Today's well-equipped home theater has so many pieces of gear that it's sometimes hard to keep track of them all. There's the cable or satellite box, the DVD (or Blu-ray or HD DVD) player, maybe a VCR or DVD recorder, often a separate DVR, such as a TiVo, and, increasingly, at least one game console. If that list comes close to describing your A/V rack, then the Hitachi 42HDS69 42-inch plasma HDTV might be just what the home theater doctor ordered. It has more HD inputs than we've ever seen on a plasma TV, or on just about any HDTV for that matter.
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What We Think
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| Though it's stylish and delivers a respectable picture, the main appeal of this affordable plasma lies in its best-in-class array of HDTV-compatible inputs |
Where Hitachi did cut corners is in the one place I don't really mind: the remote control. The bland gray wand is just half a notch above what comes with a no-name plasma, although it does include all the keys I look for, arranged in a passably ergonomic fashion. Even so, it begs to be replaced by a universal model — you know, one that can command that bulging rack of gear.
SETUP When it came time to lash the 42HDS69 to my test equipment, I enjoyed more than enough connections to go around. This plasma offers three HDMI digital ports and three inputs for component-video HDTV, along with a pair of A/V inputs that accept composite or S-video.
Keep in mind, though, that you can't connect to all of these inputs at once, because three of the five input slots are doubled up. For example, you can connect both a component-video source and an HDMI source to the ports labeled "Input 5" on the TV, but you'll see the component-video source only if the HDMI source is turned off. The same goes for Inputs 1 and 2 on the back panel, where two HDMI inputs override the two S-video inputs, which in turn override the composite-video inputs. Still, even with these caveats, and despite the lack of a VGA computer input, the 42HDS69 has more connections than just about any other HDTV out there. And regardless that it's an entry-level model, it also includes a CableCard slot, an increasingly rare option among late-model HDTVs.
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The Short Form |
| $2,100 ($2,500 LIST) / 43.1 x 31.3 x 4.5 IN / 68 LBS / hitachi.us/tv / 800-448-2244 |
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Plus
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| •Best-in-class connectivity •Flexible picture adjustments •Clean reproduction of dark scenes |
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Minus
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| •Occasional fluctuation in brightness of blacks •Some vibration in static images |
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Key Features
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| •42-inch 1,024 x 1,080 resolution flat-panel plasma display •Adjustable Day and Night modes for each input •3 HDMI, 3 component-video inputs •CableCard slot |
You can also choose from four levels of video noise reduction that do a generally solid job of cleaning up low-quality sources. But it's worth noting that in every noise-reduction setting except High, the Hitachi showed signs of edge enhancement (which appears as subtle exaggerations like white outlines around fine lines). Since I didn't notice a serious reduction in resolution with High NR engaged, I left the set in that mode. I also chose the "16:9 Standard 2" aspect ratio because it allowed me to see the entire image without any cropping, and Hitachi says it's the best mode for viewing 1080i sources because it performs minimal scaling on them. I really like having this no-crop option, which most HDTVs lack.
Like any self-respecting plasma, the 42HDS69 also offers a range of features to combat burn-in. Listed under "Screen Savers," they include three options to move the picture around on the screen, a "wipe" mode that puts up an all-white screen to help erase any retained images, and three "image power" settings that affect maximum light output. The two lower power settings had the unexpected side effect of making black areas appear brighter, so I left the control in its default Max position.
PICTURE QUALITY After making my adjustments, I connected a Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player and settled back to watch Firewall, an almost insufferably bad movie made nearly bearable by its excellent video quality. The opening scenes in the house of Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) came across beautifully on the Hitachi, with his well-lit (and flat-panel-festooned) domicile rendered in warm, inviting colors. Skin tones looked accurate and realistic; the faces of his blonde daughter and wife were suitably delicate and not tinged too red. As Jack drives off to work, however, I thought the lush greenery to either side of his driveway appeared just a little too yellow in the bright sun.
When Jack arrives at work the lighting darkens, especially in the back room where the computer security work gets done. While the blacks in the shadows behind the workstations weren't as deep as I've seen on some plasmas, they did look quite clean and free of roiling motes of noise and unnatural contours — a good sign.
Unfortunately, this scene also exposed a strange picture flaw. As Ford crosses the lab after talking to Betty (Candus Churchill), the entire scene abruptly got darker for about half a second before returning to normal. It appeared to be caused by a quick change in the scene's overall brightness — as the camera follows Ford, a bright lamp exits the shot — and was distracting enough that I thought it must be a mistake on the disc. But after looking at the same scene on another HDTV and not seeing this effect, I had to chalk it up to the Hitachi. I didn't see this fluctuation again despite watching about half of the film, although it also cropped up in test patterns.
One of Hitachi's main improvements to its plasmas this year is extra vertical resolution. The company claims to have packed all 1080 horizontal lines of a 1080i signal onto the relatively small 42-inch screen and cites the TV's 1,024 x 1,080 pixel grid. Indeed, Firewall on HD DVD looked plenty sharp for a plasma of this size. The wide shot of the buildings during Ford's drive to work, for example, showed well the myriad windows and minute details in the cityscape, and the numerous shots of computer text throughout the film looked similarly well-defined. In reality, however, unless you sit really close and pay extra-close attention, I doubt you'd notice a difference between the sharpness of this plasma and one with a more conventional native resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels. Finally, I did see a little bit of vibration along vertical lines, though for the most part only on static graphics (such as parts of white borders on the HD DVD's menu and the Hitachi's onscreen menus). I haven't seen this on other plasmas, but it was mostly invisible in moving images, so I doubt many viewers will be bothered by it.
BOTTOM LINE In future living rooms sure to teem with ever more digital devices equipped with the highest-quality HDMI outputs, the Hitachi 42HDS69 42-inch plasma HDTV stands as one of the most nearly future-proof displays available today. Its sharp, colorful picture is impressive despite the minor issues I detected, and I really liked its many options for adjusting the image. When you consider its slick styling and affordable price, the 42HDS69 stands out against the plasma competition.
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