Please keep us up to date on this. I'm sorry to hear about it and sure hope it's image retention.

I'm fed up with burn-in fear and am convinced no manufacturer could prevail in small claims court if sued for not backing warranty due to burn-in caused by owner thereof merely doing what a television is made for--------- watching it which should be unrestricted. If Plasma TVs can't deal with static images then they should not be on the market.

If mine suffers burn-in I will indeed sue if warranty denied. Manufacturer's defense will absurdly be owner was warned he shouldn't have "overly" watched his expensive Plasma TV he bought from us because defendant manufacturers's Plasma TV can't contend with static images but traditional CRT TVs can. Ridiculous!

slannes

I own a Panasonic TH-42PX50U that I've had for about 10 months. I have been watching the World Cup, yesterday for about 5 - 6 hours consecutively and now have image of the ABC/ESPN banner apparently is burned in. (It's real obvious because any scene with sky shows the contrasting image clearly).

I've talked to Panasonic CS and have been told they feel 4 hours of the same image is enough to burn in and of course it's not covered by warranty.

I've run the TV for about 3 hours consecutively so far with no fading of the image. I'll update it further if there's improvement, but Panasonic isn't optimistic.

BTW, there's an advertisement on Google for a DVD based product that will remove burn out. Anybody have any experience with that?

we are talking about this on another thread - what I do not understand is, the World Cup games go to commercial every 15 minutes or so - and the banner goes away during that period. the periodic removal of the banner during the commercials is not enough to avoid burn in?

From my friend:


I watch hours upon hours of sports on television (as you know). And, they all have those stupid logos in the corner, and I never see burned-in images. The only hint of image retention I’ve seen was faint vertical stripes a couple of months ago from too much analog viewing I guess. But, 30 minutes of white screen completely eliminated that and restored my picture beautifully. Maybe my first generation Sony (and orbiting technology) was worth the $5500 I spent on it!

we are talking about this on another thread - what I do not understand is, the World Cup games go to commercial every 15 minutes or so - and the banner goes away during that period. the periodic removal of the banner during the commercials is not enough to avoid burn in?

The percentage of overall viewing time that the banner is on the screen is what's important. A full soccer game shouldn't be a problem if you watch something else for several hours afterward. General rule is that no image should be on-screen for more than 15% of overall viewing time.

(I'd just leave Discovery HD on overnight)

Also, WC games are not interrupted by commercial except at halftime....

I should probably clarify the my particular situation. I record the World Cup on my DVR and watched the two matches consecutively yesterday, fast forwarding through halftime and breaks between overtime period and such. So, although the image was interrupted by my fast forwarding, the net result is that yesterday I watched approximately 5 straight hours of content with the same banner on the top of the screen, with the above mentioned minimal interruption.

As of this message it appears that the IR, which is what I'm hoping it is, is fading somewhat, although it still is visible. I don't have an HD signal as of yet, and my source signal is Direct TV, although coming through a stand alond DVR, so the quality is a bit degraded. I'm still concerned, although somewhat more optimistic that based on the information in the thread, it's going to fade away. Although I plan to watch on 7/4 and 7/ 5 and will be interested to see how the Panasonic responds.

BTW, you might find the Panasonic CS rep's comments amusing. When asked how to avoid this happening, he suggested changing the channel every 10 - 15 minutes. Yeah, right.

After investigating this business about "breaking in" with several service people, salesmen and finally Philips Customer Support...all say there is no such thing! And that either high contrast of brightness will not hurt or age the television any faster than it will from natural wear. You are going to get around 40 to 50 thousand hours no matter how you set it. All this business about low settings for a period helping is a myth. Set the picture to your liking and what your eyes see best! It's a great TV...ENJOY!

Interesting. Certainly does not jive with people who owns Panasonics and have communicated with them.

We still need to hear back from cmburke, magicjon, and politzer please.

I should probably clarify the my particular situation. I record the World Cup on my DVR and watched the two matches consecutively yesterday, fast forwarding through halftime and breaks between overtime period and such. So, although the image was interrupted by my fast forwarding, the net result is that yesterday I watched approximately 5 straight hours of content with the same banner on the top of the screen, with the above mentioned minimal interruption.

As of this message it appears that the IR, which is what I'm hoping it is, is fading somewhat, although it still is visible. I don't have an HD signal as of yet, and my source signal is Direct TV, although coming through a stand alond DVR, so the quality is a bit degraded. I'm still concerned, although somewhat more optimistic that based on the information in the thread, it's going to fade away. Although I plan to watch on 7/4 and 7/ 5 and will be interested to see how the Panasonic responds.

BTW, you might find the Panasonic CS rep's comments amusing. When asked how to avoid this happening, he suggested changing the channel every 10 - 15 minutes. Yeah, right.

The same thing happened to me with my new Panny 42PX60U. Turned out to be IR and it went away after a couple of hours of displaying non-static content. My settings are pretty conservative...standard...picture +4 brightness +5 sharpness -10. I'm going through the break in routine using the DVD-R breakin described very early in this thread. Figure it can't hurt and at the very least may weed out a "lemon" in terms of other manufacturing defects. I own both plasma and LCD and really enjoy both pictures as the lighting conditions vary wildly between my LR and basement. The plasma is in the basement.

IMHO if LCD can get the blacks better and continues to improve response times it will win this little war.

After investigating this business about "breaking in" with several service people, salesmen and finally Philips Customer Support...all say there is no such thing! And that either high contrast of brightness will not hurt or age the television any faster than it will from natural wear. You are going to get around 40 to 50 thousand hours no matter how you set it. All this business about low settings for a period helping is a myth. Set the picture to your liking and what your eyes see best! It's a great TV...ENJOY!

You might be right ... for Philips, but Panasonic has a white paper out that specifically states how to break in a Plasma set. That's far from myth. I for one will take Panasonic's recommendation over salespeople and CS folks everyday!

After investigating this business about "breaking in" with several service people, salesmen and finally Philips Customer Support...all say there is no such thing! And that either high contrast of brightness will not hurt or age the television any faster than it will from natural wear. You are going to get around 40 to 50 thousand hours no matter how you set it. All this business about low settings for a period helping is a myth. Set the picture to your liking and what your eyes see best! It's a great TV...ENJOY!It's your TV so watch it any way you want, but Panasonic says:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzequg9f/how_to_prevent_image_retention.JPG

and their:

"Limited Warranty Limits And Exclusions (state)

This Limited Warranty ONLY COVERS failures due to defects in materials or orkmanship, and DOES NOT COVER normal wear and tear or cosmetic damage, nor does it cover markings or retained images on the picture tube resulting from viewing fixed images (including, among other things, letterbox pictures on standard 4:3 screen TV’s, or non-expanded standard 4:3 pictures on wide screen TV’s, or onscreen data in a stationary and fixed location)."

Does anyone have any good suggestions for the setting for a new Samsung HP-S4253 for the initial break in period. Thank you in advance

BTW, you might find the Panasonic CS rep's comments amusing. When asked how to avoid this happening, he suggested changing the channel every 10 - 15 minutes. Yeah, right.
Best outburst of laughter all day. And I bet he was serious.

It's your TV so watch it any way you want, but Panasonic says:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzequg9f/how_to_prevent_image_retention.JPG

and their:

"Limited Warranty Limits And Exclusions (state)

This Limited Warranty ONLY COVERS failures due to defects in materials or orkmanship, and DOES NOT COVER normal wear and tear or cosmetic damage, nor does it cover markings or retained images on the picture tube resulting from viewing fixed images (including, among other things, letterbox pictures on standard 4:3 screen TV’s, or non-expanded standard 4:3 pictures on wide screen TV’s, or onscreen data in a stationary and fixed location)."

It's not the burn in that my sources are disputing. They all agree on that of course. It's the need to "break-in" a TV they say is a myth. Break-in does nothing beneficial for the television. Just a waste of time. But as you say...IT'S YOUR TV...DO WHAT YOU WANT. I also learned that professional calibrating your TV is a marketing ploy....and so unnecessary and a waste of money. Unless you are totally braindead when it comes to adjusting TV pictures.

It's not the burn in that my sources are disputing. They all agree on that of course. It's the need to "break-in" a TV they say is a myth. Break-in does nothing beneficial for the television. Just a waste of time.It is advisable to observe the break in procedures as described in the white paper:

Plasma Facts and Myths Panasonic Presents Advice From the Video Purist Perspective (http://www.dynamicdigital.ca/documents/Plasma%20Facts%20and%20Myths.pdf)

"Burn In - Much has been written about the possibility of permanently marking a plasma screen by viewing a static image on the screen for too long. This is often referred to as “static image burn in,” which is a misnomer. The phosphors are never “burnt,” rather they are unevenly aged. While the possibility of uneven aging exists"

"Plasma Break-In - Plasma phosphors are most susceptible to image retention in the first hundred hours of use. The panel becomes considerably less sensitive to burn-in after this period."

Phosphors run the "hottest" when brand new and gradually dim over time. If picture settings are too high initially and combined with viewing habits known to cause uneven wear (e.g. black bars, static logos, tickers and gaming) there is a greater risk for permanent image retention to occur during the first 100 hours of operation.

Proud new owner of a Sammy 5053. Great PQ. Limiting all TV viewing to Discovery HD or ESPN HD and DVDs for most pleasurable viewing. Had worried most about burn-in and now surprised to find what I think is a retained image of "LIVE 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP" banner at the top of the screen only when the TV is on without any signal. With HDMI cable signal on, this banner is not present on a black or grey screen; and is not visible with any cable programming on. With the TV off, there is no image retained either. Any advice about this? I presume this is just ghosting of what we watched today but don't want to take any chances. The contrast/brightness is 50% and all burn-in measures are on including viewing protection (no side bars or pausing DVDs!) Currently running screen protection diagnostics as a prophylactic measure.

Is it visible when you run either the "all white" or the "signal pattern" programs? I would think it would have to be visible on one or both, and running the signal pattern should clear it in any case.

Thanks for the reply. The FIFA banner was not visible in either screen patterns; only visible under close scrutiny in a dark room with the TV on and no cable or DVD signal (black source screen). Interestingly did not see the banner with any programming, or plain black or grey backgrounds. I did run the signal pattern for about 1 hour which is recommended once at 100 hours anyway and it cleared it right up! Not sure if it was just serious image retention....Any merit in changing the pixel shift settings to 1 minute? Otherwise, great set with awesome HD PQ. Would highly recc for anyone taking the plasma dive for the first time.

Which panny models have pixel shift ?

I just got my new panny 50px60 yesterday and its been doing really good.. a few questions tho

1. the first hour i had it on discovery HD and i notice the logo ghosted a bit but promptly went away after wathing somthing else for an hour or so, i assumed discovery hd since it was semi transparent was ok im sure its only cause it was brand new. But has anyone els seen ghosting of this logo?

2. The picture settings recommended by panny is 50% which is everthing at 0 but i cant live with that its way to dark i got the picture at +10 and the others at 0 or less but is that ok?

3. And i just wanted to add i played for about half an hour on cod2 on my 360 and had no hint of image retention so should i be good as long as i keep the same game usage to a minimum to play within the 100 hours?

4. And lastly i left it overnight last night on the movie networks to speed up the break in process, ill probably keep doing that each night for the firts week just to rish the 100 hours, is this good to do??

if people wanna answer these and use the numbers with ur answers so it makes it easier, it would be greatly appreciated thx

I have 600U.

1. I watched DisHD last night for about 2 hours and I noticed the logo occasionally, but they remove it most of the time and only show it for about 15 seconds at a time. Have experienced no ghosting from station IDs. I would imagine that the transparent IDs should be the least likely to cause IR.

2 I have mine set on "Cinema" which is basically what you have except Picture is +12 and everything else is 0. CATS off and Blacks "Light" I'm currently at about 95 hours.

3 can't comment on this one.

4 sounds like it would work. I've heard a lot of people just put in a good DVD and make sure it loops to keep playing over and over....anything animated is good since all the different levels of color.

Thanks anyone else have any opinions?

Thanks anyone else have any opinions?

I don't know about you, but when my 50" plasma is on, the wheel on my electric meter runs like crazy, even more than when my central AC is on and I live in New Orleans where it's really hot right now. My point is, you are going to get uncounted hours of fun on your display for many years to come so why waste your money on electricity by running your TV overnight just to speed up aging the phosphors on your display?

I was once very concerned about how to properly handle the breaking in of my plasma (50px50u), but after pouring over all the posts in this thread alone I became convinced that unless you keep your TV in the default setting out of the box which was the torch mode, aka Vivid, you will not really be at risk for burn in.

I think your setting of +10 for Picture is fine. Enjoy your TV and try not to worry too much about it (i know, easier said than done).

Oh yea ive been through most of this thread and yes i do know and trust panny as being one of the best but theres always ppl who say the first 100 hours u gadda watch out, the power bill isnt really a problem it might only be an extra few bucks but as im a gamer i wanna get over that 100 hour heap as soon as i can so i can game without worry, well last night i did get a few games in and didnt see any signs so thats good but i still dont trust it over a longer gaming session untill i reach past that 100 hour point..

yes i trust it to an extent but 4150 canadian is alot before taxes so i guess im just over parinoid lol, but thanks Hedonist ill just push the boundries a tad further and further with gaming each day and see what i can do without ghosting, and if i get a bit ill just know not to play the same game for any longer

I've had a TH-42PX50U since late November and have not a hint of burn in whatsoever. I don't watch a lot of sports, but for example my local FOX affiliate has a bright white static FOX logo and even watching two back to back episodes of House in HD doesn't cause any problems. I do watch a fair few 2.35:1 movies -- at least I haven't really gone out of my way to avoid them -- and the screen has not aged unevenly due to that.

