HDTV Reviews

The reason I bought this TV is that I was moving into my apartment and my 1989 TV was breaking down. I had to take it to six repair shops just to see the picture. I gave that away and I knew that I had to go pricy and get a Plasma TV. I like very big TV's and I knew 60" was the way to go. Sony was the best brand of the choice but their's were for $19,999.99 which is $10,000.00 more than this Zenith. But when I went to Target and got this TV I was suprised that it had good picture quality. Zenith is a horrible brand but this TV they did a good job on. I got BOSE Speakers with it to really pump up the sound too. This is a wonderful TV but if you want a terrifically wonderful TV you have to get the Sony!

I really wanted to be the first person to review this item, because face it, nobody actually owns this tv. This is that tv at sound advice that you see and drool over but nobody ever buys it.

I recently finished setting up my home theater in my basement. InFocus ScreenPlay X2 DLP Projector, Genelec sound system and the Da-Lite 92" HDTV fixed frame screen with their new high contrast fabric. I had been showing my images on the wall but the Da-Lite screen made the picture really pop! My family and I just love the way the pictures look so real. I'd highly recommend the high contrast fabric to everyone. Every projector should be sold with a screen. You cannot imagine what a huge difference it makes when watching your favorite movies.

This is a superb TV for HD and DVD viewing. The color and clarity when I watch ESPN(HD), INHD I and INHD II, plus a couple of the local HDTV channels are truly amazing. Additionally, the DVD widescreen playback on this TV provides wonderful contrast and color accuracy. The only annoying thing is the DTV button. It has to be manually pressed once to view the HD signal. Otherwise, the display is only 480 lines. In my humble opinion, this TV is better than the Philips and similar to Sony TV.

Its a much nicer looking set in my mind than the Samsung. It costs much less as well. The picture quality from the HI-def channels is Eye popping! Your tongue will hit the floor! The quality of DVD (especially if used in the DVI input) is breath taking! Its ease of use is a big plus as well. Especially impressive is the picture-in-picture (PIP) function.

The speaker base (referring to the base of TV from ground to where the screen starts) is a bit stubby so I had to buy a stand for it to bring it up to Eye level in my living room. But I can use the stand to house components that I use with it.

After a year of shopping, my wife & I decided to experience this puppy. Granted that all plasma t.v.s look great, this one on the show floor looked a tad better, so we sprang for the extra bucks after first getting a sale price, then a 10% discount ontop of an additional 10% discount. It was merely a horribly expensive unit instead of obscenely expensive that way.

At home, we had an installer scheduled to come out and mount it on the wall, but we couldn't wait and went ahead and did the installation on the pedastle, which is a two person job and takes about 3 hours, with the constant fear of dropping something on the screen. We didn't break anything, but I don't recommend self installation unless you have nerves of steel.

After haggling with the cable company, we added HDTV service and after about 5 days managed to review the unit in the following modes:

1. analog cable t.v.
The image quality is good, probably superior to regular NTSC quality. Key advantage is you can toggle the 5 or so image scale modes to make it fit just right. There is a progressive distortion mode that while stretching the image to fit the 16:9 from the NTSC standard, does it so well that there is no obvious distortion except for the rare case where you see what should be a circle in one of the corners. The image size is such that you really can't take in the whole screen at once so it's a rarely if ever noticed distortion and visually quite good considering the low quality of analog broadcast
2. digital cable t.v.
Probably not a great idea. You have two modes on the Hitachi and 3 modes on the cable box to scale the image, and they seem to fight eachother resulting in a less than stellar picture. I actually prefer analog for quality when all settings are done. I would suspect the same issues with Satellite, but I'm not ready to add that to my gadget list to be sure.
Special note for folks who have "movie on demand" fantasies. NONE of the "movies on demand" are HDTV format. Maybe next year. I'm disappointed, but with my cable company, not Hitachi.
3. digital 1080i cable t.v.
Granted, this device is not a 1080i display, it's 1,280 by 780, but however it down-converts the signal, it's an amazingly clear picture. The only concern you might have is looking at the imperfections on people's faces that are normally invisible. I mean, how many of you will find your attention distracted by looking at the details of the hairs growing from a mole on the interviewer's face. Sometimes, detail it too much of a good thing, but by all that's holy, it's remarkable detail and quality. My suspicion is that satellite folks will love this mode too. HOWEVER, there are very few HDTV channels right now, and I'd say, like all t.v. wasteland material, maybe 1 or 2 has something interesting.
4. svideo DVD
A high quality display that looks fine, but you'll discover that frame sizes vary depending upon DVD producer's whim and you may find yourself toggling among 6 different display modes trying to find one that won't burn-in and that looks good too. I don't have the HDTV composite version of a DVD player so I can't comment on that and I blew my toy budget for the next 3 years so it'll be a while before I know how wonderful that feature is.
5. RCA jack vhs video
This is the worst image quality mode, due to the source. however the analog variable image scaling works well, and the picture is better than when displayed on the baby 30 inch sony 3:4 that this replaced.
6. RGB output from a PC
Jury is out here. I've hooked 3 different PCs into this and know for sure that your milage will vary. Depending on which version of Windows you have, whose display driver you have, etc, etc, you will either get a stunning image of your desktop, or a stunning distorted image of your desktop. Be warned a 1280 X 780 display is obviously not the top display mode debugged by video card driver makers. It's not that you won't get it to work, but you may find that your actual display size is, well, funny. Hitachi has a nice "auto size" mode that at least gets the desktop to fill the screen, irrespective of what the video card driver wants to do. You can browse easily, clearly, and start shopping at once for a wireless keyboard and mouse. We did.
7. Universal remote vs. Universal remote
There were actually three settups done for us. The one my wife & I did, the one the official installer did, and the one the cable boy did. Each of us knows how a system should be wired, and how the universal remote should be programmed. At the end of the day, I had THREE universal remotes, sony, cable company, and hitachi. Each programmed by the mad mind of the perfect configurator. At the end of the day, the universal remote that works best is the Hitachi, which surprised me. The cable guy insisted that it would never work with the cable box. I discovered that it works better with the cable box than the universal remote that came with the cable box. That doesn't mean you will have ONE universal remote. Mixed vendors = mixed results. I can now get by with TWO universal remotes, provided I keep a third nearby. Driving 5 different vendor's devices with 2.5 remotes ain't bad.
8. Burn in
Hitachi says, never keep the side bars (normal HTDV display) on for more than 15% of the time, lest thou shalt melt the phosphor and destroy your display. I looked at the persistance image after turning the device off (in the dark), and my guess is that 15% is the maximum. I plan on keeping it down to as close to zero as possible. If you plan on using this with a PC, make sure your screen saver is really on, and really doing a dynamic or BLACK display unless you want to see START on the bottom of your display for eternity. (apologies to MAC users)

