The LG 42LT75 is one of the rare TVs that integrates a digital player.  It’s actually a 160 GB hard drive that enables recording up to 86h of programming (depending on the speed of the channel).  Its use is at least as simple and fast as that of a traditional media player and the menu devoted to this function is quite well done.

Nice colors

Let’s move on to the TV aspect starting with our sensor’s measurements.  As usual, default settings display a flattering white which means that color temperature is too cold.  LG also activated all of its filters that are supposed to improve the image, but in the end it’s very far from the desired result.  A little tour through menus to deactivate all of this, change into the Soft mode and the image is much more satisfactory.  Color temperature then oscillates perfectly between 6500 and 7000 K, the average gamma is 2.13 and closely follows all levels of gray, while colors are excellent.  It’s rare to find such accuracy and proper saturation.


On the other hand, contrast is rather mediocre with values varying between 450 and 610:1 depending on the brightness and contrast setting.  This is very far from the announced 8000:1.

Contrast and scaling defects in movies

The lack of contrast can be seen when watching movies particularly due to grayish blacks.  Whatever our adjustment, they were invariably around 0.50 cd/m² while the best current TVs easily go under 0.20 cd/m².  In addition, contrast sharply drops if we step to the side of the screen as viewing angles are too small.

Otherwise, we find the same fine measurements as above: very good color fidelity and brightness which is well balanced in the darkest and lightest zones.

Image quality is very good with Blu-ray but a little disappointing with DVDs.  Rescaling affects precision and rendering is not as sharp.


One last word on the sound: it’s satisfactory but nothing more.  This is something we notice on almost all TVs on the market.  By the way, we preferred the 42LT75’s sound in Movie mode.