG's Smart Energy Saving Technology (when enabled) will reduce the screen brightness if you watch it in a dark room or increase the brightness if you watch it during the day with the sunlight shining in. Great feature if you can use it (see "cons" below).

Several aspect ratios to pick from, from Auto, 4:3, 16:9, Cinema 1-6, etc. Taylor any video to fit the way you want or leave it on the Auto setting.

Never have to watch some stale old program on TV again with shows from your Netflix account's Instant queue, when it works (see "cons" below).

Plug in external USB drive into side port to watch movies you've burned (only tested with VOB, WMV and mpeg). As soon as drive is inserted, a menu pops up on screen asking if you want to view photos, listen to music or play movies. Very easy!

Input Source selection is very nice! Press the Input selector and input sources that are currently powered on and available show up first. Other input selections are still there, but they are grayed out - usually (see "cons" below).

Vudu "Pay Per View" and free movie trailers are a nice touch.

Cons:
Intelligent Sensor Mode: LG's Smart Energy Saving Technology interferes with DTVPal DVR remote (may affect others). Disable Energy Saving Technology in LG menu fixed this problem.

Netflix is not always able to retrieve titles from our Instant Queue through our network connection. Sometimes, we can "auto reset" the Network's IP settings, sometimes we can surf out to You Tube, then go back to Netflix - and it works! I don't know what the problem is. Anyone have an idea?

Netflix, part 2: Netflix movies have to be loaded into your "Instant" queue first, or you will see no movies available. To do this, you must go to Netflix on your PC and add movies to your Instant queue.

You Tube: There isn't an organized method of locating information on You Tube or adding something to a queue (that I've found). You are limited to what someone has named their videos.

LG Inputs: We have our DVD player connected on HDMI2. If we turn on the LG 42LH50 *after* having watched a show on the DVD player and the DVD player is off, the video input selector seems to be buried 10 items deep. I would find it more convenient if the video input would default to the first available when input sources are not available.

Yahoo! Widgets: These appear to be useless as far as I can tell. The Yahoo! Videos are only for previews (there are only about 10 to scroll through), Yahoo! Weather just shows sunshine or a rain cloud along with the temperature (I can tell this by walking outside), etc. I'd like to replace the Yahoo! Widgets with a radar loop from [...]! That would actually be useful!

Vudu: Vudu accounts have to be secured with your credit card and are $5 - $30, depending on popularity and quality (SD, HD, HDx). I can't link my Vudu account to a credit card because there is no way to stop the baby sitter from racking up a $150 bill while my wife and I go to dinner.

Closed Captions: The LG tuner supports closed captions, but the captions option seems to be grayed out (unavailable) unless the input is set to the TV source. Our Dish Network DVR on HDMI1 can be set to display captions, but the LG will not display captions from it. There seems to be no way to display captions for any of the Netcast features either.

In summary: I like this TV because of all the Internet capabilities it brings to the table that other televisions do not offer. As the Devil's Advocate, I will admit that if I had a Media PC plugged into the back of this device, I probably would not need these features. A Media PC would be a more complete solution, but this is good for what it does.

I hope that helps you make a decision!

Comment: The TV looked impressive until it started freezing, restarting several times on its own, and finally stopped working altogether. Repairman told me this is common with this tv and is repairing. They will not replace the TV, so I am stuck with an expensive TV with band aid parts (assuming it can be fixed) that will likely fail quickly after warranty expires. I did some internet browsing and found other consumers reporting this problem. You buy at your own risk. LG customer service lost contact with me and did not call back.

Comment: This was purchased for the den, which is where my internet router sits. This made it possible to directly connect the TV to the internet for high-quality Netflix streaming, which works beautifully and reliably. The TV does not support a wireless connection.

Besides Netflix, the TV is used to watch HD/SD cable programs and for playing Xbox 360 games.

The TV has a beautiful picture, once you adjust the settings to suit you. There are built-in wizards to help you adjust the picture quality. I suggest turning off the "TruMotion" option, because it tends to make film look strange during panning shots, as if the show were on video rather than on film.

The sound is ok, better than average but with very little bass or depth, at least in our den environment.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SOUND OPTIONS: There are no RCA audio-out jacks. The only audio-out option is the digital optical output port. I wasn't aware of this - I never thought to check, as all other TV's I've had provide the RCA ports. Because of this limitation, I wasn't able to use the external speakers that I had planned to use. However, I was able to buy an inexpensive (< $200) Philips home theater system that did the job just fine.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with this TV and would highly recommend it.