14 DAY TRIAL // Hitachi has announced the introduction of a new 50-inch 1080 HDTV plasma for under $2500, being the first manufacturer which sells a panel this big under the $2500 mark.
"2007 will mark Hitachi's fifty-first year of TV manufacturing. We already manufacture a wide variety of televisions but we decided to focus today on our brand new 50-inch HD 1080 product," says Bill Whalen, director of product development for Hitachi America.
Whalen also stated that Hitachi's plasma technology still holds some advantages over LCDs such as superior motion resolution, viewing angles, and higher color depth.
The sub-$2,500, 50-inch P50H401 uses a new engineering method of energizing pixels, motive for which Hitachi's panel carries the "HDTV Ready" logo. The new P50H401 uses a total of about 1.3 million pixels distributed on a 1280x1080 array. A quick calculus will tell you that the numbers are sufficient for a 720p signal, but if you use 1080 input, the horizontal lines will work in interpolation mode. That's not that good in case you use an LCD which has a fixed resolution but if you use plasma, it won't be a problem.
Aside from the 50" panel, a 42" (P42H401) and a 55" (P55H401) model will also come in the spring. All plasma units will come with Hitachi's fourth generation 1080p PictureMaster IV video processor capable of optimizing the dynamic histogram of the picture. 2007 MPEG noise reduction is also supported. Additionally, each of Hitachi's plasma will feature three 1080p HDMI inputs.
The P50H401 will come out in February for $2,499.99. The 42-inch P42H401 and the 55-inch P55H401 will ship later in April and July, respectively. Currently, their price is unknown.