TV & Home Theater

[zion]

The LG site shows teh LX6500 as 8mil:1 where as the BB site shows it to 5mil:1 (contrast ratio).  Is the best buy site just wrong?

[NoNoBadDog]

Both figures are quite meaningless.  There are no guidelines or regulations specifying how contrast ratios are measured, so basically a manufacturer can pout any number whatsoever as long as they have some method of showing how they arrived at such figures.  Here is something to note:  even if the figures were accurate (and they are not), your eye cannot tell the difference between a contrast ratio of 5 million to one versus 8 million to one.  Both are far beyond the abilty of the human eye,.  Basically, you are worrying over nothing.  You cannot use cointrast numbers to compare units form different manufacturers, as they all use different methodsw to arrive at their figures.  You cannot eve use the numbers to compare models from the sam manufacturer, as they may (and probably do) use different methodologies to arrive at the highest number possible for each type/make/model.

Best advice; ignore it completely.  The inflated, artificial numbers are completely meaningless.

[Entropy · Accepted solution]

To be more specific:  Native contrast ratio is important, is meaningful, and has at least semi-standardized means of measurement.

However the numbers you saw were dynamic contrast ratio.  DCR operates by dimming the backlight based on scene brightness, so doesn't really help in most scenes.  It's also, for the most part, an arbitrary and meaningless spec.