Hitachi's new loaded plasma - 42HDS69
By Matt Burns 
posted May 1st 2006 1:27PM
posted May 1st 2006 1:27PM
Oh how we love Hitachi.
They were the makers of the best big screen TVs for years. Hitachi has always been on the forefront of
innovation and their newest plasma is not letting us down - not at all. Unlike Samsung seems to be
doing, Hitachi is loading their newest flat panels with tons of inputs. Most importantly is that this 42-inch HD
plasma has three HDMI inputs - two on the back on and one on the side. Same goes for the component inputs -
two on the back and one on the front. Hitachi has also thrown in anti-reflective glass and a new native resolution for
this panel. Most high-def plasmas are 720p natively but this one is 1080i with the native resolution of 1024x1080. Keep
'em coming Hitachi.The plasma is going to retail for $2499 and should be available soon.
[UPDATE} Here is a great forum post on the confusing resolution issue.
Hiachy iz sooo awsum!!
ok i love the hitachi brand also, but 1080i and native resolution 1280 is like apples and applesauce.
oops it says 1024 x 1080 WTF?
this means its native resultion is below the min width 1280 for 720p HD definitions.
I am against any TV calling itself HD and haveing less than 1280 pixels across.
wtf is 1024x1080? Did they take the 1920 and scale it down to 1080? How is this HD?
Hitachis rock! i have a 42HDX62 Ultravision Director's Series and 2 ODM ViewSonics {VPW4255 and VPW5500} it amaze me how clean the images both in Standard and High Vision look on all of them.
While the specs read good the design sucks., with all that silver and the non-motorized swivel stand it looks like thouse cheap flat panels. There's another cheapo Hitachi already available on Wal-mart's website the 42HDF39 it's selling for around $2,000.
Hitachi/Fujitsu ALiS panels have been coming in 1024x10XX for 3 generations now. This is nothing new. The last gens were 1024x1050 and 1024x1024, so at least this is some improvement...
What IS new is HDBeat calling this a 1080i TV. You guys were leading the charge of not allowing manufacturers to call a 1024xANYTHING TV "HD".
What's notable is that Hitachi is calling this a 1080i TV. That means that, while handling 1080 lines of resolution, it will only accept a 1080/60 interlaced signal. It is not a 1080p set (I know nobody claimed it was, I'm just saying). They admit as much when they tak about their "PictureMaster 1080p Video Processing." The only thing it references is de-interlacing.
Bottom line: there is a lot of funky scaling going on with this TV and its crazy rectangular pixels. You are not getting a "true" 1080i picture. The 1920x540/60x2 fields signal is being deinterlaced to 1920x1080/30, then scaled to the rectangular pixels. Prolly looks better than 1080i on a 768 plasma, but still not going to match a true 1080p display.
Why is it that everyone's at 1024 X 768 except Hitachi? Did they corner the market on better foundries? I doubt it.
That said, I really want this TV, but i'd like to see some reviews first.
Anyone know the contrast ratio? 8000:1? 10000?
The 36 watt speakers are something I'd like someone to review.
Jury out, but this one sounds pretty sweet so far.
DOH!
It just arrived in stock today at J & R. The reviews should be coming in very shortly.
*prays for good reviews*
Hitachi/Fujitsu Plasma Display makes arguably the best (and most expensive)Plasma panels on the planet. Their ALiS (Alternate lighting of Surfaces) design which incorporates the 1024x1024 structure in my opinion has one of the smoothest most cinema like pictures available on a consumer device today. A Panasonic for example, with traditional 1024X768P has a great picture, but there is still more evident pixel spacing.
The best way I can describe it is the difference between the Trinitron and the regular Invar Shadow Mask back in the day. No one who saw a Trinitron in my experience ever wanted to go back to a regular shadow mask television. Ironically, when Sony was producing their Plasmas until 2005, all of their panels were Hitachi/Fujitsu sourced up to the 42 inch size.
So its not just some trivial difference, the ALiS design, while not quite up there in black level with some of its competitors, is overall the smoothest picture because of the incredibly tight pixel spacing.
Ian.
I am a comment spammer.
prudency@outgun.com