Photos by Tony Cordoza
Video enthusiasts know that television sets are preset to be exorbitantly bright in electronics stores, to better catch the eyes of people wandering by under the fluorescent lights. Indeed, research shows that bright screens with loud, intense colors sell TVs, but that doesn’t mean you want that sales-floor picture in your living room. The situation has spawned a small industry of professional TV calibrators, as well as Internet discussion boards devoted to the art of TV tweaking. The denizens of these Web forums are intent on adjusting their TVs themselves, leading some manufacturers to put more powerful user adjustments into their higher-end models.
Hitachi’s 57T500 is a tweaker’s delight. It offers the most extensive user adjustments I’ve seen on a TV, including two separate color controls, two custom picture presets for each input, and an off position for picture modifiers like scan-velocity modulation and noise reduction. Ironically, this rear-projection TV (RPTV) also comes from the factory with highly accurate settings for color and other parameters. Whether or not it gets the enthusiast treatment, the 57T500 is certainly capable of producing the kind of beautifully detailed images that’ll make anybody enthusiastic.
The Hitachi uses tried-and-true cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), so its 25-inch depth isn’t as shallow as LCD, DLP (Digital Light Processing), or LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) models. It’s also not as flashy. With a charcoal-gray base, a large silver-gray rectangle of synthetic cloth across the front, and a silver border around the screen, the 57T500 cuts the nondescript figure of a Londoner in the rain. Its only attempt at a high-tech look is a bright blue LED power indicator.
Although the large, button-heavy remote control shares the set’s utilitarian appearance, I really liked its logical layout and comprehensive functionality. The major keys are backlit, and the little thumb-clickable joystick made navigating the onscreen menus a breeze. Dedicated keys let me quickly select any of the six inputs, 540p (progressive) or 1080i (interlaced) upconversion for standard programs, and closed captions — which can be set to appear when you mute the audio.
The picture formats that became available when I pressed the Aspect button depended on what input source I was viewing. For high-def 1080i sources I was limited to 16:9 Standard, the default for widescreen programs, and 16:9 Zoom, which filled the screen with normal 4:3 material and cropped the top and bottom. Standard-definition 480i and progressive-scan 480p sources allowed a healthy six choices, including one that places black or gray bars to either side of the normal 4:3 image, one that stretches and crops the image just enough to fill the screen, a couple of zooms, and both of the 16:9 modes.
Another button, labeled AV Net, called up a menu system that allows control of other A/V components via the supplied infrared (IR) emitters. An emitter placed near a component’s IR sensor sends it instructions from the TV. The 57T500 can command four components in this manner — including cable boxes, DVD players, and even set-top HDTV receivers and hard-disk recorders like TiVo — and it can learn custom codes for devices that aren’t part of its code database.
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FAST FACTS
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KEY FEATURES INPUTS/OUTPUTS DIMENSIONS 54 inches wide, 54 1/4 inches high, 25 1/2 inches deep WEIGHT 265 pounds PRICE $3,500 MANUFACTURER Hitachi, P.O. Box 3900, Peoria, IL 61612; www.hitachi.com/tv; 800-448-2244 |
The 57T500 doesn’t include a built-in HDTV tuner, so you’ll need a separate off-air, cable, or satellite high-definition source. In my opinion that’s no hardship since most satellite and cable systems deliver more high-definition channels — and are more reliable — than off-air tuners. On the other hand, Hitachi is one of two TV makers (the other being Panasonic) that plans to deliver plug-and-play cable-compatible HDTVs in time for this year’s holiday season. The 57T500’s digital cable-ready equivalent will be the 57T750 ($3,999). Owners of that set will presumably be able to plug their cables directly into the back — without an external cable box — and watch digital and high-def cable programs.
The jack selection includes everything I expected, namely, a copy-protected DVI (Digital Visual Interface) port for high-def tuners and some new DVD players, a pair of wideband component-video inputs, and two A/V inputs with S-video. The second component input also accepts standard composite-video signals. Unfortunately, Hitachi designated both the DVI and the first component jack as Input 1, so you can’t hook up both at the same time. A hatch on the front panel opens to reveal an A/V input with S-video, a few control buttons, and a slot for a PC Card. The slot can take an adapter that accepts SD, Memory Stick, and other flash-memory formats, so you can watch a digital-photo slide show.
