The Short Form

Price $2,400 / hitachi.us/tv / 800-448-2244

Snapshot

Solid features and a better-than-average picture make Hitachi's 50-inch plasma a deal worth looking into.

Plus

•Rich, natural colors •Good shadow detail •Useful picture customization modes •Good value

Minus

•Blacks lack depth in dark images •Occasional picture noise

Key Features

•1,280 x 1,080-pixel screen •Built-in HDTV tuner •Swiveling stand •Front convenience input with HDMI and SD card slot •Inputs: 3 HDMI (1 front), 2 component-/composite-video, 2 composite-video, S-video; RF antenna/cable; 4 analog stereo audio; SD Card; RS-232C •48.8 x 34.8 x 16.6 in; 117 lb (w/stand)

Test Bench

With the Hitachi's Low color-temperature preset selected, its grayscale tracked within around ±600 K of the 6,500-K standard from 30 to 100 IRE. Adjustments made to the set's service menu helped level grayscale tracking out to a more average ±300-K range. The red and blue color points were slightly oversaturated compared with the SMPTE HD spec, while green showed a more pronounced oversaturation. Color-decoder tests revealed a very mild +2.5% green error on the HDMI inputs. Overscan measured 0% in 16:9 Standard 2 mode when showing high-definition signals. The set displayed 720p test patterns with full resolution via both the HDMI and component-video connections, but 1080i patterns looked comparatively soft - no surprise, given its 1,280 x 1,080-pixel native resolution. Full Lab Results

SETUP The first thing I noticed when tweaking the Hitachi was that its menu took several seconds to appear onscreen after I hit the remote's Menu button - slow! But once I started making adjustments, responsiveness ramped up to normal speed. Hitachi gives you a wider than normal range of memory settings for customizing the P50T501's picture. Instead of loading up the TV with useless presets with names like Sports and Movie, you get Day and Night modes that can be independently adjusted for each input. A dedicated button conveniently located on the remote also lets you toggle between the settings.

Of the Hitachi's three color-temperature modes, Standard delivered the most natural-looking colors. Unlike some other TVs, there aren't a whole lot of fancy features here for tweaking the picture. A Black Enhancement setting helps bring out the apparent depth of images by darkening the low end of the gamma curve, but it also crushes some shadow detail in the process. And the Contrast Mode setting delivered the opposite effect by punching up the image highlights when its Dynamic option was selected. Dynamic also tended to make highlights look somewhat burned-out, so I preferred to leave that setting in the Standard position.

PICTURE QUALITY The Hitachi's strongest point was its color reproduction, and nothing that I watched demonstrated this better than the Blu-ray Disc of Pedro Almodóvar's Volver - a movie that relies heavily on color for symbolic effect. In a scene that takes place in the home of a nurturing woman named Agustina, for example, the set clearly displayed a range of green hues, from her sweater and a balustrade in the background to her collection of large, potted cannabis plants. In some different programs - high-def soccer and baseball games, in particular - greens looked a bit oversaturated. But other bright colors, such as the omnipresent reds scattered throughout Volver, came across as balanced. Skin tones also looked uniformly natural and nuanced in all of the movies and TV programs I watched.