Desert storm Brighter and newer fare comes from Sahara, also on HD DVD (nice format, it’ll go far), which demonstrates how much of an all-rounder this plasma is. Peak whites are shown-off well and a high-octane car chase is completed smoothly with top-rate realism.

A digital broadcast of BBC News 24 holds up okay, but there’s enough digital noise to annoy, even with the set’s reduction mode at its highest setting.

And as is usually the case, watching a DVD on a screen of this size – Planet Earth in this case – involves much mosquito noise, poorly defined edges and a sheen across the entire screen.

Rich audio

At least those rich blacks, peak whites and vivid colours endure, thanks to the set’s impressive brightness. One positive benefit in having a one-million pixel screen – instead of two-million pixels – is that the pixels are bigger and therefore brighter.

The audio emanating from the hidden speakers is reasonably precise: there’s just enough mid-bass to cope well with most dialogue, while the Clear Voice mode scrubs away background noise.

TruSurround XT does a decent enough job at widening the soundstage, but the result can only ever be for emergency use: the screen has a digital audio optical output to route all sound into a home cinema amplifier.

Not just a pretty TV

With the 50PG6000, LG has taken non-1080p panel and put it in a gorgeous chassis. But to call it merely a style TV would be to miss the point.

This screen also has an impressive black level (making a daring play for Pioneer’s crown as the blackest of all, it gets closer than most), high shadow detail and decent colour fidelity.

In a PQ battle with Sony’s hi-spec 1080p KDL-46W3000 LCD it wins by a country mile. Clearly the lack of Full HD resolution will limit the LG 50PG6000's appeal to high-enders and future-proofers alike, but this screen remains a bargain.

I can’t wait to see what the upcoming Full HD version, the LG PG7000, can do.