I am also in the market for Hitachi Ultravision 42HDS69 42" Plasma TV. I have been reading expert reviews and that has been useful to me. It may be help you too. I had been using PCWorld.com, cnet.com to find reviews. Yesterday I also used PriceGrabber's expert review tab (http://www.pricegrabber.com/info_expertreviews.php/masterid=21254268) and found a site (www.smartratings.com) that aggregates expert reviews. It only covers a few categories but it is pretty neat. Just my $.02.

The only thing I can think of is to check the released date of the product of interest. If there is that match with one of those listed in overseas websites, it's very likely they're the same. They may be of different model numbers, but they are released on the same day. Just my $0.02 cents.