Hitachi s500/s700 Owners Thread - Page 6

Now that you've noticed the whine, you'll never be happy, sorry.

ttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=341008

I wound up returning that TV cause the whine made me nuts.

What does the "factory reset" setting do in the service menu. Does it reset settings in the service menu or user settings in the TV settings Menu???

While watching a DVD tonight, I discovered that the screen on my 57S500 is concave. I was at the side of the set with an image that ran the full height of the screen (MS-Windows menu), and noticed that it curved inwards big-time. I grabbed a straight-edge and put it vertically against the bottom and top bezel. Distance to screen at bottom and top was 1cm. At the middle of the screen it was 2cm. same thing horizontally, about 1cm (4/10 of an inch, for my neighbours down south) concave from the edges to the centre. The bezel also bulges slightly outward at bottom-centre.

Am I being too anal - is this normal!?! Seems to me this kind of curvature would make focus, geometry, convergence, etc. a challenge at best.

I've had my set for about 5 weeks now. First week I had it, I discovered the geometry was way off (almost an inch on the left side, and a good bit on the right too) - this was finally fixed after 3 service calls last week (local tech had to order an overlay, etc.).

I also have the green issue on darks that Pillguy was looking for some meds for. I raised this with the tech who did the geometry, and, since he had the front panel off, he spun the pots around a bit (eyeballed it), to fix greyscale!!!

Things still are not good, but I'm not ready to play beyond user controls as I think the set needs more work, and don't want to do anything that would compromise the warranty.

Any thoughts/guidance from fellow Ho's would be appreciated.

TIA,
r.

rman,

Personally, I think your tech was clueless, like most. My guess it that he never got geometry correct in the first place, even with the template. Of course, you are still very early on the sets DCU life and it drifts a lot in the first two months. The hitachi DCU is horrible for the most part and will not stablize fully for many months. You should have asked to keep the template. As far as the green, I hope that one day techs will quit playing with the pots. They don't realize there are equivalent adjustments in the service menu (CUTS). And they have no idea what drives are.

Bill

Thanks Bill - all the more reason for my dilemna - the tech was from the local Hitachi authorized service company.

Grayscale aside, I can fix most of the "configuration" issues myself if push comes to shove. My beef is that I dropped $4K Canadian on this set after three months of research, and would have expected a higher level of service from Hitachi Canada.

Still wondering about the physical concave issue of the screen though (not just geometry). Since the bezel is warped, I put the straight-edge (padded) against the screen itself, and it bows inward 5/8" at centre (from corner to corner, i.e. lower left to upper right and vice-versa).

r.

I couldn't stand it anymore, I purchased a Hitachi Ultravision rear projection 51S700 integrated (with HDTV receiver) tuner. It's supposed to be delivered Sunday the 18th and they were supposed to call with a time on Saturday evening. They didn't call and now I'm rather irritated.I should be able to get most of the local HDTV stations because I'm in line of sight to the Sutro Tower in San Francisco. I got it for a good price and I can say that the sals people at Circuit City are morons. The salesmen(2) and video department manager all told me that they didn't have any HDTV sets with integrated tuner, couldn't get one, only could sell what was listed in their computer and the one I wanted wasn't in it. I called another store a bit further away and was told there were 30 of the sets that I wanted in their delivery warehouse for a cheaper price than they were offering it online for. I called the store manager back at the store I originally went to and told him(nicely) how effective and helpful his entire sales staff had been. He then proceeded to do some wonderful pricing cutting procedures to give me a show of good faith. He further reduced the set by a few hundred dollars so he could in effect give me a custom extended warranty at half pric. He also threw in a portable dvd player,soooooo, if they actually deliver it on Sunday I will be pleased. Does anyone think they will come through? I ordered it,(paid for it in the store Friday night just to make sure) and was told they would call on saturday evening and they didn't

Anyone have the 65" with a 12'ish viewing distance ? Looking at upgrading from a 55" to the 65" but not wanting to push the furniture back since it would get into my work space.

This is not normal...exchange for another set.

Does the 51S700 handle DCDI on board. I am thinking of getting a prog scan DVD player and would just like an inexpensive stop gap player until the newer units come out.

So my thinking is buy a less expensive DVD player and let the television handle the processing. Is this do able with this television?

Yes, the 51S700 will do the deinterlacing so you don't have to have a progressive scan player. Actually, you probably wouldn't see any improvement unless you got a progressive scan player over $300. Most of the cheap progressive scan players will look worse in progressive mode. The deinterlacing in the Hitachi is pretty good.

OK so I have a disc player now that is Non Progressive scan. What do I need to setup to get the television to handle the deinterlacing. Is there a setup in the disc player or on the television itself?

My local tweeter has a panasonic rp91 for less than $200 without remote. But I may wait for the rp97 later this year.

I have an SWX20B (last year's model) and all you need to do is choose the "Movies" mode for that input. Look in the Video menu for a settiing called "Picture Mode".

On the s/t/x models go to the 2nd page of the Video settings (scroll down) and turn auto movie mode ON (it's off by default). That turns on 3:2 pulldown correction and makes a huge difference. Also turn off edge enhancement, auto color and black enhancement.

My 51S500 turned off and on again by itself while watching some football the other day.

Marc Alexander told me to set the video 2 input remote control to off and I did that, but it still turned on and off by itself in the span of say 1.5 seconds. Second time this has happened in the two months I've owned the TV.

Marc or anyone else, have any clue what's going on?

