Hitachi's 65F59 is the best 65" HDTV for the money
Written: Mar 13 '07 (Updated Mar 13 '07)
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Pros: Best picture...awesome price.
Cons: No built-in tuner...if that matters.
The Bottom Line: If you want a large HDTV, don't want to pay an arm and a leg, and aren't concerned with the bulkiness, this is for you.
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| peterskm's Full Review: Hitachi 65F59 65 in. HDTV CRT TV |
I've been holding off on buying an HD TV for years. Recently, with the ubiquity of high definition content, I decided the time was right. After exhaustive searches, I settled on the 65F59 from Hitachi and bought it in October of 2006.
There are several reasons I chose this TV. The first is that it is a widely accepted fact that CRT TVs give the truest pictures. If you want to go big in the CRT world, you need to get a projector or rear projection TV. I read countless articles in Consumer Reports on HD TVs and the rear projection CRTs always scored very high. The only downside they ever talked about was size and weight of rear projection CRT models. When I finally was ready to buy, most manufacturers discontinued selling rear projection CRTs as the general public loves the aura of thin TVs you can hang on a wall. Me? I wanted the best TV I could get for the cheapest price. The 65F59 fits the bill for both of those requirements.
When the TV was delivered, the delivery person ran the "Magic Scan" feature which quickly aligns the "guns" in the TV. There are color projection tubes commonly referred to as "guns" in the TV which create the picture you watch...a red one, a green one, and a blue one. To produce the picture these guns must be precisely aligned. When you first get the TV, you need to make sure they are aligned. Over time, the guns can drift out of alignment and need to be realigned. Old rear projection TVs needed to be done manually. The 65F59 has a built in feature to do automatically do this for you (called "Magic Focus"). In addition, sometimes you might need to fine grain the alignment a little more than Magic Focus. There is also a utility in the menu that allows you to do this with 9 or 117 reference points to get the best possible picture. Once this alignment is done to your approval, you're all set.
One downside to this TV for some people is that it does not include an HDTV tuner to decode over-the-air HD signals. To me, this wasn't important as I was going to be using my cable provider's box. There also is not provision for a cable card, so you need a box from your provider to be able to view HD. When I first received the TV, I did not have HD from my cable company. I watched the TV for a while and was not really impressed with the picture quality. The TV has the ability to "upconvert" standard cable signals (480i) to HD (1080i), but something wasn't right. After speaking with a friend he told me to ditch my composite video cable in favor of a component video cable (this is the cable with red, green, and blue connectors). After swapping cable, the picture was world better. My wife noticed it immediately. There is also a connection for an HDMI cable, but my receiver doesn't support this, so I'll stick with the component cable for now.
Finally, I caved and got HD content for the TV. I must say the picture is really stunning in HD. This was worth the price. With HD content, it feels like you are watching a game from the bleachers.
Some other features are:
- 3 HD Aspect Modes
- 6 SD Aspect Modes
- 1080i/720p/480p/480i Input Compatible
- Split Screen/Picture in Picture
- Day and Night Memory by Input with Timer
Inputs/Outputs:
- HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface 4: 1
- Wideband Component Video Inputs: 2
- S-Video Inputs (Rear/Front): 2/1
- AV Inputs (Rear/Front): 4/1
- Antenna Inputs: 1
- Centre Channel Input: L/Mono
- Fixed/Variable Audio Output: 1
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1100
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Epinions.com ID:
peterskm
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Location: Schwenksville, PA
Reviews written: 90
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