Bought this tv last year, at the time great price but im getting pissed at the settings.
Sound is horrible, My friend has a Panasonic at volume 15 his is twice the sound my is with internal speakers.
Picture quality specially while playing PS2 or Xbox games quite poor.

How can i improve the sound feature and the quality of the pictures, for some reason i don't think the picture should be as grainy as it shows. Help please.:mad:

Sometimes i need to turn the volume to 25 to comfortably hear anything. That just doesn't seem right.

I just bought the 50 inch version of this TV. So far I think the picture is great, and much better than the 1080P Lcd that I exchanged to get the Hitachi. And better than my old Panny CRT rear projection. Side by side in the store it was next to a $2000 plus Samsung and they looked pretty much identical in picture. I have the sound hooked to my stereo so I think it sounds good. Do you think the picture looks worse than when you bought it or you never thought it was that great? There isn't a lot of discussion of these TV's on here but there is a thread on here that has some calibrated settings posted if you search for it.


Do you have a 360 or regular xbox? I ask because I can't get my 360 to work for some reason through the component input.

what and how do you have it hooked up? Also what are your pic settings?

I got the 360 to work no problem... as for pic settings here is what i got.

picture mode - day (normal)
contrast - 54
brightness - 50
color - 50
Tint - 50
sharpness - 50
color temp - high
black enhancement - off
contrast mode - normal
noise reduction - low
mpeg-nr- off
auto movie - off
black side panel off

these are the video settings now for the audio.

treble - 70
bass 56
balance - 50
surround - off
bass boost - on
audio source - stereo
internal speakers - on
auto noise cancel - off
perfect volume - low
loudness - on

and thats the for the settings.

what and how do you have it hooked up? Also what are your pic settings?
I have digital cable hooked up to it and PS2/Xbox360/Wii also hooked up on it.

Ok as for the pic settings...color should be a little lower, sharpness should be almost all the way down, noise red off, auto movie on. This will help oversaturation and jaggyness. Noise reduction actually will blur the picture slightly. Thats not natural. As far as sound... bass & treb should be middle, bass boost should be off,loudness off. This will take out the gain in the sound and it will be more clear. The speakers are limited so they will never sound like good bookshelves. On the ps3 I highly recommend the component cables. Looks way better than composite. For dig cable I recommend hdmi over component. Its sharper and better color.

Thanks for the tips BW I will try those on mine too. I haven't had time to really mess with anything yet other than turning down the contrast to 45. Even without adjusting the rest I think it looks great.

Thanks i don't have a PS3 but its Ps2 and i am using composite cables.

I tried the settings and lowering the sharpness all the way made the tv worst!
it made it hazy. :(

Well if you are used to it very high, it will look blurry if you sit there and watch it. What you need to do is walk away for a few minutes to allow your eyes to adjust. On some displays you can actually go down too far. Try it at 15 or 20. Also set your cable box to output only 1080i if you havent already. My mom has an older version of this set and it looks awsome.

This is kind of long but I was looking for settings for mine so I pulled these off of the thread discussing settings on the Hitachi's. There are a lot of people using higher contrast settings 80%+ which seems weird but they said it was a professional calibrater that told them to do high on this set. I'm going to try 75% or so once mine is broken in but I don't feel the need to do 100 as I think it looks good at 50%.

Day
Contrast - 80%
Brightness - 54%
Color - 50%
Tint - 3 clicks to the right (after service menu adjustments)
Sharpness - 9%
Color Temperature - Medium (this was the ONLY way to get my HUE test in Avia II to be PERFECT, I don't know why it affected my Tint, but it does)
Black Enhancement - Off
Contrast Mode - Normal
Noise Reduction - Off
MPEG NR - Off
Auto Movie Mode - On
Black Side Panel - Off

Service Menu Adjustments -

Under White Balance STD, I have...