My question to politzer would be what image settings do you run your set on? Running with very high contrast (Picture) would obviously cause burn in a lot more easily than not. For what it's worth, I run mine in Cinema mode on all inputs, with Picture set to 14 and Brightness set to 10 based on a THX calibration dvd.

Thanks for the reply. The FIFA banner was not visible in either screen patterns; only visible under close scrutiny in a dark room with the TV on and no cable or DVD signal (black source screen). Interestingly did not see the banner with any programming, or plain black or grey backgrounds. I did run the signal pattern for about 1 hour which is recommended once at 100 hours anyway and it cleared it right up! Not sure if it was just serious image retention....Any merit in changing the pixel shift settings to 1 minute? Otherwise, great set with awesome HD PQ. Would highly recc for anyone taking the plasma dive for the first time.

Great to hear. So we're still waiting on a couple of people to report back, but things are looking very good for these newer displays imo.

Anyone else out there with a 2005 or 2006 display that has burn-in? When/how did it happen?

Ya im on day 2 of my new plasma (50px60) and i was even gaming for over an hour last night straight and not even a hint of ir, and i got my picture set to +12 and brightness to +3 with everything else at zero on standard.

Well folks, i've been trying to leave my tv on for some extended periods of time in hopes that the World Cup score bar would go away. It is still prevalent when there are light pictures on the screen, but I think (I hope, but I'm not certain) it has faded slightly. I truly think i may be SOL.

Also, another poster mentioned that he watched on DVR so he was fast-forwarding halftime and going game to game . . . . that's the same exact thing i did....

it's not that bad, but it is something that attracts my eye, none of my friends have caught it though. I'll post again soon if there is any improvement.

Jon

Guys,
So finally I got my Samsung s4253 last night.
First thing I did was reduced the brightness, contrast to 30.
I dont have HD yet, maybe in a couple of days.
Next thing is to break in this baby.
I went thru this thread and am confused and scared :-(
Need some input from you guys..

1. Should I be using only HD signals to break in or can I go with regular SD channels.
Since most of the channels have the logo displayed, would it be a good idea to watch only DVD movies on this set.
2. What are the optimal settings for this tv, in case any of you have this tv and went through the break in process. Is it

safe to leave it on Movie mode? The low brightness and contrast is hurting my eyes!
3. Is there a way to know how many hours of viewing did a tv go through?
4. DNie on or off during initial period? does it make a difference?

Any help will be appreciated.

Hello guys! I've got a question... As i understand; you've got to take extra special care of your plasma in its first 100 hours or so, right? but what happens after the break-in period? how careful must one be?? how much is the risk of burn-in reduced after those 100 hours?
any recommendations on viewing habits or anything like that?
thanks!

Depends on the panel im still within the 100 hours and iv only had one small sign of image retention that was the discovery hd logo but that was cause i had it on the first hour the whole time on discHD so i changed the channel and watched something else for another hour and it went away, but im probably at about 20-30 hours now and ive been gaming on it and watching tons of tv with logos (never one game or logo for more than an hour or 2 at a time) and my settings arnt turned down too much they definitly are a bit but not as much as some ppl do. But i hear someplace that panisonics are one of the best for not getting IR, not to sure about the other brands.

Depends on the panel im still within the 100 hours and iv only had one small sign of image retention that was the discovery hd logo but that was cause i had it on the first hour the whole time on discHD so i changed the channel and watched something else for another hour and it went away, but im probably at about 20-30 hours now and ive been gaming on it and watching tons of tv with logos (never one game or logo for more than an hour or 2 at a time) and my settings arnt turned down too much they definitly are a bit but not as much as some ppl do. But i hear someplace that panisonics are one of the best for not getting IR, not to sure about the other brands.


Mine is a Samsung... do you know anything about their panels? I also had some IR when i watched a show that had a logo for almost an hour, but its now gone too.

ive dont tons of research and it seems the only real problems are within the 100 hours, and just be semi careful for the next 900 hours, after 1000 from what ive heard the burn in levels are close to crt on the new age plasmas, but i guess some are better than others but when was the last time someone worried about burn in on a crt so after 1000 ur good to goo with anything, but id say after the 100 u dont really need to baby it just dont be stupid and leave static images for too long. But samsungs are fairly good at least its not a 3rd tier no name brand

Just had an IR scare with my NEW Pioneer 4360! :eek:

I have break-in settings and am at about 140 hours.

I had a movie playing and got a phone call so I left the room to take the call.
When I got back the movie had ended and the DVD had gone back to the main menu screen!
It was static white text on a blue back ground...
based on where the movie was at when I walked away, and how long the phone call was, I estimate the menu had been up for about 30 minutes... :(

I quickly threw in the "break-in DVD" to see if I had done any damge, and sure enough, I could clearly read the IR of the menu text over the full screen colours of the break-in DVD, for the next few minutes...

The good news is it actually seemed to fade away within 10-15 minutes to the point where I could barely see it...
After that 15 minutes of staring at the TV sweating, I had to go into work (which is where I am writing from now) so I left the break-in DVD running

- here's hoping it is completely cleared up when I get home in a few hours...

bought the Samsung S4253 back in the beginning of may. Inteneded to do a lot of gaming with it and use if for my pc moniter. Didn't know much about breaking it in, as the sales guy didn't tell me nothing, and I don't know anyone else with a plasma so didn't think nothing about it.

Anyways got it home, hooked up my pc, games systems, hd cable box, dvd players and was ready to go.

About a month after, well passed the 100 hour mark, I switched inputs and caught a glimpse of IR from an advert online. I turned the tv off, then back on and it was gone. This got me doing some research on IR and burnins.

About a week after that went to the white screen, and sure enough there was the start button from my computer what looked like it was "burned in" on the lower lefthand of the screen. Yes you know the one, it's on your computer right now, lol.

While watching tv, you don't really notice it, but only on the white screen, it's not just an outline like IR either, you could see some faint colors in it as well. It's been there ever since, only faded a little bit. Because it's in the lower left hand corner I'm not gonna worry to much about it, and will probably fade away.

But the thing that pisses me off is I bought this tv to do gaming, and use for my pc moniter, now that plan is trashed. I cannot trust this tv to do what I want it to. It's a great tv, awesome for dvd's, hd, but too parinoid to even watch sd cable with static logo's. If I could go back, I'd get an lcd, or a dlp.

greenman,

Have you tried running the "Signal Pattern" for a while to clear it?

yes. Didn't do much though. Left it on for a few hours.

So how long has it been like this now?

Most of us have probably already read this paper but I've attached it just the same. They did IR testing in order to declare burn-in a myth with newer plasma. The results indicated that IR is a fact of life with PDP's but it is not a lasting issue.

What they didn't do.....
They didn't test for IR on a PDP right out of the box. They only tested after 4 weeks of continuous playback. We refer to this as break in of course :)

Why didn't they test right out of the box? They knew what would happen.

They also declare IR is cleared when "no longer visible while watching video". What video? Is it visible during a pan of a blue sky?

If the break in is so important it should be done by the manufacturer before the consumer gets it.

I'm "breaking in" a Panny 42PX60U now. I can get IR with a comcast menu after only about 60 seconds. Its the bright white lettering that does it. It does go away. I still may return this for 1080p LCD. I just wanna watch TV.

Oops...the file is too large to attach. I put a copy of it here ...

www.matkoworld.com/pioneer.pdf

I just want to preface this post by saying that I have read through several pages in this thread, searched the forum, used Google, and still haven't found what I am looking for. I did try to find the answer without making a post that I know has been covered here, so please forgive; I just can't find it and am very new to HDTV technologies. Here it goes:

Do LCD TVs suffer from burn-in? (I am familiar with "image persistence", which can be undone... right?) From what I've read on this forum, I get the impression that it is possible but is not an issue that anyone is very concerned with. From Web sites that I've read, I get the impression that it's technically not even possible for LCD burn-in (two sources: FlatTVPeople (http://www.flattvpeople.com/tutorials/lcd-vs-plasma.asp) and LCDTVBuyingGuide (http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com.au/lcd_vs_plasma.php)). So from the people here and the Web sites, I see conflicting conclusions. At Best Buy recently, I saw a Philips LCD that had absolutely suffered from burn-in in a horrifying way. It was a display TV for Guitar Hero, and many different images looked to be permanently on the TV. Maybe this was image persistence, but it looked exactly like the burn-in that I observed on projection TVs back in the day.

I'm not worried about network logos or video game HUDs burning-in so much because I don't watch a lot of cable or play many games. But I do watch a lot of DVDs and am worried about the black bars from 4:3 images and higher ratio DVDs. I really don't like zooming the image on the screen. Any help is greatly appreciated here.

FWIW I have a Panny LCD and have been watching it for about 9 months now. I watch a lot of 4:3 programming and DVD movies in the OAR. Absolutely no signs of IR or burn in whatsoever. I suppose any display device can be damaged if abused. I do agree that there is a lot of conflicting information out there. I should also add that my LCD panel is calibrated/tuned-down from the out-of-the-box torch mode it came in. That particular bit of info seems to be repeated often....turn down those brightness, contrast, and sharpness settings.

My concluding comment from another thread re my desire, but apparently can't be done, to hack into my Hitachi 42HDS52A to permanently change gray side bar default to black:

Hitachi's and, as fact, all Plasma manufacturers discourage black VERTICAL side bars for 4:3 content unless 15% or less of viewing. But, none discourage black HORIZONTAL bars which can't be changed to gray or defaulted to, fortunately. My very first DVDs run on unit during first 100 hours, in fact first hours were long movies 'Pulp Fiction', 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Kill Bill II'. All three 2:35 DVDs had black horizontal bars. No image retention or burn-in whatsoever. My contention is Hitachi and all other Plasma manufacturers don't discourage viewing content with black horizontal bars because they have no gray horizontal default, only gray vertical bars default, and zooming 2:35 to 1:69 cuts off much of content. So why not option of changing gray side bars default to black? I must presume burn-in of horizontal bars could not result in warranty denial due to warnings confined to side bars only. Absurd!

slannes

Guess horizontal black bars is a general burn- in concern too------

http://www.plasmasaver.com/burnin.html

------------ but again, no horizontal black bars mentioned in Plasma warranty exclusions.

To me black is black wherever from and wherever on display ------ sides and/or top and bottom Plasma display acreage since in my opinion------- uneven wear is uneven wear.

Any help to permanently change my gray sidebar default to black greatly appreciated. The risk of burn- in is all mine. My condo's trash bin will easily accommodate dumping my 42" Hitachi 42HDS52A Plasma in if I get burn-in (due to "vertical" black side bars not covered by warranty if used 15% of time ----- so 14.999% covered --who clocks use? ) and will accommodate packaging from it successor -----an LCD.

To comply with 15% black side bars warranty limitation--------- suppose I can watch

HEIST
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Run Time: 111 minutes

approximately seven times so I can watch once with black bars:

WHITE HEAT
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Run Time: 113 minutes

Insane compromises to enjoy movies on plasma displays marketed for enhanced viewing enjoyment!

Thanks for any input to permanently change gray side bars default to black.

slannes

FWIW I have a Panny LCD and have been watching it for about 9 months now. I watch a lot of 4:3 programming and DVD movies in the OAR. Absolutely no signs of IR or burn in whatsoever. I suppose any display device can be damaged if abused. I do agree that there is a lot of conflicting information out there. I should also add that my LCD panel is calibrated/tuned-down from the out-of-the-box torch mode it came in. That particular bit of info seems to be repeated often....turn down those brightness, contrast, and sharpness settings.

Should I tune the settings even lower than 50/50/50? I have ordered the AVIA DVD to help me calibrate my TV, but I am still confused on how I can attain a crisp image with these settings tuned down.

If you are reading this thread carefully you will note that, while many people are clearly fearful of permanent IR, there are in fact very few examples (if any) on this thread. We are still waiting for updates from a few, but I feel that it is safe to say that normal viewing (and by that I mean a mixture of formats/channels/inputs) will not result in permanent IR on these newer plasmas.

As others have said, do as you will... meaning whatever makes you feel comfortable. I have continued (from day 1) to set my contrast/brightness where it is pleasing to my eye. I have no problems with my Samsung, which is now over the 250 hour mark.

If you were one of the recent posters with IR (magicjon, etc.) please continue to give us updates on your situation. It is the only way we are going to separate fact from fiction.

