i'll try out other modes later when i get home. can you list the exact steps you did to replicate it? like, did you turn off the source or the tv first? i'd been more careful and now wait for the no input message before turning the tv off so i haven't encountered the problem since.
What I did to make sure that I started with a clean slate, was to do an "Intial Reset" as if it just came out of the box. I believe this is in the "Options" menu. Good thing is that I haven't connected to cable service yet, thus no channel programming was previously done. As this procedure will erase all of those programming.
Set to "Home Use" mode, and everything should be in default for a usual customer. In this case the picture mode setting will all be defaulted to "Vivid" for all inputs (I suppose). Then and only then, change the picture mode setting, and nothing else. Do not adjust the individual parameters like brightness, contrast, etc. I don't know if changing these on the default picture mode setting has any bearing on the issue. I did try on the various picture modes to see which ones would result in the said issue. This is what I did at the appliance store. Did encounter the said issue on "Natural" and "Sports" picture modes.
At home, I have only tested on "Natural" picture mode setting as this is the one I am currently using. As I am not aware that this might be causing the said issue at that time. Haven't tried on the other picture modes yet as my unit is still in the box which I brought to the store yesterday evening. I will be setting up my TV right after this posting.
So the next procedure is with both the source/player (I have tried both WDTV HD Media Player and an LG HT554TM HTIB) connected to the HDMI1 input and the LCD TV turned on. Power off the source/player first. The TV would then show HDMI1 input message at the upper right hand corner. Blinking a few times and then off for a brief moment. And then another set of blinking HDMI1 message the 2nd time around, then totally off. There will be no "No Signal" message appearing on the screen. And this is the symptom of the issue that I had. Any presses from the remote would not show up anything on the screen, except for the "Power Off/On" button.
At this stage, if you power off the TV and power it on again (w/o powering on your source/player), the HDMI1 message will do the blinking sequence twice as described above, again. And the remote would appear not to function as well. So the only way to recover from this is to power on your source/player either before powering on the TV or at this stage (after the TV had been powered on), the TV screen will then show up. And you can now see the responses from your remote presses.
Whenever you encounter this 2 sequences of blinking of the input source message, the "no Signal" message will not appear anymore. Thus this is the annoying issue that I (or we) have been encountering. I suppose this might be the same as yours.
Do note that I have version 3.15 firmware. Might be the same issue as yours if you do have the same version.
The only time I didn't encounter the above annoying issue is when I selected other picture modes, other than "Normal" and "Sports". In those other cases, the HDMI1 input message will only blink for 1 set of sequence. And then the "No Signal" message would appear. The normal case is just 1 set/sequence of blinking.
Do let me know what you will find out. I believe raising this issue to LG for firmware update would come in later, after we do our confirmations.
For others who would be able to do this procedure, please provide us with your findings as well.
While this issue have not been resolved yet, it is always better to power off your TV first before powering off any attached devices/players to the inputs. Hope that this helps for all owners.
And by the way, other than this annoyance, I do still love the experience of watching HD on this TV. And I still prefer watching on this 32" model than on the same 42" model. Have tried watching using the same source 1080p movie and the same HD player in both cases. I couldn't see the picture quality on the 42" model (at 8ft viewing distance) to be as sharp as that on this 32" unit (at 5ft viewing distance).