have been looking at plasmas am looking at a futitsu blk42hha30 and a pioneer pdp435 what do you think of these units and have heard that the futitsu and the hitachi come from the same factory if so is there a major difference in the pq ,as the hitachi is much cheaper then the futitsu? am a newbe and confused with all the choise out there,was planing to buy the pana viera but does not have dvi or hdmi any help would be appreciated :-0

I have auditioned the Pio , Fuji and Hitachi and would say the Fuji has a better PQ but i would go for the 40 series and can be picked up for around $5500 with good negotiation skills

The Fujitsu that you are looking at is now an old model. The new "40" series panels have much better PQ and are also cheaper, but they don't come in black.

The Pio and Hitachi are also good panels, but IMHO the Fuji PQ is slightly ahead, and when I bought mine about 6 weeks ago, the Fuji was also about $1000 cheaper.

foghorn i have been cocerned about the fussy picture that you get with some hd panels watching standard signals i watch a lot of foxtell and dvd not much fta,i don"t know if this is because of the way the panels are set up at the shop with cheap cables or because they don:t know what there doing when setting them up,how is your picture with a standard signal and do you have foxtel,i would be most gratefull for any info you can give me as the whole exercise of finding the right plasma is giving me the shits if you know what i mean:-(

Remember ozdiver when you go to look at these plasmas, stand about the same distance away that your viewing distance will be at home. So many people make the mistake of standing inches away and complaining about poor reception.

Unfortunately, I don't have foxtel, but I do watch a lot of FTA and DVD's.

Firstly, DVD's will generally look awesome on most plasmas.

You're right, there is a wide variation of transmission quality amongst the FTA networks. The legislation is as loose as a John Howard election promise, thus allowing the TV stations to get away with "junkcasting" if they feel like it.

Some panels handle poor transmission better than others, as do some STB's. Unfortunately, there's no easy decision or advice that I can give you as we all look for different things when evaluating picture or audio quality. However, I do believe that if you spend a little extra and invest in a HD panel now, you will reap the rewards in the next few years, as there is an increasing amount of HD programming becoming available, as well as the forthcoming HD DVD standards.

I find that my Fujitsu's PQ blows me away when there is good quality transmission, and it's pretty good on the poor quality stuff as well. I'm dissapointed when I watch the Rugby League matches, especially when the camera pans quickly, but this is not a fault of the panel, it is a result of low bitrate in the transmitted signal.

In summary, I'd say that although it was expensive, I have no regrets about my purchases. I have become a 16:9 snob and detest anything in 4:3, and it's this that makes me realise just how much of an improvement this plasma/digital technology is over the old CRT/analog.

Amen to that