I just returned from a trip to my local Pioneer Elite dealer (Electronics Expo in Ledgewood, NJ) where I was hoping to get a look at Pioneer's new 50" 1080p plasma. They didn't have one but I did see something very disturbing, BOTH Pioneer Elites on display (PRO930HD and PRO1130HD) had severe IR! Both TV’s were at opposite ends of the store and both were playing different animated features when I was watching them. The first one I saw was the 930 which had the word "PLAYLIST" blazoned across the screen, I could also make out "Main Menu" and "Play Concert" but there was more, actually the entire screen was riddled with text. It was visible during any programming and you didn’t have to look for it (it found you). This was the worst case of IR on a plasma that I’ve personally seen. After moving on to look at the other TV’s I had forgotten about the incident but then I came across the 50” on the other side of the store and THERE IT WAS AGAIN! The text was different from the 930 but it was still some sort of menu. At this point I went around to all the other plasma’s in the store and NONE had any IR that I could see. This included two Panasonic 50U’s, two 30U’s (Onyx) , and a 25U which are all discontinued and have probably been there for over a year; along with Samsungs, Toshibas and brands I never heard of. If anyone thinks I’m Pioneer bashing go see for yourself; in fact I’m hoping someone is close enough to verify what I’m saying. I own a plasma and have never had ANY problems, but this would make me nervous about getting a Pioneer.

RicheyPoor,

I was looking around for the past couple of weeks & finally picked up a Panasonic 42PX60u. Over the weekend I was in BB where I was comparing the Panny to a Hitachi & a Samsung. BB had a Pioneer, it was a 50" but I didn't notice the model #. It also had a fairly bad case of IR. They were displaying a continuous loop thru all their sets & the PIO had a clear image of a 'BestBuy' banner about 2/3'ds down the screen. At the time I didn't think too much of it because the set was probably displaying the loop for quite a few hours, but based on your post there may be something to worry about with those panels.

So how long has it been like this now?


At least a month. Trust me, as soon as I saw that I ripped my computer out and hooked it back up to my 19" crt. Don't want to chance it anymore as I've only made one payment on my tv so far.

But the good news is I put it to the white screen again today, and I can barely read the word start anymore. It's still there but it's fainted quite a bit. Have watched at least 4 -5 hours a day in the last month, so probably about 150hours and it's still not gone.

anyways looks like this will be my movie only tv. If only I knew better, I would have gone for the 42inch Westy lcd 1080P for half the price and could game/ and be on my 42inch moniter all I want without a worry. Good news is by the time I have my sammy paid off, the Westy will be even cheaper, lol. :D

RicheyPoor,

I was looking around for the past couple of weeks & finally picked up a Panasonic 42PX60u. Over the weekend I was in BB where I was comparing the Panny to a Hitachi & a Samsung. BB had a Pioneer, it was a 50" but I didn't notice the model #. It also had a fairly bad case of IR. They were displaying a continuous loop thru all their sets & the PIO had a clear image of a 'BestBuy' banner about 2/3'ds down the screen. At the time I didn't think too much of it because the set was probably displaying the loop for quite a few hours, but based on your post there may be something to worry about with those panels.I think you'll like the Panasonic, that's what I have and I've experienced no IR. I did not observe a break-in period and take no special precautions (although I don't game on it). I'd recommend turning the sharpness way down (-30 for Vivid; -15 for Standard and 0 for Cinema), not because of IR, but it will look much more natural that way. Good luck with your new TV!

Hello, everyone. I've been around for a while and read a lot of useful information here. I just got the panny TH-42PHD8UK and the picture is fabulous. People are talking about how long they have used their plasma here. I wonder if there is a way to check the usage time somewhere in the TV menu? Thank you very much!

Jin

At least a month. Trust me, as soon as I saw that I ripped my computer out and hooked it back up to my 19" crt. Don't want to chance it anymore as I've only made one payment on my tv so far.

But the good news is I put it to the white screen again today, and I can barely read the word start anymore. It's still there but it's fainted quite a bit. Have watched at least 4 -5 hours a day in the last month, so probably about 150hours and it's still not gone.


That's good news that it seems to be fading out. The only suggestion I could make is to see if there is a plug-in for XP that would make the menus disappear unless you need them. I'm a Mac guy and I know it's available there, but I don't know about XP.

I have the Maxent MX-42HPM20 and when I took it out of the box it was at contrast 80! I turned it down and everything else to 40. Is that enough for the break in? Also the Menu and the Volume bar are really bright when accessed and cause IR when used, but goes away after a few minutes. Does any one know how to turn down the contrast and brightness for the volume/menus?

For those that use their PDP to play games and those that watch extended periods of shows like QVC or HSN that have a static logo;
Reducing the picture to slightly over "CINEMA" mode will substantially lessen the chance of BURN -IN or IMAGE RETENTION. Keep in mind that those in these categories are using their Plasmas in a 'Stress' situation which is more susceptable to these problems.

I am still within the 100 hour mar on my panny 50px60 (i think im at about 60 hours) but ive been gaming on it since day one, i play alot of 360, played oblivion for like 6 hours straight yesterday, I also play COD2 for a few hours each night and not even a hint of IR, my picture settings are not way down... i have it set on --Standard-- with picture at +13 and brightness at +4 everthing else at 0 and im sure ill set it brighter eventually after the first 100 hours or so when i calibrate but for now just eyeing it looks good now. But nothing... no IR no burn in and i see a bright white screen eveytime i turn on the 360 and ive never seen any from gaming... so the panny px60 series is excelent for not having IR... but i still wouldnt trust it hooked up to a comp just yet.

Fwiw my Pioneer 4271 has game mode that sets the contrast and brightness really low. When it's set at vivid like at the store the contrast is set all the way up as well as the brightness. I play xbox no IR. None from the World cup either but I keep all my settings at 0 or in the middle pic looks good. Probally the first 1000 hrs I'll keep and eye on what I game. Games like halo change the maps all the time. RPG games don't. Good thing I like shooters

there were a number of pages that i read through in this one thread but i didnt seem to find a specific answer to the use of white screens.

i purchased a fujitsu from my work (innovative audio) that had some burn in.

while playing with the menu options i found the white screen function but dont know if i should just leave the screen on the white screen till i cant see the burn in or if i should do the white screen at say 15 minute intervals for maybe 4 times once a day..

im a complete newb when it comes to plasmas/lcds... the last big tv i bought was a rear dlp samsung.. i wasnt pleased with the picture quality for the price so i returned it and bought a regular flat screen crt...

ill see if i can get a picture of the burn in to maybe see if its not even worth fixing.. or attempting to fix.

*but i have already turned down the contrast and brightness..just to play it safe and show that i read before posting!*

Just for those wondering...the protron brand LCD TV's, are very capable of burn-in/IR. We did it to a set to see if it was possible. It has not gotten significantly better, since we have switched the source on it, which leads me to believe its burn-in not IR.

I've owned a Pioneer 4350 for almost two years now and still get IR every once in a while. I've never seen it as a result of watching movies with horizontal or vertical black bars. IR seems to only come from watching sports with their score bars for long periods or from certain "bright" images (such as the purplish "PIONEER" text that appears with my DVD player sometimes - screen saver??) left on screen for too long. It is important to note that I have my set in a room with good lighting conditions so I leave my display on the "movie" mode 24x7. This is the least "vibrant" setting; if you have yours set higher, your results may differ.

I "broke in" my set by watching everything full screen and by watching no sports on it for the first couple of hundred hours. The first 100 are definitely the worst though so you have to be the most careful. The afore mentioned DVD "PIONEER" text was left accidentally on for less than 5 minutes during the first 100 hours - it left a very discernible ghost image for hours. Suffice to say I was freaked out.

Someone mentioned that they saw showroom sets with severe IR problems. I have no doubt that resulted from just starting the showroom content right out of the box. I imagine you can wreck a display pretty quickly that way. As it stands, if you get a little IR in the first 100 hours, just vary your content and it will go away. Trust me!

To close my rambling, I absolutely love my pioneer display and would buy the same set again in a heart beat. IR is not a concern for me but it does appear every once in a while when I'm watching certain things constantly (sports packages can be bad...). I read advice early on in this thread before purchasing and I believe it as gosphel truth: VARY YOUR VIEWING HABITS AND YOU WON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS. The little IR i've experience disappears during the course of watching regular television or movies and i've never had any extreme IR issues. As owners go, i'm not very bright, so i'm sure your experiences will be even better.

jake_belknap, when you say you get it once in awhile now when you leave something on to long, how long is to long for you to still see it now? 5 minutes, 30, etc.???

I've owned a Pioneer 4350 for almost two years now and still get IR every once in a while. I've never seen it as a result of watching movies with horizontal or vertical black bars. IR seems to only come from watching sports with their score bars for long periods or from certain "bright" images (such as the purplish "PIONEER" text that appears with my DVD player sometimes - screen saver??) left on screen for too long. It is important to note that I have my set in a room with good lighting conditions so I leave my display on the "movie" mode 24x7. This is the least "vibrant" setting; if you have yours set higher, your results may differ.

I "broke in" my set by watching everything full screen and by watching no sports on it for the first couple of hundred hours. The first 100 are definitely the worst though so you have to be the most careful. The afore mentioned DVD "PIONEER" text was left accidentally on for less than 5 minutes during the first 100 hours - it left a very discernible ghost image for hours. Suffice to say I was freaked out.

Someone mentioned that they saw showroom sets with severe IR problems. I have no doubt that resulted from just starting the showroom content right out of the box. I imagine you can wreck a display pretty quickly that way. As it stands, if you get a little IR in the first 100 hours, just vary your content and it will go away. Trust me!

To close my rambling, I absolutely love my pioneer display and would buy the same set again in a heart beat. IR is not a concern for me but it does appear every once in a while when I'm watching certain things constantly (sports packages can be bad...). I read advice early on in this thread before purchasing and I believe it as gosphel truth: VARY YOUR VIEWING HABITS AND YOU WON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS. The little IR i've experience disappears during the course of watching regular television or movies and i've never had any extreme IR issues. As owners go, i'm not very bright, so i'm sure your experiences will be even better.Exactly, well put. As I said in a recent post on this thread I saw signs of IR on my Panasonic 50PX50U with my OPPO DVD player’s bright white logo. My TV has over 1000 hours of operation and the image retention quickly disappeared after watching additional full screen content. I wonder how subject to IR the new generation of Panasonic 60/600U PDPs will be, which can achieve a much higher contrast setting than the PX50/500Us.

Hello! Read through here a number of times and have found a few posts similar to the problem I'm seeing but I still think my case might be fairly uncommon. I'm a new plasma owner, bought the Panny TH-37PX60U and it looks great EXCEPT for the first 10-20 minutes it's turned on. During that time, pretty much the entire screen is blotchy. I can clearly see image retention in terms of banners or logos for a few minutes, but over the course of about 10-20 minutes the screen clears out. After that the picture is pretty good.

But during that first 10-20 minutes, especially immediately after turning the set on, the picture is a nearly unwatchable mess of multicolored pixels that generally seem to retain the brightest spots on screen. I've got my picture and contrast turned down to below 0, and when I turn them up - from say 10+, the blotchiness goes away for the most part, but I can't help but feel that the image my set is displaying is simply not right.

Can anyone corroborate a similar picture on their set, especially during the first 10-20 minutes of watching? The blotchiness has definitely gotten worse since I bought the set less than 2 weeks ago.

Thanks!

How about this, my pixel shift function wasn't working!!


I have the samsung hp-s4253 and enabled the pixel shift through the menu options. I set it to 4, 4, 1 as I thought this would move the pixles the most, causing it less likely to burnin/ or get IR.

Well I watched the screen closly and nothing was happening. I always wondered what that did, since I couldn't see it, I thought maybe it was doing something I couldn't see to help prevent burn in.


Well I was wrong. Yesterday I was messing around with the calibration menus (power off, mute, 182, power on) and found a pixel test that I set to 1. Automatically my screen starts shifting every second moving in different directions.

I'm wondeing if this has to be enabled for pixel shift function to work? Cuz if it does, not alot of people know how to get into the calibration service menu to do it, and I figured some people would like to know. I'm gonna play some games with it enabled tonight, some with large static images just to see if it leaves any IR.

What is ment by contouring in a plasma screen image?

Hello! Read through here a number of times and have found a few posts similar to the problem I'm seeing but I still think my case might be fairly uncommon. I'm a new plasma owner, bought the Panny TH-37PX60U and it looks great EXCEPT for the first 10-20 minutes it's turned on. During that time, pretty much the entire screen is blotchy. I can clearly see image retention in terms of banners or logos for a few minutes, but over the course of about 10-20 minutes the screen clears out. After that the picture is pretty good.

But during that first 10-20 minutes, especially immediately after turning the set on, the picture is a nearly unwatchable mess of multicolored pixels that generally seem to retain the brightest spots on screen. I've got my picture and contrast turned down to below 0, and when I turn them up - from say 10+, the blotchiness goes away for the most part, but I can't help but feel that the image my set is displaying is simply not right.

Can anyone corroborate a similar picture on their set, especially during the first 10-20 minutes of watching? The blotchiness has definitely gotten worse since I bought the set less than 2 weeks ago.

Thanks!

What is your Sharpness setting at? Turn it down to 0 or below.

Too bad that FOX has the World Series. I tried watching the All-Star game and I knew that that white bar across the top was gonna leave IR, and sure enough it did. It goes away but what the hell good is a TV if you can't watch it. Will never buy plasma again.

Hello everyone -

First off, sorry if this is a bad question that has been answered before - I did a bit of searching, but didn't find it directly addressed.

