Everything, Great picture, easy to handle.
Split Screen Option
Able to Pause Television

none honestly

Great Television for my family we watch all the blueray HD DVD's on it we have a plazma LCD also but this Hitachi quality is much better and the screen is very large it is 60 inches.

Everything, Great picture, easy to handle.
Split Screen Option
Able to Pause Television

none honestly

Great Television for my family we watch all the blueray HD DVD's on it we have a plazma LCD also but this Hitachi quality is much better and the screen is very large it is 60 inches.

Great Picture quality
Magic Focus
Splits Screens from 2 to four also gives you a chance to see up to 30 channels on tv at the same time

none

Great Television. I have a Family of 5 and we enjoy watching HD Blue Ray DVD on the Large screen this system has. Honestly the best product I have ever bought.

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Flat Panel HDTV but I prefer to watch my movies on this one for the quality presented

this Hitachi is a great buy and hard to find.

Everything This Television has it all and everyone is impressed when they see it it is 2008 and its still Fashionable after 2 years.

none

This is the best Television I have ever bought I have flat panel but the quality for this Hitachi is deffinitly the best ive ever seen for a television. This is simply Amazing quality

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HDTV Plasma

Deep shelf above screen can hold my large center channel speaker. Great picture quality. Lots of imputs.

Remote menue can be hard to navigate. Would like second dvi input.

This is not your dads big screen. It displays awesome immages with proper programming. Hd is incredible on this set as are good dvd's. I have a dvd player with a dvi output. The picture rivals hi def. I looked at some dlp/lcd sets but they didnt look any better and cost at least twice as much. Someone below mentioned that it doesnt look good with inferior cable displayed but my top of the line receiver sounds awful on am! I am very happy with my set and everyone who has seen it has said it looks almost too good to be true.

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sony, toshiba.

DVI / 2 Component Inputs / Great Internal Scaler / HDTV looks amazing / Quality Product

Red Bloom while playing low quality content.. There are no problems with good DVD or HDTV material though.

After much research on the web and in the home theater forums I decided on the Hitachi 51S500. Yes it was $500 more than a entry level or mass market Toshiba, RCA, etc etc. But MAN, provide a quality image to this TV and it looks amazing. Low quality content does not look "bad" but I do notice the noise... It's not the TVs fault it's the poor analog cable reception and NO large TV is immune to this fact. Picture quality is limited by the source it doesn't depend if you are watching a DVD, OTA, or cable. The better the source the better the picture. *RANT OFF On the S500 with Digital Cable and HDTV OMG watch out! It displays an absolutely beautiful picture. I have "calibrated" my S500 using Digital Video Essentials to make sure my color, brightness, and contrast were set "correctly"... I have also done a manual convergence and made a few changes via the service menu which are commonly recommended on web forums. I could not be happier with this TV... My only complaint... I should have got the 55" instead of the 51"... I played it to safe when purchasing for my room size and took the warnings about buying to much TV for your room to literally. I would recommend the S series Hitachis to anyone in search of a quality RPTV. To attest to the fact that the color and calibrations DO make a difference I had my friends over recently who have a 55" Mits... They said the picture quality was no comparison that the S500 was clearer and had better color than their Mits... We both live in the same town and use the same cable provider. I plan on taking my DVE DVD over to their house to help them get the picture set as accurate as posible with-out paying a "pro" to perform the service. Then we can compare again. Bottom Line - This is a great TV, not the cheapest, but definitely a quality product.

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none

Simply amazing Picture Quality Incredible Value Loaded with features Hitachi-quality construction Built to last Low incidence of repairs or service needed

Would like more HD compatible inputs, it only has two component and one DVI. Also, would like a digital audio output.

Best RPTV in its Class

1. As fine a value for a high definition TV as can be found 2. Excellent picture quality with better blacks (properly calibrated) than plasma, LCD, or DLP sets 3. Good array of video and audio controls 4. Easy convergence method (but don't count on the auto convergence mode to get it right; you'll have to finish up manually). 5. The Imaging Science tech commented on the set's design quality and its virtual absence of reported problems. Consumer's Report gives it one of the better frequency-of-repair records. 6. Excellent NTSC tuner - local broadcasts on cable are much cleaner than either my old Sony, the cable company's box, or through a top grade Panasonic VCR. 7. You can select either 540p or 1080i display, but don't expect a noticable difference on non-high def sources. 7. Remote handles well by feel (except as noted in "Weaknesses"), which is my acid test for a remote. 8. No need to buy a progressive scan DVD; the set does the 3:2 conversion quite well. 9. The giant carton it comes in makes a great playhouse for grandkids. 10. It has all the inherent strengths of a rear projection CRT set.

