Hitachi 50 Pd960 & 50pd9800 - Anyone Got One

[metal beat]

Anyone got or spent any time with these new Hiatachi 50 inch plasma's.

They look quite good and the price is reasonable. 1080P input, althought they are not full HD, but rather 2/3rd's at 1280 x 1080.

[Maton]

just set one up the other day, looks pretty good so far

[Inego1503560167]

Not the 50, but the 42PD960DTA here - delivered on Friday, but it's in the new house so I haven't had much of a play yet.

Picture looks good so far (surprisingly so with some SD sources) and gee the lump of a thing looks so much better in the room than the tacky looking pana I was going to buy (but the pana is still great value at around $300 less.

Kent

[Guest hadrami]

hi, first post...

I'm interested in getting either the Hitachi 50PD960DTA or the LG 50PB2DR and wanted someone to give me some feedback on which one they would go for and why. I can get the Hitachi for $3380 from JB while he left the LG @ 3800 without furhter bargaining as he didn't recommend the LG over the Hitachi for hardware problems. I personally like the Hitachi as I thought it had better PQ than the LG but the missers loved the inbuilt 250GB DVR on the LG. The guy claimed that every single LG plasma he sold which had an inbuilt HD tuner was brought back for repairs(!).

Anyhow, I'd really appreciate a reply as I need to make a decision within the next couple of days.

Also, if I'm only going to be 2-2.5m away from the screen, should I go for the 50" or is 42" enough? I got quoted $2350 for the 42" hitachi with inbuilt HD.

THanks.

[metal beat]

hi, first post...

I'm interested in getting either the Hitachi 50PD960DTA or the LG 50PB2DR and wanted someone to give me some feedback on which one they would go for and why. I can get the Hitachi for $3380 from JB while he left the LG @ 3800 without furhter bargaining as he didn't recommend the LG over the Hitachi for hardware problems. I personally like the Hitachi as I thought it had better PQ than the LG but the missers loved the inbuilt 250GB DVR on the LG. The guy claimed that every single LG plasma he sold which had an inbuilt HD tuner was brought back for repairs(!).

Anyhow, I'd really appreciate a reply as I need to make a decision within the next couple of days.

Also, if I'm only going to be 2-2.5m away from the screen, should I go for the 50" or is 42" enough? I got quoted $2350 for the 42" hitachi with inbuilt HD.

THanks.

Personally I think the Hitachi has a LOT better PQ than the LG. What JB were you quoted $3380 as that is a great price.

[Guest hadrami]

it was dfo essendon.

[Guest hadrami]

Just in case anyone cares, I got the 50" Hitachi for $3380 + $350 for 5yr extended warranty. Will be setting it up tomorrow, hopefully performs well.

I've realised there's not many people talking about the Hitachi on this forum, why is that? From my research and personal viewing the Hitachi looked quite well, both aesthetically and PQ.

[Struggo]

Just in case anyone cares, I got the 50" Hitachi for $3380 + $350 for 5yr extended warranty. Will be setting it up tomorrow, hopefully performs well.

I've realised there's not many people talking about the Hitachi on this forum, why is that? From my research and personal viewing the Hitachi looked quite well, both aesthetically and PQ.

Becuase sheep will follow sheep.

The Hitachi 42PD8800TA & 42PD8900TA are better displays than the Pana PV60 which they where often compared to. Don't get me wrong, the Pana's are great but compared to the two mentioned above, there not in the same ball park IMHO

[complectus]

Becuase sheep will follow sheep.

The Hitachi 42PD8800TA & 42PD8900TA are better displays than the Pana PV60 which they where often compared to. Don't get me wrong, the Pana's are great but compared to the two mentioned above, there not in the same ball park IMHO

Back to the 50PD960DTA... I was very close to buying this last week, but after seeing it next to a Panasonic 50PX600A, I just couldn't do it. I too saw a big difference between the best 42" Hitachi (42PD960DTA) & the Panasonic & Pioneer 42"ers - it looked much better - but the difference just wasn't there for the 50". The improvement in sharpness & detail that was so apparent on the 42PD960DTA was replaced by a very unnatural-looking edge enhancement & loss of fine detail in lower-contrast areas. It was like someone had drawn white lines around high-contrast edges of the picture & smudged out the low contrast regions. Compared to the panasonic, it's black levels & general contrast were noticeably worse & skin tones looked a bit orange. It looked a bit washed out & I think i might have seen some luminance bounce rather than a smooth transition when overall brightness levels changed. This was watching Totally Wild in 1080i on SC10HD on Friday afternoon. Of course, many of these faults may have been due to the way it was set up, but seeing these defects reminded me of the difference between the top-line hitachi 42"er & the $2000 one that had similar specs but a much worse picture than the 42PD960DTA.