When we talk about burn in of static images (i.e. a CNN logo or a health/status bar on an Xbox360 game)...

Is the effect of these two scenarios the same:
1) leaving the set on the same station for 100 hours straight (extreme example for the purpose of my question(
2) watching that station every day 1 hour for 100 days.

What I'm getting at is - if I am playing a game all the time, but for shorter, 1-2 hour stints, am I going to have to worry about burn in as much? Does the burn in occur only if we are talking about the image being there for long periods of uninterrupted time, or if its something there conistenty for an hour or so on a daily basis?

I'm about ready to jump into buying a plasma over an LCD simply because I am so much more impressed with the deep colors, brightness and great contrast, but being a gamer and a news junkie (CNN, msnbc) has been keeping me up at nights with worry about getting burn in.

The TV I am looking at (the Maxent MX-42HPM20 at Costco for 1499 - my absolute max price range) has pixel shift and white screen functions.

My basic viewing habits are -
lots of channel surfing, changing the channel every few minutes
lots of gaming, but for 1-2 hours at a time max
lots of stations with no static images for most of the day

Does burn in even sound like a concern for me?

Any answers to my question about the nature of burn in (the initial question at the top of the post) or what kind of concerns I should have about burn in based on my viewing habits would be extremely appreciated. I need a new TV in a matter of 1-2 days and have been driving myself crazy trying to find answers to these questions (stumbling across this forum is like finding gold). :D

Thanks!

Hello everyone -

First off, sorry if this is a bad question that has been answered before - I did a bit of searching, but didn't find it directly addressed.

When we talk about burn in of static images (i.e. a CNN logo or a health/status bar on an Xbox360 game)...

Is the effect of these two scenarios the same:
1) leaving the set on the same station for 100 hours straight (extreme example for the purpose of my question(
2) watching that station every day 1 hour for 100 days.

What I'm getting at is - if I am playing a game all the time, but for shorter, 1-2 hour stints, am I going to have to worry about burn in as much? Does the burn in occur only if we are talking about the image being there for long periods of uninterrupted time, or if its something there conistenty for an hour or so on a daily basis?

I'm about ready to jump into buying a plasma over an LCD simply because I am so much more impressed with the deep colors, brightness and great contrast, but being a gamer and a news junkie (CNN, msnbc) has been keeping me up at nights with worry about getting burn in.

The TV I am looking at (the Maxent MX-42HPM20 at Costco for 1499 - my absolute max price range) has pixel shift and white screen functions.

My basic viewing habits are -
lots of channel surfing, changing the channel every few minutes
lots of gaming, but for 1-2 hours at a time max
lots of stations with no static images for most of the day

Does burn in even sound like a concern for me?

Any answers to my question about the nature of burn in (the initial question at the top of the post) or what kind of concerns I should have about burn in based on my viewing habits would be extremely appreciated. I need a new TV in a matter of 1-2 days and have been driving myself crazy trying to find answers to these questions (stumbling across this forum is like finding gold). :D

Thanks!


For that price you can just about get a westinghouse 42" lcd 1080p and not have to worry about burn in/ IR. IF I had to do it all over again, I'd get that. Not as great of a picture as plasmas, but then again, no worries either.

What is ment by contouring in a plasma screen image?I'm not sure but the standard definition for contour is the outline of an image... which by your description sounds like the outline of some image is being retained on a PDP display.

I tend to watch some shows with closed captioning on the tv screen. Is that going to be one of the things which would cause image retention? My set won't be delivered until Saturday, so I have no experience with it. Thnx

I find this thread very helpful in making my flat panel purchase decision. I'm addicted to the PS2 game World Soccer Winning Eleven 9. I spent hours playing it and editing the teams. Since this game has a static scoreboard and a static radar map of the field, I already know that the 8+ hours I put into this game a week is just a recipe for Burn-In if I were to buy a plasma. So, I've decided to buy an LCD because of my habits. If I wasn't such an avid gamer, I would have gone Plasma but you make your purchasing decision based on you viewing habit. And for my needs, LCD is probably the best way to go until SED sets are available.

What is your Sharpness setting at? Turn it down to 0 or below.

I do have the sharpness at 0 at the moment. Picture and brightness are at -1 just for kicks.

FWIW, I talked to Panasonic last night and they told me there was nothing wrong with the set. Similar to other info you might find looking at this forum or elsewhere, the guy said that the phosphors are new and take some time to get used to the energy input, and that a few minutes of image retention or blotchiness when turning the set on is normal until that happens, ca. 100 - 200 hours or so.

Why don't plasma manufacturer's break in Plasma sets before you buy them. I would figure guaranteeing a proper break in period for these sets will the reduce the number of burn in complaints that they are getting from average Joe users that have no knowledge that they need to break in the set properly before using them.

Why don't plasma manufacturer's break in Plasma sets before you buy them. I would figure guaranteeing a proper break in period for these sets will the reduce the number of burn in complaints that they are getting from average Joe users that have no knowledge that they need to break in the set properly before using them.

Agreed. As a selling point, as well, you'd think a consumer's initial experience with their television would be negatively skewed by break in times. Though, I'm a little convinced what I see on my set is probably a little unusual...

It's probably not cost-effective to break in the sets during manufacture anyways.

that's like asking Toyota to drive their cars around awhile before shipping them out to dealers. if I'm paying 5K for a new device...it better be "new".

In my opinion One must really try hard to make same burn in

Hello everyone. I just purchased a Panasonic PX60U, delivered on Monday 7/10, and have a few newbie questions, Sorry if it is already covered. This thread is just too big to read (I did read like 10 pages) and I do have life to live :-)

1) Display calibration/Break-in DVD: who makes it, where do i get it from? Can I get this from Panasonic?

2) ScreenSaver: Is this available on my PX60U? If yes, how do i access it?

3) Pixel shifting technology: Does the PX60U model have pixel shifting technology to prevent burn-in/IR?

4) SideBars: How do I change the color, where is the setting for this?

5) Picture Settings: I currently have mode = normal, and all the other settings set to zero, is that good enough? Also, I am using the "just" setting for the SD channels.

6) Hour used: How do I get to view this, what menus is it located on?

Thanks!

Hi gang-

I've read through as many of these posts as I can, but I just wanted to be sure. I've got a Pio Elite 1130 coming this weekend. I plan to use the break-in settings posted here, but I thought I should ask you about the potential risk of burn in from the local PBS station.

We probably watch about one hour per day of On Demand children's programming from our lical PBS station. It has a static image in the lower right corner that is blue and green (the color does not appear to change, and it is not transparent). Will this sort of viewing behavior be likely to lead to burn in?

It seems like the obvious answer is yes, but i keep seeing people post that burn-in is an overstated issue with current plasmas so I'm a bit confused.

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

that's like asking Toyota to drive their cars around awhile before shipping them out to dealers. if I'm paying 5K for a new device...it better be "new".

Yeah but Toyota assumes that if you can buy their car you have a license to drive and know how to operate it without running it off the road. Average Joe buyer has no idea how to break in a Plasma TV. Treating a Plasma is nothing like the CRT TV's everyone has own in some point in their lives. I believe that once the break in period is over the plasma TV is more resistant to IR and burn in. So why can't TV makers sell the TVs in a state in which it's more resistant.

Hi gang-

I've read through as many of these posts as I can, but I just wanted to be sure. I've got a Pio Elite 1130 coming this weekend. I plan to use the break-in settings posted here, but I thought I should ask you about the potential risk of burn in from the local PBS station.

We probably watch about one hour per day of On Demand children's programming from our lical PBS station. It has a static image in the lower right corner that is blue and green (the color does not appear to change, and it is not transparent). Will this sort of viewing behavior be likely to lead to burn in?

It seems like the obvious answer is yes, but i keep seeing people post that burn-in is an overstated issue with current plasmas so I'm a bit confused.

Thanks, in advance, for your help.
Just lower your contrast 20-30 and run is standard mode with everything 0. +/- . Don't use dynamic mode with everything turn all the way up. After 100+ hrs you should be fine but I would calibrate

Hi gang-

I've read through as many of these posts as I can, but I just wanted to be sure. I've got a Pio Elite 1130 coming this weekend. I plan to use the break-in settings posted here, but I thought I should ask you about the potential risk of burn in from the local PBS station.

We probably watch about one hour per day of On Demand children's programming from our lical PBS station. It has a static image in the lower right corner that is blue and green (the color does not appear to change, and it is not transparent). Will this sort of viewing behavior be likely to lead to burn in?

It seems like the obvious answer is yes, but i keep seeing people post that burn-in is an overstated issue with current plasmas so I'm a bit confused.

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

In my opinion you won't have a permanent problem on one hour per day. I have had NO problem with the more transparent images. The solid ones can cause some IR, but again, at one hour I would not be worried.

Anyones screen hot for the first couple days of usage when breaking in? You could feel the heat radiating from my screen for the first 25 hours or so of break in but now around 40 you cant feel it at all

Is it advisable to run the pattern screen (I have a Sammy s4253) for extended period, like 2 - 4 hrs, continuously in order to break-in the plasma?
I am at around 25 hrs now and was thinking the pattern screen is the most even distribution of ligth/brightness across all the phosphors on the screen.

Any inputs on this?

I have the 4243 Sammy. All I did was watch for IR, and when I saw it I would run the pattern until it faded. Only had to do it a couple times.

My 4271 new I watch word cup soccer and plays hours of xbox.I waited 25 hrs then could no longer. I game all the time and watch hdtv news logo's there. The tv goes to commercial and with the settings low way less chance for IR if any. JME

Hello...

I posted a few days ago (Post No. 1497) detailing a scenario of perceived burn-in or image retention on my Panasonic 50" plasma 60U. After about two weeks, I can say that it appears the Fox Sports score banner that was visible on my screen appears to be gone. I think it mostly faded away within a few days. So, hopefully, this was just a case of image retention and not permanent burn-in. Sadly, I will think twice about watching sports on Fox after this...

Which leads me to my question. I am contemplating buying the Panasonic 32LX600 for my rec room, and wanted to make sure that permanent burn-in is not a problem with LCD screens. I know LCD screens have their own issues, but I will be using this TV predominantly for XBox 360, letterboxed movies, and the occassional game or program that I am now a little squeamish to watch for a long time on my plasma. I am correct in thinking that LCDs do not have burn-in problems, right? And what about IR? Is it just temporary and will eventually go away? Knowing what I plan to use the TV for, can someone tell me if I am making a good decision re: the LCD TV? Thanks in advance...

Hello...

I posted a few days ago (Post No. 1497) detailing a scenario of perceived burn-in or image retention on my Panasonic 50" plasma 60U. After about two weeks, I can say that it appears the Fox Sports score banner that was visible on my screen appears to be gone. I think it mostly faded away within a few days. So, hopefully, this was just a case of image retention and not permanent burn-in. Sadly, I will think twice about watching sports on Fox after this...

Which leads me to my question. I am contemplating buying the Panasonic 32LX600 for my rec room, and wanted to make sure that permanent burn-in is not a problem with LCD screens. I know LCD screens have their own issues, but I will be using this TV predominantly for XBox 360, letterboxed movies, and the occassional game or program that I am now a little squeamish to watch for a long time on my plasma. I am correct in thinking that LCDs do not have burn-in problems, right? And what about IR? Is it just temporary and will eventually go away? Knowing what I plan to use the TV for, can someone tell me if I am making a good decision re: the LCD TV? Thanks in advance...

Thanks for updating us. The more this thread goes on, it is becoming clearer that permanent damage to one of these new plasmas is indeed rare, if it happens at all under normal viewing.

I keep a pretty close eye on the thread, and the consensus seems to be that permanent damage to the LCD is not a concern. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

By the way, I'm over 300 hours now on my Samsung plasma and I notice that IR, even a little, is a real rarity now.

I'm considering returning my 50" visio (mainly because of 1080i vert. overscan). What shall I replace with? Sharp "45 lcd maybey? Is this pannel worth the extra cost? Can someone please advise of zoom capabilities on this set 'if any', as this feature is very important to me.

I'm considering returning my 50" visio (mainly because of 1080i vert. overscan). What shall I replace with? Sharp "45 lcd maybey? Is this pannel worth the extra cost? Can someone please advise of zoom capabilities on this set 'if any', as this feature is very important to me.What does this have to do with burn-in? :confused:

got over 450 hours on my panel now (samsung hp-4253). The start burnin from my pc has faded to almost nothing. Accidently left my game on pause for 30 minutes.... (woops) came back and no IR. Got my pixel shift set to 4/4/1 though so that might have helped. I was about ready to drop another 2g's into a lcd for a moniter, but this has got my spirits up. I may just use this set for my moniter until the 1080p lcd's drop down in price.


Anyways anyone else have their panel for 500+ hours and loving it? I have a feeling I'm gonna be enjoying the set for a long long time to come. I was so worried about burnins and stuff cuz the first 100 hours everything left IR even with the contrast down/ and the brightness down. Now I hardly see it.

How about this, my pixel shift function wasn't working!!


I have the samsung hp-s4253 and enabled the pixel shift through the menu options. I set it to 4, 4, 1 as I thought this would move the pixles the most, causing it less likely to burnin/ or get IR.