This TV is actually to large for my Family room, but the picture is so fantastic, I refuse to give it up. Sound and picture quality are great for a reasonable price. Picture AND Picture is great! Only complaint is you can not connect S-Video and optical audio for input. Optical or coaxial audio input must have Composite Video for a video input.

I decided to upgrade my old 25 in. Toshiba to the JVC AV32DF74 32. I paid $700.00 at Video Only in Dublin CA and only have had the unit a couple of days. The TV is well designed for easy connection hook up. I was surprised how well the images were. Even standard network TV images look much sharper, more clear and color is great. I am using my standard Toshiba DVD player, not progressive, and images are very sharp. I highly recommend this TV if you can get it for around $700.

We bought the TV several months ago and just love it. My husband loves to watch movies on it. Plus you have so many screen options such as split screen, multi-screen and even a preview selection that pops up approximately 20 mini-screens at once so that you may get a brief view on what's on the several channels.

The aspect ratios works great for everything we watch. Plus, the sound qualty is exceptional.

I definitely recommend this TV!

For the price, it can't be beat. I've been looking for quite sometime for a good HDTV that is affordable. I met almost all of my requirements with this TV. It has the usual good stuff as compared to the other TV's of similar size. I compared this set to the Panasonic 36HL43 and the Sony 34 XBR which were displayed next to each other. The Sony was out of my pricing category (way overpriced for what one gets in my opinion). The Panasonic seemed to match head - to - head in style and picture quality. I picked the JVC because it had more inputs (three rear inputs plus DVI) and was $$$$ cheaper. After having the TV for three weeks and almost returning it for a Plasma, I've decided to keep it, as its the best all around deal that I found. HDTV and progressive Scan DVD pictures are incredible (however, all models at this price better be). my only complaints are as follows:

1) PIP does not have side-by-side (though it does have dual-tuner)
2) The speaker system is adequate. However, in HDTV mode, the volume needs to be increased to the upper third setting. I am going to have to upgrade with a speaker system so this is not a big deal
3) The pre-set colors don't work well in non-HDTV. The TV comes pre-set with real heavy reds.
4) Not a lot in the way of reviews for this TV. I took a chance on this TV based on prior good experiences with JVC.
5) Regular Cable is a drag after watching HDTV. It's more of a fault with Cox, as even though their boxes have the capability for DVI hook up (same as the TV) Cox doesn't support it yet. I'm hoping regular TV picture clarity will greatly improve.

From the moment we unpacked this beuty from the box we have been in awe. Starting from the sleek, silver finish to the performance we have been more than satisfied. It has numerous inputs mostly on the back of the set but it has some on the front for easy access. As big as it is, it is also surprisingly easy to move around your living room and can be moved to the spot you want it with only 2 capaple adults. I dont think we have used an input device yet that fully utilizes the performance of this TV. I really love the different picture settings you can select, including the "Game" setting. Ive been in Video game heaven since buying this TV. Dont forget the Popcorn!