Lots of reviews of Hitachi TVs that I've read over the last year mention Hitachi's image processing - various generations of "Picture Master", now up to (I think) Picture Master FHD, or Picture Master 4 HD on overseas TVs - and whenever this technology is mentioned, it is praised. I downloaded the 50PD960DTA manual & there is no mention of any version of Picture Master at all. Also, unlike the 42PD960DTA, the 50" can't do PiP or PbP... although this is a fairly minor feature, it seems to me that this kind of picture manipulation should be very easy for even a simple image processor & given that the button for this feature exists on the remote but does nothing, i can only guess that the image processor cannot manage it. Or very much else, it seems, given the picture quality I saw...

I left the shop disappointed & with the distinct impression that despite Hitachi's naming conventions which would indicate that it's a top-of-the-line TV (XXPD960DTA), the 50" was really just a bigger-screened version of their cheapest plasmas. Even if you discount the defects i saw as setup problems, if this is a top line set like the 42PD960DTA, where is the 6-speaker sound system? & the USB ports & card reader? Optical audio-out? & despite earlier posts in this thread, I don't really like the look of it either - compared to the 42PD960DTA, it's just "ok".

Anyway... I would love it if someone could convince me that I'm wrong - that all the faults were just due to bad setup. 30% more pixels than the rest of the affordable 50"ers would probably make a significantly better picture given similar video processing. But do it quick because if you don't, i think i'm gonna get the panasonic...

[sanitarium]

Just in case anyone cares, I got the 50" Hitachi for $3380 + $350 for 5yr extended warranty. Will be setting it up tomorrow, hopefully performs well.

I've realised there's not many people talking about the Hitachi on this forum, why is that? From my research and personal viewing the Hitachi looked quite well, both aesthetically and PQ.

i too am looking at purchasing this panel. please let us know how you have gone with the setup and what your impressions with the quality are like..

[complectus]

In sanitarium's "Shop Testing Plasmas ... advice?" topic I retracted my concerns about picture quality made earlier in this thread after viewing the set at 3 other locations. It seems the set i viewed initially was poorly set up & this TV is again back at or near the top of my list for imminent purchase.

[Struggo]

In sanitarium's "Shop Testing Plasmas ... advice?" topic I retracted my concerns about picture quality made earlier in this thread after viewing the set at 3 other locations. It seems the set i viewed initially was poorly set up & this TV is again back at or near the top of my list for imminent purchase.

http://www.gadgetguy.com.au/reviews/151249...achi-50pd960dta

A few weeks ago we reviewed on this site a rather decent little 80 cm Hitachi LCD TV. That unit cost $2,199, so when we got in its big 127 cm plasma sibling, I expected it to also provide decent performance at a good price. But I was to be startled. This huge plasma TV, with a built-in high definition tuner, delivers two and a half times the picture size for less than twice the price.

Features

But that isn’t all. This is not a true high definition plasma TV, in the sense of providing a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, but it comes remarkably close.

What it delivers is 1,280 pixels across – the same as the majority of high resolution front projectors – but a full 1,080 lines counting down from the top. That means that it offers a little over thirty per cent more resolution than most 127cm plasma TVs. More importantly, the 1,080 lines is a perfect match for HDTV, Blu-ray and HD DVD.

The HDTV can be sourced from the excellent built-in HDTV tuner, while Blu-ray and HD DVD can be connected via the two HDMI sockets on the back of the unit.

The plasma panel technology is a little different from that used in some other brands. It is called ALiS (for ‘Alternate Lighting of Surfaces’). Instead of every single pixel being individually fed with a signal, half of the 1,080 lines alternate with the other half. This was specifically designed for high performance with 1080i signals. In addition, the horizontal rows of pixels are not separated above and below by the usual thin black lines, so there is a somewhat smoother, more LCD-like, quality to the image when viewed close.

There was one feature missing, though: there is no digital audio output. This is important if you are watching a HDTV program with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, since a digital audio output can feed this signal to a home theatre receiver for full surround decoding. With this TV you are stuck with an analogue audio connection.

Performance

The tuning in of the TV to my local stations went smoothly enough, once I determined that the ‘Quick Scan’ feature didn’t work for my local retransmitter. The digital TV reception was very solid, with not the slightest hint of breakup or other misbehaviour during my time with the TV.

But it was in viewing HDTV that this TV came into its own. Okay, so the horizontal resolution of the panel is ‘only’ 1,280 pixels, which is only two thirds of the notional 1,920 of HDTV. But in fact the two 1,080i HDTV channels only broadcast at 1,440 by 1,080 pixels, so there is only a slight downscaling of horizontal resolution to fit the panel. The picture with HDTV was, in a word, brilliant.

I was also able to give it a run with HD DVD, which really does offer a full 1,920 pixels of horizontal resolution. The black levels were great, and the colour as good as any panel on the market. The TV was just the slightest bit softer than the full HD Pioneer panel, but at a third of the price, what could you possibly expect?

Conclusion

With 1,080 lines, excellent overall performance, and a very low price for a 127 cm plasma TV, the Hitachi 50PD960TA plasma TV is a superb buy.

