Plasma 42 inch ....

Based on all of the latest input, I am now adding the Hitachi 42" units to my consideration set. A little more money than the Panasonics but they seem very full-featured and are quite handsome. A few consumer reviews have even commented on excellent performance with SD. Blacks not as good as Panasonic. Anybody have opinions on Hitachi?

I have the th-42px50u for 6 months now and it is the best i have seen...My friend got the Samsung hp-r4252 because the panny was out of stock and it was just awful with HD and DVDS...I spent 5 days working on it and finally told him to exchange it...which he did for the same panny I have when it came available..it took me 5 minutes to set up with the same calibrations from my set and he was blown away by the detail and color ....it doesn't not have all the bells and whistles like some sets..but what it does have is the best picture quality of any plasma set I have ever seen and that's what counts ...even pioneer is trying to match panny's standards in video with their latest sets which they actually used a panny set as the benchmark...for about 2500 bucks this is the best you can get at any price

The Panasonic units have been going gangbusters in the marketplace, and before I left retail earlier this year, I sold my share of them.

I work with Hitachi units for custom install both because of the quality of the Alis panels, but also because of the all-discrete hex codes, which not all brands have. Not a big deal to the casual buyer, but if you are programming a sophisticated control interface, then suddenly it really matters.

FWIW, my employer and I spec more 55" sets than 42" ones. What that says about the market, I don't know... :)

I like the Fujitsus a lot, but I don't like the silver cabinetry.

Nice thread. Can anybody suggest which of the above is more future-proof with regards to Blue-Ray, etc.?

Thought I'd add a couple of things based on the recent posts-- I was in a high end store two days agao looking at Fujitsus, Hitachis ( Plasmas) as well as the new Sony SXRD ( LCos) displays. I do think that adding Hitachi to the consideration is a good call. They ARE very full featured. The Fujitsu still has the edge in pure PQ, but they are only monitors without all of the features of the Hitachi. I still maintain that in the end, the Plasma world is gonna boil down to Hitachi and Panasonic and thats it.

AS far as which technology is compatible is HD-DVDs/Blu-Ray-- well that gets interesting. In the December issue of The Perfect Vision- their is an article about advertised 1080P displays that cant really display 1080P. It seems you are safe with Panasonic and Hitachi Plasmas . However, my guess is that the actual HDMI plug, meaning the physical plug itself--is actually gonna change. Too many problems with the current one.. What to do? Heck I Dunno. I am gonna wait until the dust settles etc.. but I already have a nice home theater.