When a home theater calls for not only convenience and simplicity but quality as well, it's calling for the Helios HPTV-4200A 42-inch gas-plasma television. Within its brushed-aluminum cabinet, the slender (3.35-inch deep) set houses everything you need to start enjoying widescreen home entertainment only moments after unpacking it. Just plug it into a cable outlet and it's ready to put image-improving MotionDSC digital processing and progressive line scaling into service atop features like four-window PIP (picture-in-picture) and favorite-channel programming.
With the HPTV-4200A, you're also getting a full-featured HDTV monitor, of course: through its internal scaler, the set accepts true HD signals, including 480p, 720p, and 1080i. With a DTV set-top box, you can feed high-definition images directly into the set's high-definition component-video, S-video, or PC-ready VGA component-video inputs. The HPTV-4200A performs 3:2 pulldown detection, a handy feature for watching progressive-scan movie programs in their native 24-frame format. Digital video mastering introduces a common distortion when adjusting 24 frames-per-second movies to 30 fps video; 3:2 pulldown digitally corrects this distortion, removing the redundant information to display a film-frame-accurate picture.
For sound, the HPTV-4200A handles MTS stereo decoding and generates 10 watts per channel. Please be aware, however, that speakers for the television are optional, and--if you already have music or home-theater speakers--the set's stereo minijack analog jack can be configured for fixed-level output, making it suitable for a direct connection with your stereo preamplifier or integrated amp.
The set's amazing 800:1 contrast ratio and very high 620 cd/m2 brightness level makes it a great choice for any high-end video application. Other features include adaptive motion de-interlacing, a digital 3D comb filter, selectable color temperature settings (standard 6,500K, 9,300K, and a user-selectable mode), automatic frequency detection, input phase clock adjustment, and front-panel lock (via RS-232C).