Well I watched the screen closly and nothing was happening. I always wondered what that did, since I couldn't see it, I thought maybe it was doing something I couldn't see to help prevent burn in.


Well I was wrong. Yesterday I was messing around with the calibration menus (power off, mute, 182, power on) and found a pixel test that I set to 1. Automatically my screen starts shifting every second moving in different directions.

I'm wondeing if this has to be enabled for pixel shift function to work? Cuz if it does, not alot of people know how to get into the calibration service menu to do it, and I figured some people would like to know. I'm gonna play some games with it enabled tonight, some with large static images just to see if it leaves any IR.

Hey greenman; can you turn off the dnie function by going into the service menu? and do you know if theres a way to check how many hours of use you have on your set?
thanks!

Hey greenman; can you turn off the dnie function by going into the service menu? and do you know if theres a way to check how many hours of use you have on your set?
thanks!



yes the regular menu you can turn it on/ demo/ off.

And to check your hours of usage, turn off the set, hit mute, 1,8,2, then power, then go to Option Byte, then at the bottom it says your panel display time.

got over 450 hours on my panel now (samsung hp-4253). The start burnin from my pc has faded to almost nothing. Accidently left my game on pause for 30 minutes.... (woops) came back and no IR. Got my pixel shift set to 4/4/1 though so that might have helped. I was about ready to drop another 2g's into a lcd for a moniter, but this has got my spirits up. I may just use this set for my moniter until the 1080p lcd's drop down in price.


Anyways anyone else have their panel for 500+ hours and loving it? I have a feeling I'm gonna be enjoying the set for a long long time to come. I was so worried about burnins and stuff cuz the first 100 hours everything left IR even with the contrast down/ and the brightness down. Now I hardly see it.

Greenman,

Thanks for the update. I think your case was probably the most extreme case during a break in (colored static image). Glad to hear it is resolving, and please let us know IF it clears completely.

Thanks,

hltr

Is it advisable to run the pattern screen (I have a Sammy s4253) for extended period, like 2 - 4 hrs, continuously in order to break-in the plasma?
I am at around 25 hrs now and was thinking the pattern screen is the most even distribution of ligth/brightness across all the phosphors on the screen.

Any inputs on this?

You could do it I suppose, but I don't know if it will be doing anything for you. I would simply view normally and check the pattern screen every now and then to see if there is any IR. If there is, let it run.

yes the regular menu you can turn it on/ demo/ off.

And to check your hours of usage, turn off the set, hit mute, 1,8,2, then power, then go to Option Byte, then at the bottom it says your panel display time.

Greenman, Thanks for that info. I was looking for that myself.
There is a lot of info in the callibration menu.
Any particular ones that are "useful" ?
I mean, have you (or anybody in here) changed any other settings on this menu?
I believe I had read about one setting that somebody changed for the pixel shifting function to work properly.

Any idea?

Apologize if I am diverging from the Burn-in topic here.

Greenman, Thanks for that info. I was looking for that myself.
There is a lot of info in the callibration menu.
Any particular ones that are "useful" ?
I mean, have you (or anybody in here) changed any other settings on this menu?
I believe I had read about one setting that somebody changed for the pixel shifting function to work properly.

Any idea?

Apologize if I am diverging from the Burn-in topic here.

Try posting it here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=667231

Hi all,
I have a 1 month old Hitachi 42" plasma which I set up out of the box with brightness/contrast/etc. at 50% or less levels (I read up about this stuff before even buying the set). I'm guessing it still has less than 100 hours on it.

Unless I've missed something important, it seems that "burn-in" (or even image retention) is when you can see an image or pattern on a white/light screen that shouldn't be there. My problem is related but opposite. After watching SportsCenter and then Baseball Tonight on ESPN HD for a few (2? 3?) hours, I can now faintly see the ESPN logo as a lighter area on a black screen instead of the opposite, and cannot get rid of it.

To be clear about this, when viewing a bright screen like the "screen wipe" feature of my TV, or regular programming, I see nothing. And from the normal viewing distance, on a black screen you have to be looking right at it and know what you're looking for, but as you approach the screen, it's clearly there.

I have followed all the advice I've found hunting through this and other forums, but nothing seems to work. I used the pixel shifting screen saver that Hitachi and other brands use from the beginning, because my wife likes to play PS2 games, but all that did was make the ESPN logo blurry instead of sharp (probably a good thing in the long run). I've used the screen wipe several times, for periods of time as long as 5 hours, and left the TV playing colorful, changing programming that fills the screen with no logos for extended periods.

Is this a form of image retention? Is it irreversible burn-in? If it's reversible, what could I try that I haven't tried yet? A longer wipe? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Brad

Brad,

How long ago did this happen, and how long do you estimate that the logo was on the screen that resulted in this image retention?

How long ago did this happen, and how long do you estimate that the logo was on the screen that resulted in this image retention?

hltr,
I can't say exactly, but I'd guess it was between 2 and 3 hours of viewing (on a station that continues to show its logo/ticker even during some commercial breaks) about 10 days ago.

Thanks,
-Brad

I have to say I'm surprised that five hours of running the screen wipe did not clear it. Did it at least fade?

I have to say I'm surprised that five hours of running the screen wipe did not clear it. Did it at least fade?

It's really hard to objectively say how much better it might be now compared to when I first noticed it. My honest assessment is that the first time I did a wipe for more than 10 minutes--it was about 1 hour--the logo and surrounding box faded noticeably. That was probably a week ago, and I remember thinking, "Good, it looks like it's going away." My most recent long-duration wipe was today, when I left it on the bright gray "wipe" screen for 5 hours, and I don't see any noticeable change. Perhaps it is better, but since I'm so paranoid about it now, maybe nothing is going to seem "better" until it's gone. But the bottom line is, faded or not, it's still there.

I appreciate your attention to my problem. :)

Thanks,
-Brad

will a plasma or lcd tv burn in after 8 hours of constant image?

for example, i left my crt tv on today all day, about 8 hours on the same image, a TWC menu.

What is ment by "contouring" when some reviewers talk about plasma screens?

Brad,

I would leave it on INHD tonight if you have it. Just one guys opinion.

I would leave it on INHD tonight if you have it. Just one guys opinion.

hltr,
I either don't have it or have never watched it. What's INHD?

:o

I have my HD channels through Dish Network...
Thanks again,
-Brad

I get INHD on Comcast. It fills the screen 24/7 with HD so that might be a good idea for clearing your image retention. Maybe you have something similar with Dish.

I get INHD on Comcast. It fills the screen 24/7 with HD so that might be a good idea for clearing your image retention. Maybe you have something similar with Dish.

Thanks for the tip. Sounds like INHD is to Comcast customers what HDNet is to Dish subscribers. I have yet to leave my TV on for that long a time, but I will give it a shot and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks again,
-Brad

Brad,

Good luck and please give us an update.

Hi all,
My problem is related but opposite. After watching SportsCenter and then Baseball Tonight on ESPN HD for a few (2? 3?) hours, I can now faintly see the ESPN logo as a lighter area on a black screen instead of the opposite, and cannot get rid of it.


I am also curious to hear more about this "opposite" burn-in effect where the IR ghosts lighter over darker images....

I have used the "break-in DVD" for well over 60 hours in the first 150 hours of time on my Pioneer 4360.
I mixed the break-in DVD with other movies set to "zoom" mode to avoid black bars for now...
(I am still under 200 hours)
I have the propper low contrast setttings for break-in.

I am convinced that my blacks are not as "black" as they were when I first turned on the display.
The whole screen even seems "greyer" when it is turned off.
Is it possible that I am having a similar effect with the full screen images of the "break-in DVD" essentially burnining in and creating a wash over black images?

or am I just trippin'? :p

thnx

I am convinced that my blacks are not as "black" as they were when I first turned on the display.

I also have a Pioneer 4361HD with around 175 hours and still using break-inn settings and I also think my blacks are also not black enough but more greyish/black. This is more apparent on SD channels (through HDMI), however on HD channels the black's are acceptable. BTW I had a Sony tube tv before my Pioneer and blacks on that set oustanding. Could it be that I'm expecting too much from a plasma?

I also have a Pioneer 4361HD with around 175 hours and still using break-inn settings and I also think my blacks are also not black enough but more greyish/black. This is more apparent on SD channels (through HDMI), however on HD channels the black's are acceptable. BTW I had a Sony tube tv before my Pioneer and blacks on that set oustanding. Could it be that I'm expecting too much from a plasma?

But were your blacks "always" greyish, or have you noticed them get washed out over time?
I think the blacks are still pretty impressive, my fear is just that I am not sure if it is possible for the balcks to get "washed out" over time.

how "black" is your display when it is turned off?
Mine is clearly a dark grey when compared to the totally back bezel when turned off.
The blacks can't get any blacker then when it is turned off... and even then it isn't tottally black.
I wish there were still 4360s in the stores so I could turn one off and check it, to confirm that mine isn't retaining some over all lighter image or something...

Good luck and please give us an update.

Well, I'm sorry to say that an extended overnight on Discovery HD didn't change my ESPN logo issue in the slightest. I'm considering contacting Hitachi customer service, since this seems to be a different problem than the greatly feared burn-in, but I'm still open to suggestions from the forum. I do understand that if Hitachi considers this abuse rather than malfunction it won't be covered by my warranty, but at least it's only visible when that portion of the screen is totally dark -- and that doesn't happen much in regular programming.

Thanks for your help and patience,
-Brad

Brad,

You may want to see if there is a Hitachi thread and post there for some advice.

hltr

P.S. Please post if there is any change, etc.

You may want to see if there is a Hitachi thread and post there for some advice.

hltr

P.S. Please post if there is any change, etc.

Hi hltr,
Actually, there's even a thread for that particular model line of Hitachi plasmas. ;) As of right now, it's also 54 pages long, so suffice it to say I casually browsed. Didn't see anything directly related to my problem, but did find out how to see how many hours my TV has on it. I was a little surprised to see 170 and counting (guess I've watched more movies than I thought!).

Ok, for those following my story, here's an update. I called Hitachi Tech Support, gave the full story with all the details, answered their questions, etc. Long story short... he said it sounds like I was doing everything right, he wasn't familiar with this issue at all, and told me I should have a service technician come look at it since it's obviously still under warranty.

So I called the service shop authorized to do Hitachi warranty repairs. Told the story again, answered his questions, etc. He didn't say he'd never heard of the problem (sorry for the double negative), but didn't say he had either. Just matter-of-factly said it's burn-in. He has to call Hitachi's engineering department and get their decision on what they'll pay for, but he did mention that the only thing to do is replace the screen.

None of the story so far has come as a surprise to me. But I am surprised by what he didn't say. If you'll notice, he didn't say that there's no way my warranty will cover what needs to be done. I fully expected him to hear my description and say "Sorry, burn-in is considered your fault and is never covered by warranties." So perhaps this reverse burn-in thing is a rare but known issue and is accepted as a device problem, not user abuse. I probably shouldn't try to guess what's going to happen next, since there's always the chance that the combination of Hitachi's warranty and engineering departments (both of which the service guy has to consult) will refuse to pay even for the initial visit.

Stay tuned...
-Brad

Well I have my first taste of IR, not worried about it at all. I have been waiting to play games on my 5060 til the NCAA Football game came out. I bought this at the end of May and have put well over 200 hours on it. (Can't get into service menu for some reason) The ticker with the score on the game left some IR, it is not visible except with a totally white screen. Very faint though but I only played about 1.5 hours so I am glad I seen it. Anyways just thought I would pass that along.

I am also curious to hear more about this "opposite" burn-in effect where the IR ghosts lighter over darker images....

I have used the "break-in DVD" for well over 60 hours in the first 150 hours of time on my Pioneer 4360.
I mixed the break-in DVD with other movies set to "zoom" mode to avoid black bars for now...
(I am still under 200 hours)
I have the propper low contrast setttings for break-in.

I am convinced that my blacks are not as "black" as they were when I first turned on the display.
The whole screen even seems "greyer" when it is turned off.
Is it possible that I am having a similar effect with the full screen images of the "break-in DVD" essentially burnining in and creating a wash over black images?

or am I just trippin'? :p

thnx

I've got a Panny 42PX60u & followed pretty much the same procedure you did. Now have about 180 Hrs on it & I too see this effect. Until I saw these posts I thought I was imagining things. I had the contrast / brightness controls set low for burn in & up to a day or so ago colors still looked full / vibrant. About a day ago the picture seemed slightly 'washed out'. If I play with the contrast / brightness I can minimize it, but suspect the panel just doesn't display blacks anywhere near what it did a while ago.

I do notice that when I turn the set on (without a source going into it turned on) the panel gets noticeably brighter than when the set is off. This is independent of the contrast & brightness settings. They can be turned all the way down & you still see a slight wash out without any source input (should be black screen). I swear it wasn't like this 50 hours ago or so. I really liked the picture but am getting discouraged between worrying about watching 4:3 content, I haven't been watching ball games because of the constant score banners displayed for 2 to 3 hours at a streach. To tell the truth, I'm strongly considering returning it & going back to an LCD but just don't know yet.

From your post I take it that your screen is 'darker' when turned on without a signal vs when it's off ?? That seems to be the opposite of what I'm seeing.

