At CES 2007, Hitachi unveiled their 2007 line-up of plasma HDTVs and instantly added more confusion to the consumer HDTV marketplace with the introduction of their P50H401, a 50-inch plasma with 1280×1080 native resolution that Hitachi identifies as a "HD1080" product.

For the past decade, the company’s 42-inch high-resolution plasma offerings used an unusual non-symmetrical pixel design to first achieve 1024×1024 and then 1024×1080 pixel resolution, neither of which can display full 1920×1080 or 1280×720 HD content without significant pixel jiggering and re-mapping.

In repeated tests, I have found that both standard definition and high definition programs looked softer on these models than they did on EDTV and full HDTV plasmas, thanks to the non-linear scaling. Hitachi made several valiant efforts to convince the consumer press that these products were indeed HDTVs, given their 1080 vertical rows of pixels.

However, they were never able to explain how decimating 1280 and 1920 horizontal pixels down to 1024 pixels - reductions in resolution of 20% and 47%, respectively - also qualified as HDTV. (Most members of the press never bought Hitachi’s argument, anyway.) With today’s lower prices on 50-inch Wide XGA sets and 42-inch 1080p LCDs, I figured these ALiS sets would finally be relegated to history.

But it appears Hitachi isn’t quite through with their “almost” HD strategies. The P50H401 is intended to be an affordable ($2,500 MSRP) 50-inch product with higher resolution than comparably priced WXGA (768p) products.

While the P50H401 provides full vertical resolution for 1920×1080 images, it must decimate horizontal resolution by 33% to fit the width of the screen, again using a tricky pixel-remapping scheme, something that never quite worked as well as it should have on their 42-inch sets.  In contrast, 1280×720p content must be enlarged with another tricky “enlarge and decimate” process.

Hitachi calls its P50H401 a “HD1080″ class product.  However, a new line of plasma sets (coming later in 2007) will have the full 1920×1080 pixel matrix and carry the “Full 1080HD” moniker, as will Hitachi’s H501-series LCD HDTVs and three new 1080p LCD rear-projection sets.

Granted, 1280×1080 is higher pixel density than you’ll find in the typical 50-inch plasma. But it’s still not full 1920×1080, and that is bound to confuse more than one potential customer in an industry that sells by the numbers.

Right now, you can buy Vizio’s 47-inch GV47LF integrated LCD HDTV for $600 less, and it does have full 1920×1080 resolution.  For that price, some customers might not miss the extra three inches, knowing they didn’t throw any of those precious pixels away.

Another downside to using non-standard pixel resolutions is that there have been and will be class action lawsuits filed over what is HDTV, and what isn’t.  I am aware of at least one potential action that looks to target makers of 1024×768 plasma TVs for deceiving the public into thinking these were HDTVs sets.

It’s not far-fetched to assume some technically sharp lawyer will jump at the chance to make the same argument about Hitachi’s “HD1080″ designation.  Similar litigation against DirecTV is already pending in California, where the plaintiff - an attorney - claims that he’s only getting 1280×1080 resolution through his HD set-top receiver, not full 1920×1080 resolution.

Only time will tell if the P50H401 is a hit for Hitachi or a white elephant.  My guess is that some consumers will shy away out of confusion, and that LCD HDTV manufacturers will make hay out of the fact that they haven’t trimmed any pixels “off the top” from their 1080p products.