Digital Trends

Hitachi 57S700

August 30th, 2004 | by Dennis Barker

Evaluation

The best way to evaluate a High Definition TV is to watch HD programming, and the Hitachi 57S700 allows for easy toggling between NTSC and ATSC signals handling all HD signals quite well from broadcast to satellite and beyond.  Displayed images were clean, smooth, and quite natural looking.  Consistently, colors were very vibrant and like-like from all signal sources (off-air, cable, satellite, and progressive scan DVD player).  I've said it before, but it's worth noting again that watching HDTV is like looking out of a window at action unfolding right on the other side of the glass.  In other words, the bottom line — the HD signals viewed from the 57S700 were very realistic and life-life. 

Clearly, the 57S700 produced high definition images from one of my Satellite HD set-top boxes (the LG LSS-3200A) viewing DirecTV's HDNet, DiscoveryHD Theater, HBO-HD, and Showtime-HD (Ch.543).  Colors were vibrant, life-like and quite natural also.  Watching original programming like Jeremiah (shot in HD), for example, on Showtime makes it very apparent that you are watching HD as the program source as it has a more film-like appearance in HD than SD.  While noise and digital artifacts are somewhat visible in SD even on satellite, it's non-existent in HD; and as you toggle back and forth, it really becomes apparent.  In HD, the images truly come to life, as they appear somewhat flat in SD.  Think of it as comparing images that are 2-Dimentional to those that are 3-Dimentional.  In HD, the images “pop” right off the screen.  Of course, both premium movie channels also broadcasts the audio portion of the program in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, which further enhances programming like Jeremiah making you become part of the world exploding at the opening of the episode each week.  On HBO-HD, The Sopranos looked absolutely stunning!  Maybe a bit too realistic for some tastes!

Of course, in the evaluation of any next-generation television, you need to attach a progressive scan DVD player to display the best possible visual images from a video source component.  For this evaluation, I used the Marantz DV-8400 (using DVI-D) with various types of program material from animation to action special effects-laden films.  The images reproduced on the 57S700 were quite spectacular as well especially with recent “blockbuster” movies like Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secret, Finding Nemo, Beauty & The Beast-Special Edition, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers  — Special Edition, Seabiscuit, and Pirates of the Caribbean-The Curse of the Black Pearl for example. The images were very, very film-like in their presentation looking almost as good as those films broadcast on either HBO-HD or Showtime-HD channels from DirecTV.  The bottom line was that the displayed DVD images were especially compelling and life-like. 

Like all good reviewers, I had to throw up a couple of Color Bars and Test Patterns.  I've become fond of the Aquaria disk (from Pioneer Digital World) recently that offers different views of aquariums plus offers Gray Scale, Color Bar charts and Test Patterns as a change of pace.  It more clearly showed me, and reinforced my “gut” feeling that all of the colors (as displayed on the Color Bar chart) were true with no bleeding from one color to another. Here again, with the 57S700 the charts were right on target — sort of speak -- without any jittery motion, artifacts, or herringbone effect that can sometimes be present in static images.   On the Color Bar chart, for example, the separation line between colors sometimes can be jagged on many interlaced sets, or ones with inferior comb filters.  This was not the case with the 57S700 thanks to its 4MB 3D-Y/C comb filter. 

Conclusion

Lastly, I have to say that the images were among the best that I have seen to date from a CRT-based integrated rear projection television.  So, if you want to experience true High Definition television and watch DVD movies featuring sharp and crisp color images, look no further than the Hitachi 57S700 (which will soon be replaced by their 57S715 — the only difference is that the S715 includes HDMI instead of DVI).  Hitachi's HDTV sets offer the consumer “state-of-the-art” technology with a terrific feature package in a very stylish and handsome cabinetry.  It's a set for today and tomorrow featuring an integrated HDTV tuner and QAM cable tuner.  By including both DVI and 1394, this set won't become obsolete for many years to come.