What the XWX has that the SWX doesn't is a built-in ATSC tuner, TosLink digital output for Dolby Digital sound, and two IEEE1394 (FireWire) jacks. It also has a built-in QAM digital-cable–ready tuner, but without the ability to decode encrypted cable signals, this won't be much use, since most services will be encrypted. Next-generation sets will most likely have a slot for a decryption card, but you'll need a set-top box to receive digital cable signals with the 65XWX20B.

The 65XWX20B was the first set I'd had with a built-in ATSC tuner. But with my RCA satellite receiver located next to my current Philips PTV (so I could run the RCA's multipin RGB output directly into the Philips RGB input), and all of my audio gear across the room, I had a problem. I'd run a long length of TosLink through the attic for the digital audio connection between the satellite receiver and audio system, but now I had two Dolby Digital sources: the TV and the satellite receiver. I moved the satellite receiver to the other side of the room and used an Audio Authority RGB-to-component converter to switch video sources through my audio receiver. That left the TosLink cable for use with the Hitachi's built-in ATSC tuner. Problem solved. (Audio Authority also makes a TosLink switcher for under $100 that would have solved the problem without my having to move anything, but I already owned the RGB-to-component converter.)

But what happens with the next-generation satellite receiver, which will have DVI connectivity? It's back to the other side of the room for it, because I'm not running a 30-foot DVI cable through the walls and across the attic. What I've learned from all of this is that you can never predict or cover all contingencies in advance. When you set up your home theater, be sure to leave room—particularly if you run a conduit through the walls—for more cables than you think you'll need.

Now that I was switching multiple video sources (DVD, satellite HDTV, D-VHS) through the receiver and into a single input on the TV, it was fortunate that Hitachi's operating system allows video settings to be saved for four different selectable picture modes: Sports, Movies, News, Music. During calibration, technician Kevin Miller found that different settings for a number of picture parameters were required to optimize the picture for DVD and HDTV. He saved the optimum settings for DVD playback in the Movies mode and for HDTV in Sports. Before I routed all video sources through the receiver, each format had its own input. Now, when I switched between DVD and HDTV, I had to go into the video menu and switch between modes. Fortunately, this is easy to do. Having separate storable settings for each input is useful in some circumstances, but not when video switching is handled externally.

Picture Near Perfection
Once calibrated, the Ultravision 65XWX20B's DVD performance was flat-out sensational. I was initially worried about daylight reflections from the nonremovable, antireflective protective shield, which clearly was somewhat reflective. Still, I found it to be as advertised: even during the day, with the window shades up (there were three windows directly across the room from the set), reflections were not a serious problem. Nor was brightness, though of course the picture looked best at night. The 65XWX20B's light output was extremely high, even horizontally off-axis. There was more serious beaming vertically, but the light uniformity was excellent at my normal seated viewing height, and the sense that the picture was being reflected from a mirror and onto a screen was never apparent.

One of the first movies I watched was Monsters, Inc. Computer-generated animation is among the easiest material to make a set look good—which is one reason it's used to sell plasma sets—but the clarity and razor-sharp focus, particularly at the sides and corners, were still impressive. Colors were richly saturated, creating a mesmerizing, transparent, 3-dimensional picture.

My next-door neighbor came over for a look. He's got three little girls and has seen Monsters, Inc. on his 57-inch Panasonic hi-def set dozens of times. I can't repeat in a family-friendly magazine the expletive he uttered when he saw what the 65XWX20B could do.

Later, I watched Dark City, which once again convinced me that, for inky, velvety-black blacks and a filmlike analog experience, nothing beats a good CRT-based display. The look that Dark City's director, art director, and cinematographer intended—a look crucial to appreciating the film—is best expressed on a set that can go to black while exhibiting low video noise. Somehow, Hitachi has managed to suppress the usual RPTV crescent reflections to an unusually effective degree—they never intruded on the very dark setting of Dark City. The press blurb I got with the set claims that its special antireflective screen is responsible for limiting both externally and internally generated light reflections.

With its armadillo creatures from space, fake Egyptology, and the rest of the nonsense in search of a plot, The Fifth Element is a stupid contrivance of a movie—but displayed on the 65XWX20B, the film's Superbit DVD edition kept me occupied for a few hours. While "three times the screen height" might not be a universally useful formula for computing viewing distance, it proved to be exactly the distance from my couch to the screen that made getting lost in the picture easy, especially when the image was as naturally sharp, detailed, transparent, and 3-dimensional as the 65XWX20B's.

What really made this set work was the focus, clarity, and well-converged images at the extreme sides and corners of the screen. While the Philips set I've owned for the past few years is very good, I find myself watching the center of the screen, where the image is sharpest, but that makes the 55-inch screen feel smaller than it really is. The Hitachi's nearly uniform sharpness, focus, and convergence encouraged my gaze to wander over all of the visual real estate.