P**1
A credible LG alternative to Sony for die hard Sony fans
As a longstanding, die hard, Sony fan I was keen to buy the equivalent full array LED Sony but was reluctant to pay the full £300.00 - £400.00 "Sony Premium".As we all know, the Chinese build quality for most new TV sets is not very impressive and this unfortunately now also extends to most of the Sony models despite paying the substantial extra premium in the hope of getting something much better.Whatever TV you decide to buy carefully check out the manufacturers model specification and try and get a demonstration or view the particular model in store.If you do not want to upgrade to OLED then full array LED and local dimming together with HDR10 is now a must on any new LED TV. A lot of manufacturers try to deliberately mislead buyers by offering a TV with "Dynamic 4K UHD" and "local dimming" but the TV in fact uses the much cheaper edge lit technology which makes the panel much thinner. Go and take a look at an edge lit TV and a full array LED TV side by side and it is obvious that the full array LED TV is far superior. However, if you are not careful you can still find yourself paying well over £1,000.00 for an edge lit TV !I did my research and and decided to buy this 49" LG TV for just over £600.00. It is built in Poland and the superior build quality is clearly evident the second that you open the box and unpack the TV. This is a properly built TV. It has full array LED, 4K UHD HDR10, Dolby Vision, Technicolour and Dolby Atmos sound all built in. It already comes with Freeview HD and Freesat HD as standard, so no more set top boxes. It is beautifully designed and is very easy and intuitive to use on a day to day basis.The streaming quality and the simplicity of the web user interface on this LG TV will simply blow you away. It must be the best smart TV software interface currently available on the market at whatever price point, it even beats Samsung's Tizen hands down. It is called WebOS. It is logically laid out, super fast, accurate and right every time. It is an absolute delight to use, so say goodbye to relentless and repeated software glitches, buffering, sluggishness or failures to connect or open a web app. Click on to Netflix and Amazon Prime for an instantaneous and reliable connection every time, the same for BBC iplayer, All 4, ITV hub, Channel 5 and any of the other streaming apps preloaded which also include Now TV and the Sky store.This is a very technologically advanced TV So you have to provide it with the opportunity of performing at its best, so ensure that you connect the Ethernet port on this LG TV to the Ethernet port on you web modem using a good quality Cat 8 cable. Assuming that you have a broadband speed of around 50 Mbps then this will give you totally reliable, dependable, good quality, streaming. For a lot of people out there a good, reliable, streaming facility on a new smart TV is now an absolute deal breaker.The only "fly in the ointment" with this LG TV is the TV picture calibration. It can be very complicated, and difficult. But like everything else in life, nothing is straightforward or simple ! However, do not let this put you off, there is a solution to this problem.With a Sony TV a chimpanzee with learning difficulties could easily achieve a good TV picture simply because of the amount of automatic TV picture calibration on Sony TVs. This is the only thing now going for Sony and for which you now pay a substantial premium.The picture on an LG TV is not the same as on a Sony TV. It has a subtly different, slightly softer, lush, more colourful picture, but is not very far away from the Sony. Also this LG TV is built for HD and 4K UHD and it is therefore totally unforgiving of a very poor quality SD signal. When you feed a Netflix or Amazon Prime 4K UHD through it then the picture is 99.5/100. It is very good, almost superb.So how do I optimise the picture calibration on this LG TV ?There are various highly technical picture calibration videos on YouTube specifically for the LG 49SK8500PLA but most people out there will find these far too technical or confusing to be of any real practical help. You have to take detailed notes whilst you are watching the YouTube videos !The calibration of a TV picture is very subjective thing. Just lining up a row of numbers and settings will not automatically guarantee a universally good TV picture since we all have our own individual tastes and preferences . In addition, picture quality will differ with the age and the technical quality of a TV programme or a film being shown on the TV at any one time.The practical TV picture calibration trick which I learned was simply going on to YouTube and using the various 4K/8K UHD HDR test/demo videos of nature, rainforests /flowers/plants/landscapes, large firework displays etc and simply setting up the TV picture settings. I selected the standard setting on the TV and then used these videos for reference purposes until I was satisfied with the picture quality settings. These test videos push the calibration settings on the TV to its limits so once you have played about with the TV picture settings using these test videos you should achieve a good picture even for "Talking Pictures" TV which broadcasts very old TV programmes and films with varying quality.All the settings on this LG TV are very simple, straightforward and accessible.First, select "All Settings" on the LG TV screen using the remote control and then select "Picture".Click on "Picture Mode Settings" and select "Standard (user)" - the various picture settings appear immediately below.Scroll down to the bottom of this menu until you see "Reset". Click on this to reset the picture to the original factory settings before you start any picture adjustments. Then switch off all the automatic picture calibration software on the TV and set up the TV picture just using the brightness, contrast, sharpness and colour settings.Then select "Energy Saving" and switch this "OFF" altogether together with any other "Eco" or "Power Saving" settings since these settings will markedly reduce the picture quality, brightness, colour and sharpness of the TV picture.Then log on to YouTube via the TV and select the 4k/8K UHD TV test videos on YouTube. Select a video and using the TV settings on the LG TV just adjust the picture settings until you are happy with the picture quality. Repeat this process with a couple of other TV test videos covering wild flowers, animals, landscapes etc. Rely on your own personal tastes and gut instincts. You are the person watching the TV on a day to day basis not your neighbours. So set it up the way that you personally prefer.Once you are happy with the picture quality select "Apply to all inputs" on the TV menu and click "YES" - your settings will then be saved on your LG TV.Finally, select "Aspect Ratio Settings" on the "Picture" menu and set to "Original". This setting will ensure that all the films and TV programmes that are shown on your TV in their original format and will not be blurred, distorted or stretched out of their original picture format.In summary, this LG TV gives you a great deal of bang for your buck and puts a lot of LG's competitors "penny pinching" build quality to shame by virtue of LG's superior build quality and the use of the latest technology. Highly recommended.
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