Red: ff (factory)
Green: a3
Blue: 7b

After making my adjustments, my tint needed to move to the right. I used the tinted blue glasses I ordered from THX. In the Avia II disk, there is a Saturation and HUE color test with blinking squares and the bars behind them should "become as one". The squares should disappear completely, and you should see no blinking under and "ideal" adjustment. Mine however, could never get to that point. When I made the Service Menu changes under White Balance, and set my Color Mode to Medium, my Tint (HUE) squares disappeared and stopped blinking, but my Saturation (COLOR) squares are still failry visible and the blues don't match. Before making the Service Menu Adjustments, none of my blues were perfectly matched, so I would say that this is an improvement. I just wish I could get both SAT and HUE to match perfectly! I'll settle for what I have though
My settings:
Contrast: 100
Brightness: 38
Color: 38
Color temp: high
sharpness: 50
lamp- medium
everything else the same as yours except: service menu changes- changed white std back to ff, bc, 78

Its funny, on my set with the sharpness turned way down- the image looks very soft and out of focus...? Your settings did seem to offer more contrast and an overall brighter image though.

Contrast setting - 45
Brightness - 51
Color - 45
Sharpness - 50
Color Temp - Medium
Black Enhancement - Low
Contrast Mode - Normal
Noise Reduction - Off
MPEG NR - Off
Auto Movie Mode - On
Black Side Panel - Off


HDMI
Night
Contrast 45
Brightness 54
Color 41
Tint 5 clicks to the left
Sharpness 9%
Color Temp Standard
Black Enhancement Low
Contrast Mode Normal
Noise Reduction Low
Mpeg NR Off
Auto Movie Mode On
Picture Mode: Day
Contrast: 100 (20 for Night)
Brightness: 56
Color: 50
Tint: Center
Sharpness: 0
Color Temp: Standard
Black Enhancement: Off
Contrast Mode: Normal
Noise Reduction: Off
MPEG-NR: Off
Auto Movie Mode: On
Black Side: On

For the grayscale the settings are (under the standard profile):

Red: ff (factory)
Green: a3
Blue: 7b

Contrast 61
Brightness 53
Color 41
Tint Three clicks red
Sharpness 72
Color Temp Medium
Black Enhancement Low
Contrast Mode Normal
Noise Reduction Off
MPEG-NR Off
Auto Movie Mode On


My settings are: Night Mode, Cont: 48, Bright: 48, Colour: 50%, Sharpness: 30% and all picture enhancing options set to off.

picture-day(normal)
contrast-62
brightness-53
color-61
tint-middle
sharpness-25-could go lower
BE-off
contrast mode normal
NR-off
MPEG-NR-off
Contrast- 100
Brightness- 38
Color- 38
Tint- leave as is
Color temp- high
movie mode- on
everything else off
Dynamic contrast- normal

I will be receiving my Hitachi P55T551 tomorrow {tuesday}
I felt for a 55 inch at Vanns for a very good price of $1699
Free Delivey No tax......What more can I say????
I was on another website and the people were complaining
about the way Hitachi has their lines of resolution.......
To me I am sure you will not find a 55 inch major band under the $2000 mark for some time....I knew if I didnot buy it,I am sure I would be waiting along time for another great buy.....JohnnyT

yep, that is a good buy. The people who complain about their resolution are the people that dont understand it. They are designed to compete with 720p sets, but are just a tad better.

I just got my 55 inch Plasma......
Geeeeeeeeeee
The unit is very big,,,I am glad I didnot get the 58 panasonic from costco.
The panasonic from Costco would have cost me another $450 with taxes but it does come with free delivery...
I am glad I got a great deal as yeaaaa can see...
The color in HD is great,,,I am glad I threw out my old HD toshiba
rear projection tv that I bought in 2002.......
These things take up no room and it makes yeaaaaa feel like you have a larger room.
Welllllll
I have it on my 10 foot satellite dish and the picture looks good so far since
I am not useing the dish....
But I do get about 400 stations in HD from Dish and Bev and all look very good so far....
But I am watching the elections on CNBC and Fox now on SD......
On SD the picture is really good,,,better then my rear projection.....
For anyone that wants a great deal,,,,,go to Vanns while they still have them in stock...........JT