Hitachi P50-XR01 Review

50in Plasma

Picture
Features
Usability
Value

A well specified, competent large screen plasma that doesn't quite cut it with picture performance.

HD Ready:

yes

Resolution:

1920 x 1080

Rating:

85%

Reviewed: January 27 2007

Design

The Hitachi P50-XR01 looks a little dated in the shiny ebony black minimalist world of large Plasma screens. This screen does have a trick up its sleeve that will leave owners of other Plasma's a little envious. Oh yes, serious one-upmanship is available with a remote swiveling stand.

Features

The Hitachi P50-XR01 is notable in that it is the only 50in Plasma to offer a built-in PVR (personal video recorder) complete with a 250GB hard-drive which has the capacity to record 100+ hours of standard definition TV. The two digital tuners allow you to watch one Freeview channel while recording another.

Screen: 50in 16:9

Tuner: Digital

Sound System: Nicam

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Contrast Ratio: 10,000:1

Other Features: Picture Master HD, 250GB HDD, Movie FRC, MPEG Noise Reduction, SD Card, USB JPEG playback, Motorized remote stand.

Sockets: 3 HDMI, 2 SCART, Component Video, Composite Video, S-Video, PC input.

Although the Hitachi's PVR has most of the features you would expect, with a 7-day electronic programming guide and the ability to pause live TV, it is not 'Freeview Certified' What this means is that it comes without featues such 'series link' (allowing you to record all episodes of a particular series) and accurate start times (which compensates for late start of programmes.

With 3 HDMI inputs (v1.3), D-sub PC port, digital audio output along with the usual Composite, Component and S-video outputs connectivity is excellent.

The picture processing core of the P50-XR01 is Hitachi's Picture Master HD Processing which uses Hitachi's 16-bit 'colour recognition' system. The technology has been designed to reduce video 'noise', improve colour saturations/tone and create a clearer sharper image through enhanced edge definition.

An interesting feature of the P50-XR01 is something Hitachi call 'Movie FRC (Frame Rate Conversion). By adding extra frames to film footage, but calculating what those frames should contain (rather than simply adding extra frames), Hitachi aim to eliminate 'motion judder' during horizontal pans. Note: films are shot 24fps (frames per second) but the standard (for TV) of 25fps requires an extra frame to be added to film footage every second.

Finally, the P50-XR01 is equipped with a Full HD (1920 x 1080) pixel resolution. Full HD screens can except a 1080 line source such as Sky (1080i) and display it without scaling (i.e. to fit a 1366 x 768), with the potential for greater picture quality.

Performance

What the P50XR01 does supremely well is to take either a High Definition (HD) or Standard Definition (SD) source and eliminate virtually all traces of video noise. We expect great HD pictures these days, but to see such noiseless SD pictures on a 50in screen is something of a revelation. Picture Master HD picture processing also produces some of the sharpest HD pictures we have seen, with a subtlety of detail that few large screens can match.

With such a competent image processing engine at work, it comes as a big disappointment that the black levels let the screen down somewhat. There is just no getting away from the fact that a slight greyness permeates darker scenes.

Getting back to the positive, 'Movie FRC' seems to be doing what it designed for, producing a fluidity of motion when panning that places it amongst the best large panels in this respect.

Recording programmes onto the P50XR01's hard disk through the EPG is simple and intuitive. With the PVR set to record at the highest quality, playback is virtually indistinguishable from the original.

Conclusion

The Hitachi P50XR01 is a frustrating mixed bag of the brilliant and the mediocre. The excellence of Picture Master HD processing is let down by the screen's black levels and ultimately the screen is compromised.