One more observation on the 'black wash out / reverse burn-in' topic. I stopped by Sears today & they had a Panny returned unit on the shelf marked down. The whole picture was greyish / washed out. When 4:3 content was displayed the sidebars were nowhere near as black as the new 42PX60U next to it. Is this really a phenomenon with Plasma's? Does the black level degrade as they accumulate hours? From the above posts & what I saw at Sears this doesn't seem to be an isolated incident.

So I called the service shop authorized to do Hitachi warranty repairs. Told the story again, answered his questions, etc. He didn't say he'd never heard of the problem (sorry for the double negative), but didn't say he had either. Just matter-of-factly said it's burn-in. He has to call Hitachi's engineering department and get their decision on what they'll pay for, but he did mention that the only thing to do is replace the screen.

None of the story so far has come as a surprise to me. But I am surprised by what he didn't say. If you'll notice, he didn't say that there's no way my warranty will cover what needs to be done. I fully expected him to hear my description and say "Sorry, burn-in is considered your fault and is never covered by warranties." So perhaps this reverse burn-in thing is a rare but known issue and is accepted as a device problem, not user abuse. I probably shouldn't try to guess what's going to happen next, since there's always the chance that the combination of Hitachi's warranty and engineering departments (both of which the service guy has to consult) will refuse to pay even for the initial visit.

Stay tuned...
-Brad

Wow, well I think all of this is a first for this thread. I hope it turns out well. I think we will all be interested to hear about it.

I've got a Panny 42PX60u & followed pretty much the same procedure you did. Now have about 180 Hrs on it & I too see this effect. Until I saw these posts I thought I was imagining things. I had the contrast / brightness controls set low for burn in & up to a day or so ago colors still looked full / vibrant. About a day ago the picture seemed slightly 'washed out'. If I play with the contrast / brightness I can minimize it, but suspect the panel just doesn't display blacks anywhere near what it did a while ago.

I do notice that when I turn the set on (without a source going into it turned on) the panel gets noticeably brighter than when the set is off. This is independent of the contrast & brightness settings. They can be turned all the way down & you still see a slight wash out without any source input (should be black screen). I swear it wasn't like this 50 hours ago or so. I really liked the picture but am getting discouraged between worrying about watching 4:3 content, I haven't been watching ball games because of the constant score banners displayed for 2 to 3 hours at a streach. To tell the truth, I'm strongly considering returning it & going back to an LCD but just don't know yet.

From your post I take it that your screen is 'darker' when turned on without a signal vs when it's off ?? That seems to be the opposite of what I'm seeing.

It is werid that none of the plasma gurus are responding to these posts regarding the "break-in DVD" possibly causing this "wash out" of the blacks...
maybe it is just our minds playing tricks on us...

I have heard that it is theoretically possible to use a static white image to break-in a plasma.
You could leave it on for hours and not have burn-in because the pixels are being aged symmetrically, so there will not be any thing to cause IR or burn-in.
The big reason the "break-in DVD" alternates colours, is simply to reduce heat and energy consumption by alternating the pixles that are on at any given time.

One could also argue that a plasma was never designed to have every single pixel at full brightness for extended periods, so a full white screen for extended periods could cause other unforeseen damage related to over heating and/or over loading of the electronics.

Anyway - bottom line, based on the thoery of a symetrical pixel aging causing burn-in, a full screen white image should not be a harmfull way to age the pixles, UNLESS the white itself is burning in; but this goes against everything I thought I understood about burn-in.

Anyone care to enlighten us?

For now, I have shelved the "break-in DVD" and am trying to convince myself my blacks are fine when watching full screen zoomed DVDs to get myself though the rest of the break-in period.

thanks

I am also curious to hear more about this "opposite" burn-in effect where the IR ghosts lighter over darker images....

I have used the "break-in DVD" for well over 60 hours in the first 150 hours of time on my Pioneer 4360.
I mixed the break-in DVD with other movies set to "zoom" mode to avoid black bars for now...
(I am still under 200 hours)
I have the propper low contrast setttings for break-in.

I am convinced that my blacks are not as "black" as they were when I first turned on the display.
The whole screen even seems "greyer" when it is turned off.
Is it possible that I am having a similar effect with the full screen images of the "break-in DVD" essentially burnining in and creating a wash over black images?

or am I just trippin'? :p

thnx


BLACKS are just as BLACK !! It's just that now you are complacent with them and they are not a head turner as when you first saw them.
This is true with anything. a perfect example would be when you first paint a room and the color wows you, give it a couple weeks and it's NOT as impressive as before.

One cautionary note. Constant exposure to your PDP by sunlight WILL diminish the way colors look. I've seen this happen in real life.

BLACKS are just as BLACK !! It's just that now you are complacent with them and they are not a head turner as when you first saw them.
This is true with anything. a perfect example would be when you first paint a room and the color wows you, give it a couple weeks and it's NOT as impressive as before.

One cautionary note. Constant exposure to your PDP by sunlight WILL diminish the way colors look. I've seen this happen in real life.

When I power up the set without a source turned on the 'black' background gets visibly lighter. I also can see a slightly further lightening in the upper left hand corner. Kind of like an LCD's backlight bleed-thru if you know what I mean. Nothing extreme, but it is very noticible. Is this normal ? In the store yesterday I turned a 42PX60U off & on a couple of times watching the screen & didn't notice any lightening beyond what the panel looked like in it's 'off' condition, but the high ambient light could have made it hard to see.

Now, it's possible that this effect was there all along & I didn't notice it before & am complacent as you state, but it sure seems that the lower settings (Cinema) is more washed out than when it was new ~ 200 operating hours ago.

I was also playing with Avia, trying to optimize at home & found that the picture setting (white level) could be run up to end of scale (+30) without washing out the whites on this set. That's got to be too bright, is that what you guys see when you calibrate ? If so, how do you set the white level. I can't turn it up to where one of the the moving vertical bars starts to dissapear & then back off since both bars are visible still at the sets highest settings.

I know the generally held theory is "with LCD's you do not have to worry about burn-in" and that in-itself will sway some to buy one tv over another. As an observation I spent about 4 hours yesterday in the Salt Lake City airport (flight delay). The airport, about 8 months ago, installed all new LCD flat panel monitors, much to my surprised ever single monitor had a terrible case of burn-in or image retention (whatever you want to call it). Some of the burn-in was so bad you could see it from 40 feet away. I have to admit I was surprised to see how bad it was. Has anybody else seen these monitors in an airport? That experience alone showed me that those who claim that LCD's don't burn-in have no idea what they are talking about.

I was also playing with Avia, trying to optimize at home & found that the picture setting (white level) could be run up to end of scale (+30) without washing out the whites on this set. That's got to be too bright, is that what you guys see when you calibrate ? If so, how do you set the white level. I can't turn it up to where one of the the moving vertical bars starts to dissapear & then back off since both bars are visible still at the sets highest settings.

I too noticed this with Avia. The color, tint, and sharpness seem to fall into "reasonable" levels after calibration, but the contrast/picture and brightness are near the maximum end of the scale. I just said "no way" to myself and pulled them back down to a little left of center.

And I still got burn-in. Oh well, so much for being careful.

Speaking of Avia,
I've had this disc around for years, and it was fine for my CRT television and audio system. But reusing it for calibrating my new plasma TV, have you noticed that in the video section, they talk about "new" technologies but don't even mention plasma by name? I wonder if maybe this disc should not be used for plasma calibration. If it shouldn't be, then why is it still one of the two main recommendations?

Thanks,
-Brad

I get a pixelation on only one digital channel about every 3 minutes in the evening. Any idea what my problem might be? Im using Direct TV HD service. And they say there is not network problem they know of.

I get a pixelation on only one digital channel about every 3 minutes in the evening. Any idea what my problem might be? Im using Direct TV HD service. And they say there is not network problem they know of.

Now Im answering my own question. LOL. Sorry for that. But after DirecTV ran a test on my reception they decided that the problem was with the dish connection and is sending someone next week to straighten it out for me. :)

I know the generally held theory is "with LCD's you do not have to worry about burn-in" and that in-itself will sway some to buy one tv over another. As an observation I spent about 4 hours yesterday in the Salt Lake City airport (flight delay). The airport, about 8 months ago, installed all new LCD flat panel monitors, much to my surprised ever single monitor had a terrible case of burn-in or image retention (whatever you want to call it). Some of the burn-in was so bad you could see it from 40 feet away. I have to admit I was surprised to see how bad it was. Has anybody else seen these monitors in an airport? That experience alone showed me that those who claim that LCD's don't burn-in have no idea what they are talking about.

I'm not doubting or questioning what you saw, just looking for more info.

How do you know they were LCD?
Do you know what brand/models they are?
What are the screens used for?
What is being displayed on the screen?
What was burned into the screen?
Any other info would be appreciated.

Hey guys, I'm torn between getting a plasma tv or a dlp projection. I know all the specs and everything for both. I was leaning towards the plama, but all of this burn in crap is freaking me out LOL. Is it that bad? This is going to be my first purchase of a HDTV.

Basically, I watch movies all of the time. A lot of the movies I watch are in 2:35, so there will be black bars even on the widescreen. Do these black bars burn in? If so, how long does it take? If I pause the movie and change the channel just to get it off of the black bars for awhile, how long does it take for the pixels to refresh?

Also, what is the rainbow effect for DLPs? I am kind of new at this and would appreciate some advice. Thanks.

The panels were LG and it stated LCD on the monitors. The monitors where used for flight information, gate, time, etc. On those panels you could clearly read "on time" for every flight.Other panels where introducing you to the city events, on these you could see various logos burnt in. All of the panels appeared to be 42" size monitors. It still blows me away.

does anyone have any advice for playing the 360 on a 42hp66? I just got a new one and I am worried about burn in and ir. Is it ok to play it on this tv? Thanks for any advice.

I just picked up a 50 inch panny from costco- and have been carefully readingthrough these threads- one thing-I hear alot about running a white screen incase of IR- How would I go about doing that? thanks
thetman

does anyone have any advice for playing the 360 on a 42hp66? I just got a new one and I am worried about burn in and ir. Is it ok to play it on this tv? Thanks for any advice.

I turned my contrast and brightness all the way down and after 1.5 hours of playing for the first time. I has some IR, so I moved it to my lcd in my bedroom. I then left my HD DVD running after I fell asleep and I am still trying to get rid of the IR left on the screen it has almost gone away.

Forgive me if this has been asked before -
Scanning through the manual for my new Samsung LN-S3251D and I see that it warns about burn in if I watch TV in 4:3 or have static images on the screen for extended periods. It tells me that 4:3 viewing should be under 15% of total viewing time...

I got an LCD because I didn't want to worry about burn in...seeing this in the manual was very discouraging as I use 4:3 a lot for regular cable since I hate seeing something distorted and stretched out to 16:9 when it isn't formatted for it...

Can anyone give me some information as to why this warning is here? Are they using text cut and pasted from a plasma manual, with the words "plasma" replaced with "LCD"?

Should I really be worried about gaming, channel logos, etc, on the LCD?

Thanks for your help!

Forgive me if this has been asked before -
Scanning through the manual for my new Samsung LN-S3251D and I see that it warns about burn in if I watch TV in 4:3 or have static images on the screen for extended periods. It tells me that 4:3 viewing should be under 15% of total viewing time...

I got an LCD because I didn't want to worry about burn in...seeing this in the manual was very discouraging as I use 4:3 a lot for regular cable since I hate seeing something distorted and stretched out to 16:9 when it isn't formatted for it...

Can anyone give me some information as to why this warning is here? Are they using text cut and pasted from a plasma manual, with the words "plasma" replaced with "LCD"?

Should I really be worried about gaming, channel logos, etc, on the LCD?

Thanks for your help!

Look at posts 1623 & 1630....seems as if LCDs can also experience burn-in. Airports are definitely bad examples since those monitors will be on 24/7/365 with relatively the same images the entire time.

I have an LCD on my desktop computer...its on nearly 24 hours a day, and granted there are screensavers, power saving stuff, etc...but I've got no trace of any burn in after over 1.5 years of a LOT of use...no hint of the taskbar, etc. I'm guessing whatever burn in may take place is going to take a long, long, long time and they probably included it in the manual to cover themselves warranty-wise maybe?

I have an LCD on my desktop computer...its on nearly 24 hours a day, and granted there are screensavers, power saving stuff, etc...but I've got no trace of any burn in after over 1.5 years of a LOT of use...no hint of the taskbar, etc.

This was something I was going to mention as well. I too use screen savers and put my computer to sleep when not in use, but there are times I'm working on the computer for hours at a time. In cases like this, I often see, for example, the outline of a window that was open for a long time. Nothing has burned permanently (so far), but the LCD monitors I have at home and at work are definitely susceptible to image retention. Perhaps your TV manual includes that warning to steer you away from extreme use, like the airport monitors mentioned before.

-Brad

I've noticed some burn in on my Syntax LT26HVE as of late. I think it has to do with SD programming because there is a distinct vertical line right at the right edge of where SD broadcasts end. The pixels there are noticeably darker and it is painfully obvious on brightly lit scenes (when watching HD content). Any suggestions as to how to get rid of it?

