Hey ya'll. I purchased this television in Sept. of last month. Attracted to the great price, around 1000 and change, and large size I picked it up.

For good picture quality at a reasonable price this TV is quite impressive. I have it hooked up to my PS3 via Monster HDMI cables and the picture quality is superb. The television suffers from no blurring, that I can discern, and the picture resolution is fantastic.

The television also performs well while watching HD sports.

Yet two things have cropped up that have begun to seriously annoy me.

The first is relatively minor. While watching TV I notice horizontal lines moving up the television. They are around 10 or so inches apart and they do it on a regular timming. Curiously, I don't think this problem occurs when I turn on my TV at the begining of the day. I am not sure of this, so I will def. go back and check it out to be sure.

The second problem is more troubling. Every once and awhile, the television starts to dim dramatically. I turn off the TV and and turn it back on and it reverts back to its original brightness. This problem does not always occur, yet when it does happen it is extremely annoying.

I read through many posts on this forum concerning this matter. Although only one other person has complained of the dimming issue, he hasn't seemed to have resolved it.

I just want to know if I should return my TV or if it is just a normal phenomenon I have to deal with.

Thank you very much in advance.

I have the 50 inch version of your TV. I have only had it for a week and haven't had any problems. I love the TV so far and like it a lot better than the 47 inch 1080p lcd Westy that I exchanged for it. Even with a lower resolution the Hitachi has a much better picture. The CNET reviewer had to be on some kind of hallucination drugs when he said the Westy has better picture. If you think something is wrong I would just exchange it for the same TV as I haven't heard of anyone else with this problem and I've read most everything on here. These TV's have excellent user reviews and if they had a lot of problems they wouldn't be as good.

I guess I should. The only thing is I have to rely on the manufacturer's warranty which scares me somewhat (Hitachi has not been getting great reviews thus far on customer service.

Anyone else have any ideas?

You can purchase an extended warranty directly from Hitachi before your 1 year expires. I think it was like $140 for a year or 2

I just emailed their customer service dept. Hopefully I will find out soon.

Not to be mean or anything, but you spent about $100 too much on an HDMI cable. For that price, you could have just upgraded to a much superior Panasonic plasma.

But anyways, to answer your problems, the horizontal lines on your screen sounds like a ground problem. Do you have your TV plugged into the wall, or a surge protector? Normally I don't recommend these, but in your case, it sounds like a solution to get a line conditioner. Don't buy a Monster one (waste of money) try find one for about 50 bucks if you can.

And about the TV dimming, I actually used to work in the electronics dept at a major dept store (not gonna say which) and we had a 42" Hitachi plasma in the corner that would flicker CONSTANTLY. It was really noticeable on a stationary screen, like the green rating screen before movies start. Needless to say, we didn't sell a whole lot of Hitachi's :)

Hopefully their customer service gets things straightened out with ya tho. good luck