[complectus]

I had an update from Hitachi with respect to the version of Picture Master included in this TV - it's "Picture Master II". A quick google search didn't turn up very much information about this particular version of the technology, but it seems likely that it is not as advanced as the versions on European (Picture Master F(ull)HD) or North American (Picture Master 4) TVs. It is demonstrably less advanced than the version that appears on the 55" & 42" 8800TA & 8900TA televisions from last year (comparing the image tweaking features in each of the manuals & the published colour depth).

I had another close look at this TV on Tuesday watching a 1080i HD test loop & again noticed some defects that I would attribute to the image processor. On scene changes the picture would take a second or two to settle down, as if the image processor was working out what to do with the picture. Occasionally, this would also happen within a scene while panning - some boulders in a grassy field flickered bright & dark as the camera panned over them & some flickering of dark, leafless branches silhouetted against a bright sky. I also noticed some false contouring of blue gradients during scenes showing the sky & sudden changes of brightness of the whole screen rather than a gradual transition. This time, I was able to adjust the TV's settings with the remote, & while I was able to minimise some of these effects, doing so had other consequences, like duller colours & less contrast. Possibly more fiddling would have reached a decent compromise, but I ran out of time. The salesman had no luck either.

Despite these concerns, it is still on my list. The sharpness & extra detail compared to the 50" 768p plasmas is a great asset. I just wish Hitachi hadn't skimped on the image processing - how much extra would it have cost to include the latest version of Picture Master? 1280x1080 is a brilliant compromise resolution for HD material - with no horizontal scaling for 720p & no vertical scaling for 1080i/p, the potential for a better picture is obvious. It's a little disappointing that with the 50PD960DTA not all of that potential has been fulfilled, especially considering what's available in other markets. I wonder whether a 42PD8900TA owner would be satisfied with this TV's picture quality?

[metal beat]

I too have found the picture on the 50 inch Hitachi a little blurred sometimes, however the colour and natural tones are easily better than the pany or samsung.

no mention of what picture master I could find, however the 42PD9800 in Singaore has picture master HD2 and wond cnet deotors choice last mnth. Is that the same as the 42PD960 here in Australia??

[complectus]

Is that the same as the 42PD960 here in Australia??

Who knows? Hitachi should take a leaf out of Panasonic's book & sell (basically) the same range all over the world. The added cost of latest-generation technologies could then be at least partially negated by losing the cost of engineering & manufacturing different models for every market.

[metal beat]

Who knows? Hitachi should take a leaf out of Panasonic's book & sell (basically) the same range all over the world. The added cost of latest-generation technologies could then be at least partially negated by losing the cost of engineering & manufacturing different models for every market.

I agree they should .

I spoke to Hitachi today and they said the picture master 2 was implemented to adhere to Australia's HD FTA standards, hence was an improvement on the original picture master that was implemented in the 42PD8900 which included ability to sync perfectly a 1080P signal. He had no idea how it compared to the Singapore model as every model needs to be slightly different in digital tuner standards to adhere to local country stanards.

I think I may get the 42Pd960 as it has better PQ than the 50 inch for some reason and IMO better than any other plasma including the pio. Maybe because this is Hitachi's first 50 inch for a while?? The pana 50 inch has better PQ, but the Hitachi has a lot more natural colours and especially whites.

I just wish the swivel model came in the black bezel and not the aluminium bezel.

My local Domayne still has an 42PD8900 listed for full price of $4399 - crazy

Besides my wife won't let me buy a 50 inch!!

[50mxe20]

Besides my wife won't let me buy a 50 inch!!

And doesn't it drive you crazy! It does me. :ph34r:

[metal beat]

And doesn't it drive you crazy! It does me. :ph34r:

Yea you are not wrong. "it going to be too big for the room" so what! I guess if I thought the 50 inch was THAT much better than the 42 I might push the issue, but alas its not, so I think I'll buy the 42 inch and wait a while for a 60 inch full HD to come out and be lower in price.

[walkie]

I came across a Hitachi PD960 today with $2439 on the sticker. good deal these days?

I have been looking at the Samsung 50C91, thought that the Samsung looked better in the shop (they were running the same HD loop).

I assume that they have them setup standard in the shop, how much adjustibility does it have?

[Mr_Independent]

Went out and had a look at one of these on the weekend (Hitachi 1080P 50 Inch) and I must say, I was not very impressed with what I saw.

Very cheap looking display, PQ left a lot to be desired as well...but I guess you get what you pay for.

The Pioneer which is what I have been keeping a close eye on (Albeit I think it is still very overpriced) left it for dead in every way...

Lets hope the price comes down on the Pioneer being the fact that numerous other 1080P models are released over the coming months (Panasonic etc.), beceause it seems that the Pioneer is the one to beat at the moment.

Don't mean to offend any Hitachi owners, just stating my opinion.