LG 32LT75 Review

Overall Rating

Excellent SD picture quality with minimal noise
Good black levels and colour reproduction
160GB built-in PVR system
Freeview playback certified
Series link
HD ready with XD engine & Intelligent Eye
x2 HDMI/Scart sockets
Side inputs
Good clear sound quality

Awful EPG user interface
Poor remote layout
Channel drop during recording

So after doing lots of research, 32 or 37 or 40 inch TV, LCD v Plasma, HD ready or full HD I needed to look at what I needed now.

I did have a DVR (Technosonic PVR 101 http://www.reviewcentre.com/review181909.html) which just died on me 1 month ago and once you ' ve used a DVR you can ' t live without it.

So imagine my joy when I found a HD LCD TV with built-in DVR, the LG 32LT75.

LG are one of the few LCD TV ' s with built-in DVR (others being Humax and Toshiba I think), in fact at the moment it ' s the only certified Freeview playback model on the market.

LG do a number of different sizes from 32 '� up to 42 '� in LCD and recently in Plasma as well. The screen is 720p no matter what size screen and is upscaled via LG ' s 2007 XD engine which I have been told has been ' improved '� from the previous version.

Connectivity is pretty good with x2 scart including RGB, component, x2 HDMI (not 1.3a) RS232. On the L. side of the screen there are component and s-video connection. On the right side of the screen are access to ON/OFF, volume, channel and menu system.

The first thing you notice is the sharpness of standard definition DTV pictures with little noise from the BBC channels (due to higher bit-rate transmission). Even with the picture zoomed in on TMF to remove all the black around the edges (transmitted in 4:3 ratio even with widescreen) showed minimal noise even with fast motion. One of the tests used is switch over to Sky news and watch for noise along the ticket tape along the bottom of the screen, which is hardly evident.

Something that other commentators have noted is that the black level on this model has improved noticeably from previous models. Indeed if you were to compare this model with the Samsung ' s ' M86 '� and ' R87 '� range in the same screen size, but in my opinion is not quite as detailed in the black areas as the Samsung models.

Colour saturation is almost set too high and indeed the factory setting is on Dynamic which is almost hurts your eyes. Indeed LG have 5 setting which include 2 user setting to change colour, contrast, sharpness, mpeg noise reduction, black levels and screen temperature. At the moment I have my unit set to ' intelligent eye '�. LG claim that on this setting the TV will automatically adjust for room light setting.

Even on this setting the contrast is still too high but acceptable richness and colour reproduction. In fact, when looking at other models (Toshiba 40FX355, Samsung M86/R87) I found even after tweaking the sets in the showroom I found the colour reproduction un-naturally high in contrast.

Viewing angle laterally is very good with minimal greyness over a 100-120 degree angle with both standard and high definition. The only problem is when you are looking down towards the screen it begins to greys out to an unacceptable level.

In general this unit has a very good specification, but one of my biggest problems is LG ' s user interface. If it was only one or two small quirks I could probably not mention it, but time and time again I find myself being very frustrated.

EPG display has a lot to be desired. Firstly the EPG completely blanks out the screen, except for the edges, with no preview screen. There ' s no instance description of the programme that you have highlighted, instead you have to press the info button up at the top of the remote to display the description. Pressing the ok button doesn ' t take you to the programme selected; instead it gives you a number of different options including record.

Now I don ' t know about anyone else, but there ' s a dedicated record button and if I wanted to record something I would have highlighted the programme to record and press the record button, and even when you go through theses steps it doesn ' t even show you the programme the EPG stays on screen.

DVR could do with some improvements, for starters there ' s no ' go to '� function when playing back a programme to a specific time nor is there an option to resume playback from a point when you may have stopped and continue from. When you stop watching a recorded programme it will automatically revert back to live DTV rather than the DVR menu. What I have noticed is when the recording starts some DTV channels tend to loose signal completely. This is even after I turn the built in booster and attached a 20db external booster on a standard external ariel I still lost Film4, Virgin and Dave and the +1 channels.

There are some good things with the DVR. Firstly the 160GB hard drive is quick and quiet with just over 60hrs of DTV recording and the unit will display the amount of time left and a pie chart of hw much used and remaining. Strangely enough there is a small video preview for DVR recordings and access to the description of the programme plus subtitles. Freeview playback has series link which will record a complete series even if the schedule changes the DVR will know to adjust accordingly. There are options for manual recordings included.

Several commentators have stated that the sound quality is poor. Although I am no audio expert I found that is was not the case, generally I found the sound to be rich and clear. Audio output can be adjusted in sound mode via the menu system, including surround MAX, music, movies, sport and user settings.

Conclusion

The LG 32LT75 is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand it has excellent standard definition display and good HD picture quality and good audio output.

But the user experience/interface needs a lot of work on it and I hope this will come about in future updates.

More worryingly is the dropped channels when recording. I don ' t know why this is the case. I can only suggest that it might be due to the shift in power supply to the recording tuner to ensure a good recording.

I sincerely hope that LG will make some serious improvements with the EPG/software interface which would make this TV/DVR combo a excellent buy. Otherwise this is still a pretty good unit for those who have little space and don ' t want an extra box or remote of have to plug another unit in, this presents itself as a very attractive package.