I've noticed some burn in on my Syntax LT26HVE as of late. I think it has to do with SD programming because there is a distinct vertical line right at the right edge of where SD broadcasts end. The pixels there are noticeably darker and it is painfully obvious on brightly lit scenes (when watching HD content). Any suggestions as to how to get rid of it?

when you say the pixels are darker - do you mean the ones toward the center of the screen that have aged more, or are you talking the ones toward the sides where the 4:3 bars would be? (what clolour bars are you using?)

anyway - I think the only way to reduce it is to stop watching 4:3 with the bars.
you need to accept the compromise and stretch 43 material.
roughly how may hours worth of "non-stretched 4:3" have you watched?

I've noticed some burn in on my Syntax LT26HVE as of late. I think it has to do with SD programming because there is a distinct vertical line right at the right edge of where SD broadcasts end. The pixels there are noticeably darker and it is painfully obvious on brightly lit scenes (when watching HD content). Any suggestions as to how to get rid of it?
I can see what your talking about, this is a product of the of the tranmission , some channels have the lines and some don't, just now watching Fox News I have seen it and when they switch to different advertisement it won't be there, I don't think you have to worry about it unless it is there all the time.

Hey Brad, what's the update on your Hitachi?

does anyone have any advice for playing the 360 on a 42hp66? I just got a new one and I am worried about burn in and ir. Is it ok to play it on this tv? Thanks for any advice.

I've had my 360 since January and my Panny 42PX50U since Sept. 2005. I play about 10 hours a week and had no problems until I bought NCAA 07. After about 3 hours of playing, I did notice some image retention from the EA logo and score bar that stays on the screen. It was very faint and I only noticed it when I was really close.

Some regular TV and (ironically) a couple hours of Ghost Recon have almost gotten rid of it. It was the first time this has happened, and I've played games like Oblivion, Tomb Raider, and Call of Duty without incident. Just keep an eye on your set, lower your brightness, and you should be fine.

Hey Brad, what's the update on your Hitachi?

No change on any fronts at the moment. When I spoke to the service guy, he warned me up front that this time of year businesses like Hitachi are about half-staffed because of all the people taking vacations. So he said to be prepared that it may be a while before he can actually reach anyone and get a decision. I don't know if he's heard from them or not, but I haven't heard from him. Since it will be a week tomorrow, I was going to call tomorrow and get an update. I'm not getting impatient about it for two reasons: 1) I can still watch the TV in the meantime (if the set was non-functional I'd be raising holy hell every hour on the hour), and 2) I have until Monday the 31st to be out of an apartment I lived in for 8 years. I'm sure you can imagine the amount of cleaning that needs to be done in that place, so I haven't been watching much TV at the house lately.

Actually, there's a third reason, if you'll pardon the stream-of-consciousness tangent. Since I've already been told that if my warranty covers the repair, the only thing they can really do is replace the screen, and since I bought this TV at the end of the model year, it seems reasonable that they might just want to swap out my unit for a new one. But the reason I got this model and not the new model is that the new line of Hitachi's are not all black like mine, and they don't have the power swivel base that can be operated from the remote control. In my particular setup, both of these were determining factors in my very calculated choice of television. In other words, I don't want a new TV, I just want mine fixed, and I think I'd rather live with a logo that nobody but me knows is there than have a different model, or even different brand for that matter.

So the short version of the answer to your question is, "no update yet." :D

-Brad

Brad,

So no observable difference right? Is there a way you can describe how extensive or minimal it is at this point?

Ncaa 07 is the game I was worried about. I played for 2 hours the other day and I could see the bottom score bar for a little while after. Not too bad but enough for me to move the 360. I might try it again after I have broke in the tv. Just got it Fri. Does anyone know how I can see how many hours I have had it on? toshiba 42hp66

Brad,

So no observable difference right? Is there a way you can describe how extensive or minimal it is at this point?

Hi hltr,
The keyword here would definitely be "minimal." The extent of the burn/retention doesn't appear to have changed in the past week, although I haven't watched much TV during that time either, so it hasn't really had a chance to get better if it is just retention. To summarize, it's only noticeable on a dark screen, not on a solid gray screen or any type of programming that covers that corner. You have to be closer than normal viewing distance to make out the ESPN letters and a small section of their bright red score ticker, but if the screen is dark, it can clearly be made out (not red of course).

But there is one thing different than my original description, and I don't know if it's a change, or if I jumped to an incorrect conclusion when I first noticed the problem. Since I only see this image on a dark screen, but it is visible, I either saw or assumed that what I was seeing was a lighter image on a darker background. However, what I noticed recently was that the ESPN letters are actually blacker than the not-completely-black dark screen, with a very slight halo effect. I suspect this is the way it has always been, and I just assumed that since I was seeing something on a "black" screen, it must be lighter. This makes the diagnosis of burn-in more plausible, but raises the question of why I can't see the burned in area on a solid gray screen (which I do not, at least at this point).

You know, hltr, I suspect you're probably the only person following along with my rambling posts, but I appreciate your continued interest. It's been somewhat therapeutic to describe what I've been seeing. Makes me feel a little less crazy in some way. ;)

Now to go briefly--but completely--off topic, the other night I was watching the Rave HD channel (a leftover from the Voom system that Dish picked up), which plays live performances from the whole gamut of music in HD and 5.1. Anyway, I caught Dream Theater Live at Budokan. I'm a DT fan from way back, so I expected to like it, but oh man, I was floored. Listening to their studio (and even live) albums, you get a sense of their musicianship and style, but when you can see them playing together, you really get the feeling that each of them is at the top of their craft. For example, their guitarist, John Petrucci (who's part of the current G3 lineup with Vai and Satriani), does a couple solos in the show which are quite impressive in their own right. But what makes them simply jaw dropping is that the keyboardist, Jordan Rudess, is mirroring him note for note. Freaking incredible. These guys are the flag-bearers for their genre, and rightfully so. Anyway, check out the concert (or the DVD) if you get a chance. If you're not a fan at the beginning, you probably will be by the end. Thus endeth the sermon. :)

'Night, all.
-Brad

Well, curious to hear what the service guy says/does.

I'll have to check out that DVD for sure. Reminds me of the recordings with DiMeola, De Lucia and McLaughlin.

Pio 5070 requires NO break-in period of reduced settings. Or so the tech support at Pio says. I have read posts for and against breakin settings in the 5070 thread, but am confused as to why the manufacturer says that process is unnecessary for this panel. He also mentioned that it is recommended that black bar watching should be followed by zoomed screen to an order of 5 to 1, that is 5 hours of zoom/1 hour of bars to prevent IR. Seems a bit excessive to me. Where is the truth in all this?
For me, this TV is for DVD's only - not into broadcast TV - so, I'm running zoomed break in settings (thanks D-nice) just in case for the first 200hrs, even tho' the image is not as satisfying as I would like. I was unable to burn DVD posted - my mac says "unreliable" on the burn. Any input on this issue from other 507x owners?

Pio 5070 requires NO break-in period of reduced settings. Or so the tech support at Pio says. I have read posts for and against breakin settings in the 5070 thread, but am confused as to why the manufacturer says that process is unnecessary for this panel. He also mentioned that it is recommended that black bar watching should be followed by zoomed screen to an order of 5 to 1, that is 5 hours of zoom/1 hour of bars to prevent IR. Seems a bit excessive to me. Where is the truth in all this?
For me, this TV is for DVD's only - not into broadcast TV - so, I'm running zoomed break in settings (thanks D-nice) just in case for the first 200hrs, even tho' the image is not as satisfying as I would like. I was unable to burn DVD posted - my mac says "unreliable" on the burn. Any input on this issue from other 507x owners?

They say we have to watch 10 hours of full screen to account for each movie we wanna watch with black bars?
that is insane! :confused: :eek:

I am in the same situation - got my TV (pio 4360) for watching movies mostly, and occasionally regular TV that I can stretch to fit the whole screen.
We'll see how it goes I guess - I have done the 200 hour break in, so I am about to up the contrast and start "regular" use.

I also couldn't get the "break-in DVD" to burn properly on a mac
- a friend did it for me on a PC with nero.

Hi, I just bought a Hitachi 42HDS69 (brad- what model do you have) and am in the process of "breaking it in." Now, stupid question of the day but, when "should" IR or burn-in be present? After gaming on NCAA with those godawful bright white bars, signs of IR were present on a black screen as ligher images (more of an outline). I thought this was normal, but you all seemed baffled by Brad's story. Ater going to White mode or some regular TV, it goes away. I too, don't see the IR over light images, just dark. Actually, you can't see it at all when a signal is coming through, just on a black screen. Note, this is not visible when the set is off. Thoughts?

Everyone here seems to accept non-permanent IR as O.K. Don't you guys watch any sports ? This is Baseball season, any game is 2 to 3 hours typically & they all have fixed score bars with logos. After 200 hours on my Panny I upped the picture to more standard settings (tuned with Avia) & watched a ball game. I could clearly see NESN 'HD' IR on the top of the screen when watching a movie (blue sky) or putting up a solid screen (burn-in DVD). Now, this went away but it took a couple of hours of use. Real annoying. I bought this set with the intention of normal watching patterns. If I want to watch a ball game or a letterboxed movie I'd like to think I could without having to cycle the burn-in DVD or leave a full screen movie on overnight to clear up IR.

I know Panny's white paper indicates watching @ less than 50% settings, 15% or so on 4:3 content until you hit 1000 hours (a relatively long time, btw). Are all of you guys pretty much just watching hi def movies ? No sports or letterboxed content ? When you do watch something with a fixed scorebar or similar content how long does your IR last. Does this essentially become a non-issue ( means NO appreciable IR at all ) after you get upwards to 500, 600 or 1000 hours or is IR on a Plasma something you have to live with forever & adjust your viewing habbits to? I don't mind adjusting for a limited period of time but if I've got to be picky about what I watch & constantly change channels off of ball games after short periods of time that would really suck. You really shouldn't have to drastically change what you view because of limitations of the technology but I'm really on the verge of trading this in for an LCD & it's somewhat inferior picture quality in order to not to have to worry about IR. What do you think ?

I know Panny's white paper indicates watching @ less than 50% settings, 15% or so on 4:3 content until you hit 1000 hours (a relatively long time, btw). Are all of you guys pretty much just watching hi def movies ? No sports or letterboxed content ? When you do watch something with a fixed scorebar or similar content how long does your IR last. Does this essentially become a non-issue ( means NO appreciable IR at all ) after you get upwards to 500, 600 or 1000 hours or is IR on a Plasma something you have to live with forever & adjust your viewing habbits to? I don't mind adjusting for a limited period of time but if I've got to be picky about what I watch & constantly change channels off of ball games after short periods of time that would really suck. You really shouldn't have to drastically change what you view because of limitations of the technology but I'm really on the verge of trading this in for an LCD & it's somewhat inferior picture quality in order to not to have to worry about IR. What do you think ?

Not sure what to tell you. I have a Samsung and I watch what I want, no signs of IR.

Not sure what to tell you. I have a Samsung and I watch what I want, no signs of IR.



How many hours on your panel now? Last time I checked I had over 450 I think, and the IR almost never happens anymore.

I can see what your talking about, this is a product of the of the tranmission , some channels have the lines and some don't, just now watching Fox News I have seen it and when they switch to different advertisement it won't be there, I don't think you have to worry about it unless it is there all the time.


That's the problem. It is there all the time. I am using a Sony DHGHDD250 DVR for my HD programming and it uses black bars (in addition to SD TiVo where the TV puts black bars in). This is a clear and obvious line of dark pixels on the right side of the screen where the edge of SD programming stops. It is quite annoying, so is there anything I can do about it?

How many hours on your panel now? Last time I checked I had over 450 I think, and the IR almost never happens anymore.

So I take it that after a significant number of hours are accumulated (400 to 1000 ??) that IR is significantly reduced or eliminated ?

How many hours on your panel now? Last time I checked I had over 450 I think, and the IR almost never happens anymore.

I think I'm over 350 now.

Not sure what to tell you. I have a Samsung and I watch what I want, no signs of IR.

you could tell him that you had IR in the beginning, and after 350 hours it seems to have become a non issue
- that would have been answering his question. ;)

instead you seemed to imply that samsung is better that panny and does not have IR issues... :rolleyes:

...when infact ALL plasmas have IR issues to some degree, for the first few hundred hours at least.

you could tell him that you had IR in the beginning, and after 350 hours it seems to have become a non issue
- that would have been answering his question. ;)

instead you seemed to imply that samsung is better that panny and does not have IR issues... :rolleyes:

...when infact ALL plasmas have IR issues to some degree, for the first few hundred hours at least.


I did not mean to imply that Samsung is better (or worse for that matter). What I do wish to convey however is that at the hour count he is at I did not have those issues. However, I do not have the same make, so feedback from someone who does may be more valuable.

Sorry for typing so fast the first time.

What I do wish to convey however is that at the hour count he is at I did not have those issues.

But what did you have your contrast & brightness set to when you were @ 100 hours or so ? If you were watching in a darkened room @ low settings I'd suspect that would be why there was no IR. Also, were you watching sporting events or other shows with fixed banners for any significant amount of time or did you really limit your viewing to full screen / movies / etc ?? The IR I saw after the ball game was when watching for about 3 hours with the set on 'standard' (fairly bright). I suspect if I watched with the set on 'cinema' (fairly low, break-in settings) I wouldn't have had any IR, but after the 200 hour mark I felt it would probably be O.K. to brighten things up a bit.

