Thanks for the input reggie 00. I agree with your input. As someone who works in the industry, I knew what I was looking for/buying when I bought it. There's not substitute for shopping the heck out of a major purchase like a TV.

 

Reggie, an update on the Hitachi. I really, really wanted to like it:

http://www.hitachi.us/tv/browse/plas.../42hdt79.shtml

The specs were impressive and logical that a full 1080 would look better than a Panny compressed pic. Not so, it seems to depend on what is done with those pixels.

The Hitachi had a problem that my guys called 'artifacts'. I called it a typed of 'shiver' in the vertical portion, especially in text with a 1080i HDMI input. No amount of tweaking advised by the Hitachi 1-800 courteous tech staff helped. Another oddity was audio. Sometimes video lagged audio noticeably. Very distracting. Hitachi knows of the issues and provides free software upgrades. The problem is the set delivered was a few software versions outdate. Hitachi put me on the list of upgraders, but said they had a limited number of upgrade chips under license so it would take 2-3 months for me to get the upgrade card.

Otherwise, I can see the potential for the Hitachi. It has more color management options than any other set, but what good does color correction do when the image isn't as sharp as Panny's compressed 1024X768? And the power swivel base was trick I admit.

So I returned it for another Panny, the same as the original set:

http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/p...h42px600u.html

While at the shop, they showed me the Director Series in your link. It was miles ahead of the Hitachi I tried. Everything about it was so much better. But the price was $700 more than the other Hitachi, a budget buster. I went with the Panny at $1,450 and am happier than ever with the image and simpler user interface.

Thanks for the offer of the drop ship, too. Funny now that I'm an HDTV user that the differences between makes have become so apparent. I liken the Hitachi to the BMW i-Drive failure that was needlessly complex with little or no return on actual performance for the $ compared to Lexus with simple, usable controls anyone can comprehend for actual enjoyment.

 

Thanks for the input. I definitely will be bringing it up to my distributor next week. I liked the director series.
We do alot with with the Panasonic, after talking with you and the distributor(who we get the Panasonics from also) i turned in the paperwork for Hitachi.
It is a lot nicer to get unbiased opinions like this it makes it easier to get to the bottom or on top of things. Thank you.

 

Thanks for the responses and suggestions. I ended up going with a 37" HP HDTV LCD. I originally bought it for $1k but I later discovered another similar 37" for $800 and BestBuy matched that price. I also bought the 4 year warranty plan.

It looks great especially on HD cable channels. The only thing I the miss is the picture-in-picture that my JVC had.

 

I thought I would chime in. My suggestion would be if you going to get any TV make sure the tuner built in is ATSC/QAM/NTSC tuner. Not every Digital tuner sold in TV's has a QAM tuner. QAM will allow you to pull HD channels over you cable network with out a box. And it may also allow you to pull other channels on the digital cable side. Also if you are a cable sub you may want to look for a cable card input.

Just something to think about.

I have just got myself something I have always wanted a Front Projector. I agree it?s not for everyone or every room. And they don?t have any tuner built in. But holy crap it makes 42" or 60" look like 13" TV's and, the fact I almost free cable from work I have no problems feeding it signal.
I got an Optima HD70 which is a 720p projector native 16:9. The super bowl was just awesome in HD on it. Well so is everything on it.