Nice TV for the money

The Hitachi 51f59 is a great HD ready television at a reasonable price. This is a rear projection tv that provides a vivid, clear bright picture that rivals plasma, LCD, DLP, and LCD projection screens which cost many times more. I picked this up for $699 when Best Buy was closing them out. They've had them at circuit city more recently, but as of now (4-25-07), neither of those stores have this model. They may get some more in stock, but I doubt it. That's all just speculation on my part, though.

The 51f59 has one HDMI input, and a couple of Component video inputs, as well as a couple of S-video ins. This tv is obviously thicker than it's modern flat-screen counterparts, but that shouldn't scare you off. The CRT-Projection televisions provide brilliantly dark and real blacks that plasma screens, and backlit LCD screens can't match. The thicker cabinet is even less of a problem when you consider that most people seem to place their flat panels on some sort of stand that winds up being thicker than a CRT-projection tv such as this one. It's less than 22" thick.

The Magic Focus feature works fairly well for automatically converging the CRT "guns." They still need a little tweaking, but not much at all. Another favorite feature is the day/night mode which allows you to set up 2 different picture settings on each input, allowing for the best picture quality in different lighting conditions. You can toggle between your day and night settings with the push of a single button. Also, the split-screen option on the PIP (Picture-in-Picture) is a welcome feature. The use of all the features on this tv are remarkably easy to use.

This tv does a good job with standard definition signals, which some HDTVs seem to have a hard time with, and offers two settings to display the SD signals on the native 1080i screen. You have a choice between 520p and 1080i.

The sounds not nearly as bad as some reviews on other sites had mentioned, although it's nothing to write home about.

On a side note, the big tv is on casters making it easy for one person to move it around for different seating locations, connecting new components, or cleaning.

Overall, I would highly recommend the Hitachi 51f59 to anyone looking to get in the HDTV game without spending a huge chunk of change. It provides a great quality picture that can put many much more expensive, albeit allegedly more high-tech options. A lot of good information can be found on Hitachi's website http://www.hitachi.us/tv/browse/projection/16-9digital/51F59.shtml