But my favorite feature is one I can’t believe hasn’t been included on TVs before. In place of the nearly useless picture presets like Sports and Multimedia found on most other sets, each of the inputs has separate presets labeled Day and Night. I was actually able to adjust contrast, brightness, and other key controls for both low and high ambient light on each of the numerous inputs! This arrangement makes it extremely convenient to compensate for real-world lighting situations and can dramatically improve the viewing experience.
Viewers who use a setup DVD — like Sound & Vision’s Home Theater Tune-Up — will also enjoy the 57T500’s extensive color controls. The settings for the internal color decoder are excellent right out of the box (see “in the lab” for details), but if you have a setup disc you can use the set’s color-decoding menu to achieve near perfection. You don’t even need to use filters since you can control the red, green, and blue tubes individually.
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HIGH POINTS
Great color reproduction. Day and Night custom picture presets for all inputs. Numerous user setup options. LOW POINT |
Having checked out all of the set’s many features, I spun The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers to put the Hitachi through its paces. The amazing scene where Gandalf battles the Balrog as they both plunge through the heart of a mountain quickly demonstrated the 57T500’s sharp, vibrant picture. The faces of the wizard’s companions looked suitably pale with fright, not ruddy as they would on a set with less accurate color. The pommel of Gandalf’s sword was revealed in rich detail as he plummeted down and snagged it midair. I caught detailed glimpses of rock walls as they flew by, and the Balrog itself was a stunning combination of pitch-black hide riddled with lava-colored veins. Thanks to the TV’s excellent contrast, I could make out the ridges and curves of the monster’s teeth as its shadowy head swung into the foreground.
The remainder of the flick looked equally impressive, but shadows of lines appeared along the spears as Saruman’s army of Orcs advanced upon Helm’s Deep, so I turned off the edge enhancement and reduced sharpness to zero. The lines persisted but were much fainter.
When I switched to the local PBS affiliate’s HDTV loop on Time Warner Cable, the picture looked even more breathtaking. The crowd scenes and race cars from the Darlington Speedway sequences came alive with sharp details, without a hint of softness. The color on HDTV programs was even richer than with DVD (as it should be), and the decals on the sunlit stock cars looked brilliant. The 57T500 cranks out a good deal of light without obscuring any picture detail.
Although it costs more than your typical 57-inch CRT-based RPTV, the Hitachi 57T500 outperformed most of those I’ve seen, especially in terms of color. Whether you’re a dyed-in-the-wool video tweaker or just want sparkling DVD and HDTV images, the Hitachi’s user-friendly, flexible control options make it a top choice among HDTV-capable big screens.
In the Lab
Color temperature (Standard color temperature and Night setting before/after calibration)
Low window (20-IRE): 5,117/6,426 K
High window (80-IRE): 6,356/6,511 K
Brightness (Standard color temperature before/ after calibration, 100-IRE): 97.7/39.5 ftL
Before calibration, the Hitachi 57T500 measured well below the NTSC standard color temperature of 6,500 K at the low end of the grayscale, but it was much closer at 50 IRE and above. After calibration it varied by less than 200 K from 30 to 80 IRE. (Calibration needs to be performed by a qualified technician with specialized equipment, so discuss it with your dealer before purchase, or call the Imaging Science Foundation at 561-997-9073.)
Both before and after calibration, light output was excellent, so I was able to maintain good contrast without losing detail in the whites. The set’s NTSC color decoder was refreshingly free of “red push,” varying by no more than 5%. After adjustment, the decoder was spot-on. DC restoration was only average — the level of black varied visibly with changes in the average brightness level. The automatic convergence system worked fairly well to align the three CRTs, but I did notice some blue and red fringing. The user-accessible 117-point manual convergence let me get it nearly perfect.
Geometry was extremely good for a large CRT-based display — I noticed only minor distortion along the extreme upper left of the screen. Overscan patterns indicated a 5% picture loss on the sides and 3% on top and bottom, which is about average.