I'm not sure how I missed this before, but my 65S700 has a small area that looks like it has dirty water spots in the bottom right corner of the screen. I tried cleaning them, but they're either on the inside of the protective screen or on the projection screen itself. Anybody seen anything else like this? It's fairly obvious when there's a light color projected behind them.

Why is my auto movie mode menu grayed out and off all the time? I use input 1 for a prog DVD, and Antenna C.

I believe you need a 480i signal active on the video input in order to set auto movie mode. Turn on your DVD player and switch to its video input and the menu option should become enabled.

-- Jay

From the user manual:

1. When using Progressive Scan Component or DVI-HDTV input (Ex. 480p, 720p, 1080i), Auto Movie Mode will not be
available (grayed out).
2. When in ANT C, Auto Movie Mode will not be available (grayed out).

Take this as an anecdote, not an analysis: My old TV (12 yr old, 52" RCA) did this several times until it went off one day and wouldn't come back on. That's why I bought the 57s700 recently.

LB

OK I have made these changes and I watched a few scenes from the Matrix. What I really notice are lines of resolution. An example is when Neo is talking to Smith in the park you can see jagged edges on their glasses not smooth curves. I guess the Pioneer 333 wont be long for my system.

I will have to hold off a little while to see what new players come out or catch something decent at an awesome price.

Must be a virus (I read it on the Internet, it must be true!!!). Ex-wife's perspectives aside -and seriously though:

I read your post when I got back from the George Carlin show here an hour ago, and, lo and behold, at 10:40est, while watching CSI on CBS-Detroit-HD, my 57S500 took a catnap for about a second, then came back to life. There was an audible click both on departure and return when she (it?) shut off and came back on again.

First time this has happened in the 5+ weeks I've had the set!

I doubt it's George or the x's doing, so I have a tech coming in (from a different local Hitachi approved service co.), to address some other issues - will put the q. to him and post whatever I find out.

r.

That's pretty weird, man. Definitely keep us in the loop as to what's going on. I wonder if Marc Alexander has anything more to say about this...

I just replaced by 51S700 with a 51S500 because the fan on the 51S700 was driving me a crazy. When I was calibrating the new 51S500 with DVE, my TV also made a lound pop noise and turned off and back on. I had a very bright reference image up and I thought that the TV might have some kind of protection circuit to prevent burn in. It hasn't happened again, but I've only had the TV for a few days. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has had this problem and what people think may be causing it.

Wow, what a thread!

I'm currently shopping for a CRT RPTV, at either 57 or 65 inches in screen size. I've seen both the 57 and 65 S500 on two seperate occasions at two different stores.

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, but what concerns me is that I found the HDTV picture soft and artifact ridden (lots of stairstep artifacts in 1080i source material). The HD picture was not nearly as well-resolved as it was on the Sony and Panasonic sets that straddled it. Fine details just didn't seem to be there.

I'm not bringing this up to incite owners, and I am more than well aware that sets on the showroom floor are not going to look their best. But having said that, it seems implausible to me that this is just random chance that two sets of the same model in two different stores would consistently look inferior where resolution and fine detail are concerned when compared to other sets with factory setups that aren't optimized either. I did a manual convergence both times just to tighten the picture a bit, and adjusted contrast down because every set on the floor was running beyond the point of blooming.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this or not, but the reason I am asking is that I am interested in one of these sets, mainly because either will be easier to get into the room where it will go because the cabinet seperates. But what I am seeing is of great concern to me.

This set is going into the family room as a regular watcher, but I do want the best HDTV picture I can get at the price point these sets are selling for.

I would appreciate comments and analysis from anyone experienced with these Hitachi sets and how their HDTV picture compares to competing models. Techs and calibrators jump in if you please.

Thanks.

--Jerome

jsaliga, go to the store again and adjust the sharpness and "Edge Enhancement" (aka SVM) on the Hitachi. It's possible that EE is off on the Hitachi, and overly aggressive on the other two, which is not good but makes a picture look sharper. Both adjustments are in the main user menu under "video".

Hi Jason,

The sharpness is less of a concern for me (I turned off SVM) than the poorly resolved image.

I probably should have said that I adjusted all of these sets (the Panny, the Sony, and the Hitachi). All three were hot and needed to be toned down. I turned down the sharpness, did a manual convergence, and otherwise cleaned things up as best I could.

I'm just having a hard time reconciling the notable difference in image detail. It was a pretty considerable difference.

--Jerome

Is the fan noise limited to just the s700 series? or does the s500 exhibit this as well?

If input 2 auto link is disabled, I only have two other theories.

1. Something is wrong with the TV

2. The blinks could be power related. RPTVs are very high current devices. The other day, Tbass2k's S500 lost picture for a second and came back. I know the TV didn't shut off because the power light stayed on. I don't thnk there is anything really wrong with his TV...just that it went into some sort of protection mode for a second. He doesn't use any type of power conditioning.

I used to have some strange things happen to my 43FWX20b based on my AC power. I moved my Tripplite conditioner/voltage regulator from my Mits to my Hitachi and the problems went away. The quality of my AC power gets pretty poor from time to time.

http://www.tripplite.com/products/pr...?productID=208
DO NOT CONNECT ANY AUDIO COMPONENTS TO ONE OF THESE!!!

Do you have any power conditioning on the TV? Something with a voltmeter would be nice so you can see what is going on with your AC power.

Marc,

I'm not sure if it's a defective unit per se since it sounds like I'm not alone with the ghost on/off action.

Maybe I did it wrong, but I simply set the remote control to off in the input menu like you had prescribed. Maybe I did that wrong?

I'm connected through a regular surge protector.