1. The set converts all video to either 540p or 1080i (user selected) and does not directly display 740p, which is ABC's high def standard. 2. That dumb little control stick on the remote is prone to causing errors. 3. Only some of the remote buttons are backlit. 4. Supposedly universal, the remote fails to operate my Chaparral C-band satellite, Sony CD player, and Lexicon MC-1 processor. 5. The set's connectors are not gold plated: disappointing and inexcusable. 6. The screen is very reflective, although I don't notice any problem when it's turned on. 7. Why only one DVI input? 8. "Magic Focus" is a really dumb name for convergence. 9. It has all the inherent weakness of a rear projection CRT set.

(Comments are for DVD, DirecTV, C-Band, and standard broadcast via cable. I have no high def source yet.) 1. Very good picture out of the box and excellent after calibration by an Imaging Science professional ($125 well spent - check the IS website). 2. HUGE improvement over my 11-year-old 53" Sony XBR which cost twice as much back then. 3. I have seen slightly better overall picture quality on $15,000 - $25,000 plasma displays, but even at those obscene prices they were not as good reproducing black as the Hitachi. 4. Sears did a good job of getting the set to me in the time promised.

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Awe inspiring HD, near HD with Dish Network.2

Viewing angle more restricted than plasma

When viewed side by side with Sony and Mitsubishi the superior picture quality of the Hitachi is clear.

Awesome remote for navigating menus. Direct access pushbuttons for inputs (no cycling). Magic Focus and easy manual convergence. Low price. Good color adjustment out of the box. Good picture stretch / zoom modes.

Extremely noisy picture on analog cable. Ghosting, white blooming, white wash, black crush on progressive scan DVD that could not be eliminated by adjustment of user controls.

I took delivery of this model as an upgrade from my five-year-old Toshiba 32" direct view. I have used the Video Essentials DVD many times in the past to properly adjust my old Toshiba with great results. With the Hitachi, however, I don't think the VE disc is very helpful. After use, it seemed like the VE reference video material looked really bad. However real DVD content like Star Wars Ep. II or The Bourne Identity look pretty good. Unless noted otherwise, all comments about picture quality refer to progressive scan DVD through component inputs. When I first got the TV, I immediately changed to Night mode and lowered the Contrast even further. Then I let it warm up several hours before I first used the Magic Focus auto convergence feature. Then I went in and cleaned it up in the corners and edges in the Manual mode. The center area was pretty good. The Manual mode is incredibly easy and intuitive - this is the first time I ever converged a TV and it was a snap! The picture took a leap forward after this step. I left the TV on all night with stretched 4:3 TV material to further warm up and break in. On Day 2, the picture looked pretty good but I am not fully satisfied. I have a few "problem" areas that I was not able to get rid of: 1) white blooming At the moment I have the Contrast at 0% and there is still some blooming of whites into blacks at transitions. I don't know if this is a characteristic of all RPTV's caused by reflection at the inside surface of the screen or if there is some other problem. I noticed that if I stand up to raise my viewpoint, the fresnel effect of the screen darkens the image and this blooming disappears. 2) "white wash" (not sure what else to call it) On program material it is a real problem if the screen is split 50% whites 50% blacks. There is an interior car shot in Bourne Identity where snow is outside the window to the left of Matt Damon. The white washes all the way across the screen to ruin the black detail in the girl's dark hair on the right. This also shows up on the VE Brightness test screen where the white from the contrast block on the right washes over into the black area on the left where you are supposed to set the black level. It seems to me like this is a result of internal stray light reflections coming back off very bright areas of the picture. 3) black crush (loss of detail in dark areas) With my old direct-view, I was used to a lot of visible detail in the blacks with the brightness set pretty low. At the present time I have the Brightness at 55% and there still seems to be some loss of detail in the blacks - they just look like a black hole. If I increase the Brightness to where the black detail starts to appear, it raises the level of what should be jet black too much - it becomes grayish. I played with "Black Enhancement" but it doesn't seem to have much effect at any setting so I left it Off. 4) sharpness I had this set at 35% according to the VE test pattern. I am used to this being completely off on my old set. In the above mentioned car scene from Bourne Identity, I could see a prominent ghost edge around Matt Damon's face, which appears clearly against the white snow. Reducing the Sharpness to 0% cuts it down a lot but not completely. Not sure where the ghost is coming from. I have the Edge Enhancement turned Off. You should sit about 8 feet minimum, preferably 10 feet from this set to get the best impression of the picture. I ended up not being satisfied with the picture and returned the unit to the store. I am now thinking of going with a high-end direct view HD CRT such as Sony 34" XBR series. I did not listen critically to the audio on this TV.

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None.