The Perfect Vision

Calibration Notes for LG DU-42LZ30

LG has broken new ground with the DU-42LZ30 (and its other new sets as well). For the first time, each source can be custom calibrated in nearly every way. Though the plan sounds good, implementation wasn’t totally without a hitch.

While LG sets do have a factory service menu (accessible only with a special factory remote), they’ve now created a “Calibration Menu” in which you’ll find all user video settings plus all grayscale calibration controls and picture size and centering. This means that you can tweak each of your sources exactly the way you want them and save the settings in either a “Day” or “Night” memory. For safety, LG provides a “Reset” in the calibration menu that will put everything back to factory defaults if you make a mess.

I tried using this calibration menu for my ISF calibration but had mixed results. For starters, when I corrected grayscale (by pulling out a bunch of blue) there was inadequate range in the BRIGHTNESS control (even at 100%) if the XD Engine was engaged. To compensate, the RG and B Cuts had to be run up to over 100 (from 63) to increase brightness level. While this was feasible, I’d still prefer doing a grayscale calibration in the real factory service menu then using this calibration menu for smaller tweaks.

Here’s how it works: With the standard remote, press MENU and hold until it times out and you’re presented with a request for a code. Enter the numbers 8741 (you have to be quick) then press “Enter.” The calibration menu will come up and you can select your input source as well as “Night” or “Day.” Once in, you can tweak all of the user video controls and make grayscale and (limited) size adjustments as well. To save and exit, press the “Exit” button. When you go back into the user menu (video) you can select either “Night” or “Day” to recall your settings. Other factory presets can’t be altered.

Now for the catch: If you don’t quite like the settings you’ve saved and try to change any video setting, you’ll immediately be dropped out of the saved preset and put back into the manual mode which has none of your saved settings for video, grayscale and size. What this means is that to make any tweak, you’ll have to go through the 8741 code procedure and get back into the calibration menu. I also experienced a strange loss of calibration on one occasion. A trip back into 8741 revealed factory defaults had been reset. If you use this feature, you’d be wise to write down all settings so you can quickly put things back into memory should this happen to you.

One further note: The video settings in the calibration menu are repeated in the regular user menu. If you set COLOR at 40% in the calibration menu, it will be the same when you go into the user video menu. (in other words, you can’t use the calibration menu to optimize the center position of the user menu controls).

LG hopefully will improve this feature by allowing user menu tweaks to video that won’t bounce you out of your calibrated preset. These tweaks should only be temporary (to compensate for specific programs or movies) and should not change your settings in the calibration menu permanently. Just my 2-cents worth.

For those of you that own this set, here’s a quick grayscale calibration you can do in the Calibration Menu described above. While certainly not accurate for every set, it’s probably going to be about a quantum leap closer to ideal than what the factory did. Set your controls as follows, and remember, if you’re using the DVI input, you must select DVI DTV (not RGB) in the Setup Menu under Main Input:

• Red Drive: 130
• Green Drive: 127
• Blue Drive: 83

• Red Cut: 99
• Green Cut: 122
• Blue Cut: 104