I find it hard to believe that Samsungs woudn't have IR issues when set to approximatly the same brightness / contrast as Panny's. Most of the postings I've read here seem to imply that Panasonic is among the best (least amount) of burn-in / IR among the different manufacturers.

I do not intend to get into a comparison of Samsung and Panasonic. I can only tell you about my experience.

I did not run my settings "lower" nor did I observe a "break in period." That was my own decision, and I don't necessarily advocate that anyone else do that. I was conscious however of varying my viewing. That is to say, if I was watching something in 4:3, I would not leave it in that mode for hours on end. But of course I found that normal viewing habits took care of that most times. Yes, I watched sports (Chicago baseball, World Cup) and we also do some PS2.

But to your issue: I hope you get some replies from other Panny owners. My guess is that they will report that the situation improves. Please keep us posted.

I'm about ready to buy a new panasonic 50" (either the 60U or 600U) but before I do I wanted to check in here.

I will calibrate so that the set is not in torch mode, and I'll be careful during the break in period. But after break in, I intend to watch everything in OAR and most of what I watch (other than a bit of HD and DVD content) will probably be 4:3.

Are these '9th generation' panels really so immune from burn-in that that's ok? Or would you strongly advise me to sacrifice some picture quality and get an LCD?

Maybe I'm missing something here. I've had my Panny 50-600U for 1.5 months now with probably around 300 hours viewing time. When I watch TV the picture always fills the screen...I NEVER watch 4:3. I guess what I'm getting at, does everyone else's TV automatically display non-HD content in 4:3? The only channels that have 4:3 by default are my HD channels when there is a commercial showing. So for the past 300 hours of viewing have I been watching the fat version of Jennifer Aniston while I watch syndication of Friends on TBS? Everything looks normal to me.

Maybe I'm missing something here. I've had my Panny 50-600U for 1.5 months now with probably around 300 hours viewing time. When I watch TV the picture always fills the screen...I NEVER watch 4:3. I guess what I'm getting at, does everyone else's TV automatically display non-HD content in 4:3? The only channels that have 4:3 by default are my HD channels when there is a commercial showing. So for the past 300 hours of viewing have I been watching the fat version of Jennifer Aniston while I watch syndication of Friends on TBS? Everything looks normal to me.

What you'r missing is that you must have the TV set to an aspect ration mode that fills the screen (just, zoom, etc). The set will display non-HD 4:3 content with sidebars if you have the aspect control set to display it as such.

I will calibrate so that the set is not in torch mode, and I'll be careful during the break in period. But after break in, I intend to watch everything in OAR and most of what I watch (other than a bit of HD and DVD content) will probably be 4:3.

Are these '9th generation' panels really so immune from burn-in that that's ok? Or would you strongly advise me to sacrifice some picture quality and get an LCD?

First, I think you probably want to calibrate after the break in period (somewhere between 100 & 1000 hours, depending on who you believe, panny's white paper, etc.). During break in the general consensus on these forums seems to be to set the panny's to Cinema mode & lower the picture control to 0 or so (not too bright a picture at all). Read the Panny threads & the master break-in thread. Lots of good info.

I think there's a difference between burn-in & image retention (IR). From what I gather reading here the Panny's seem more immune to burn in than other sets (probably after the break-in period). IR appears to be another matter. I've seen IR on my set after approximatly 200 hours break in & watching a ball game. It did go away after a few hours of cycling the break-in DVD & watching full screen content (well, overnight, maybe more than a few hours). I've been trying to get a feel from people if IR will decrease to a non-issue after more hours on the set (400 to 1000 perhaps ?) & haven't really gotten clear answers. Some say they never see it on their sets (which I don't really believe, I think it's more likely that it was there & they never really looked for it closely. The IR I had couldn't really be seen unless you put a white screen up & looked closely.). Some indicate it gets less likely the more hours you get on the set. I don't know, but for the time being, until I get many more hours (total up to 400 or so at least, Panny's white paper seems to indicate 1000 is a good number !!!) I intend to leave my settings low (cinema mode), probably bump up the picture control a bit & watch carefully.

I did have a 37" LCD that I returned to get a Plasma. One thing I do know is that this Panny plasma has a MUCH better picture than the LCD. Much better black rendition, much richer colors, doesn't fade out when you view off-axis like my LCD did. It's really night & day to my eyes. I'd like to not have to worry about IR but after seeing the difference between the LCD & the Plasma I think I'd rather live with the plasma's IR limitations rather than the inferior picture I had with the LCD.

What you'r missing is that you must have the TV set to an aspect ration mode that fills the screen (just, zoom, etc). The set will display non-HD 4:3 content with sidebars if you have the aspect control set to display it as such.

But my set's default is "Full". It has a separate 4:3 ratio, but why on earth would anybody use that?

But my set's default is "Full". It has a separate 4:3 ratio, but why on earth would anybody use that?

For stations that broadcast their 4:3 content in fullscreen 720p or 1080i you can choose "4:3" to get the colored sidebars. I just use JUST mode though.

But my set's default is "Full". It has a separate 4:3 ratio, but why on earth would anybody use that?
I suppose full is ok for news and other programs where you don't care about quality, but a lot of people who spend all this money on a plasma with a fabulous picture will prefer not using stretch modes that distort that picture.

Everyone has different preferences, but personally I can't see being forced to watch in a distorted mode if I can possibly avoid it, even for sitcoms. I did that for four years with a pio (which has stretch modes that are in my opinion better than those of the panny), and I am now ready to get a set where I can stick with OAR.

my friend purchased a plasma that used to be used at an airport..
for $100..
wow burn ins
more burn ins then ppl that just left the beach

my friend purchased a plasma that used to be used at an airport..
for $100..
wow burn ins
more burn ins then ppl that just left the beach

WOW, imagine that!!! I can't believe a TV has burn in after leaving it on 24/7/365 with practically the same image the entire time :rolleyes:

I suppose full is ok for news and other programs where you don't care about quality, but a lot of people who spend all this money on a plasma with a fabulous picture will prefer not using stretch modes that distort that picture.

Everyone has different preferences, but personally I can't see being forced to watch in a distorted mode if I can possibly avoid it, even for sitcoms. I did that for four years with a pio (which has stretch modes that are in my opinion better than those of the panny), and I am now ready to get a set where I can stick with OAR.

Yeah, I guess, but why even buy a widescreen TV unless the only thing you are going to watch is HD programming? Most programming is in 4:3. And like I said earlier, I can't tell any differences between Full and 4:3. PQ is phenomenal either way, and skinny people don't look fat. To each his/her own.

hi again
My Pio 436 passed 7 months of using and abt 1100hours. TV logo IR last time fade away. thought it's safe bcz of 1000h gone. But after World cup, I found another IR that's scoreboard. Now one month after WC 06, it went away too.
I just bought Xbox 360 and play some soccer game (fifa). Just after 4,5 matchs (each match 12 min) I found EA sport logo again :((
Plasma really nice but also fragile, like a lady.
I can say for sure that all plasma has IR, people said they have no problem of IR or burn in just bcz they don't pay attention enough to their screen. If they let whole screen in white or bright then look at it, must be something, even it's panny or pio as well other brands.

You know what, I purchased my first plasma about 2 weeks ago convinced I wouldn't worry about "burn-in" due to the advances in technology. I wasn't too aware of the IR thing, but whatever. Anyway, like a dolt, I jump on these forums and start reading. What happened??? I became scared witless that my set would burn. A short amount of time has passed and I regained my sanity. Yes, I see image retention. When do I see it? When I'm about a nose length from the screen. After a little while, it's gone and I move on. I play 360 games on it. The scoreboard gets left behind. I can see it. I can see it when the screen is void of any signal and my eyes are pressed to the set. I'm now conviced it WON'T burn unless I do nothing but play EA Sports games 24/7/365. Everyone needs to relax. Enjoy your set. The best bit of advice I can give: Don't be stupid. Ok, now everyone can quote my post call me an "effin no experienced noob who doesn't know his ass from his elbow."

A few questions? Got my Panny PX58600U installed today. The tech calibrated with a Monster Cable DVD. Now since I have to turn the settings down isn't the calibration a waste of time at this point? Also how do you guys keep track of the number of hours the set has been used? Is there a way to retrieve that information from the set? Lastly should I avoid the split screen mode (Picture In Picture) during the break in period? Thanks.

I will be getting my Panny 42px60 nextweek and am wondering if it will be alright to plaay my 360 right away because thats the main reason im buying it, will that be safe?

I played for just over an hour yesterday (Xbox 360 with NCAA 2007) and have IR on my Panasonic plasma (got it 4 months ago). What is the best way to get rid of the IR, and how long does it normally take? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I played for just over an hour yesterday (Xbox 360 with NCAA 2007) and have IR on my Panasonic plasma (got it 4 months ago). What is the best way to get rid of the IR, and how long does it normally take? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

NCAA (and sadly Madden) decided to do away w/ the transparent scoreboard for the gleaming white one you now see. I get it on my Hitachi, but it's gone (or hardly noticable) after about 10-15 minutes. Can you see it overlap on your normal tv viewing? I can only see it if the screen is completely dark. I wouldn't worry about it "burning" your set though. How many hours do you have on the tv?

NCAA (and sadly Madden) decided to do away w/ the transparent scoreboard for the gleaming white one you now see. I get it on my Hitachi, but it's gone (or hardly noticable) after about 10-15 minutes. Can you see it overlap on your normal tv viewing? I can only see it if the screen is completely dark. I wouldn't worry about it "burning" your set though. How many hours do you have on the tv?

I don't see the overlap, only when I switch to a completely dark screen. It actually took hours, rather than minutes for mine to completely disappear. That just frustrates me.

As for hours with my panny, I'm definitely over 500 at this point.

I posted this a couple of days ago in a seperate thread, and figured I repost it here

I bought a 42" Hitachi Plasma a few weeks, ago, and I'm getting near the end of the 30 day return period. Tonight I noticed when switching between inputs, with the room completely dark, that the screen of the plasma wasn't completely dark when no signal was going to it, but it was still powered. There was a area triangular area about 9-12 inches on a side where the screen, instead of being near black, had a lighter greyish-green tint. The difference is slight, but it's there.

I don't think this is burn in or IR. I know what IR that looks like; for example I've seen the ESPN remain on the screen for a while after leaving it on that channel for a while, and using the screen wipe option for a minute or so removes it completely. But this is different. The lighter area is quite large and amporphous, and doesn't resemble any type of image.

Furthermore, I've tried to remove this area using screen wipe option (which displays a white screen), but to no avail. Also, when the screen is white like that, I can tell that the area I described above has a slighly bluer tint to it.

The one other piece of information that I can provide was that this was an open box model. The store employee at Magnolia that helped me claimed was in perfect working order, and that the person who returned it did so because he was able to find a better deal. The panel when I bought it had about 90 hours of use on it, but I'm pretty sure none of it was "bad" picture, with bars or still images, although they were running it at 50% brightness and 100% contrast.

So, has anyone noticed this type of issue with their plasma display? I know this is sort of esoteric. I'm overall very happy with this display, but I'm worried that this issue will get worse and begin to affect the picture quality, and as I said, I'm getting near the end of the return period.

You might want to send a PM to Bradandbree. He also had a problem with his Hitachi. Does not sound to be the same, but you might want to compare notes at least.

One thing about what the Magnolia guy said: I would think they would have just matched price on the "better deal" don't you? Something seems odd about that.

Please keep us posted.

Well, curious to hear what the service guy says/does.
Well, after vacating an apartment and driving across several states in the last week, I'm back. I'd hoped/expected to come back to a message from the service guy trying to schedule an appointment, but nothing. Couldn't find his number, so I called Hitachi to get it. Found out from my "file" that he did call 2 weeks ago when he said he would and reported the issue. They told him that burn in of any sort is not covered by warranty. Why he didn't call me and tell me that himself is a mystery, but the bottom line is this is something I have to live with--albeit a minor problem--even though I did everything "right" and simply chose to watch ESPN within the first 100-ish hours of owning my TV.

Don't get me wrong, I love plasma picture quality, and my TV in particular. I do not regret my choice to buy a plasma, but I'm falling to the side of the fence with the camp that holds that a TV that costs this much shouldn't be this delicate. And why should I have to avoid my favorite channel (ESPNHD) which has been (poorly) designed specifically for technology I paid so much for? There's been a wide range of conversation on this forum (which is good, it belongs here), but I would caution people who suggest that only paranoid hysterics need to be concerned with burn in. This may be my first plasma, but it's not my first consumer electronics purchase either. I'm careful (my wife would say anal-retentive) about my equipment and do what needs to be done to get the most out of it. With this plasma, I was not paranoid, but I was educated, and I followed the recommendations. I still ended up with a minor case of burn-in that I know is there even if you have to look closely for it. To those who say something to the effect of "if you have to look that close, then don't worry about it," I would respond that it's like buying a brand new car, and someone else scratches the rear quarter panel on your way out of the dealership. It doesn't affect the usability, your friends aren't likely to notice and point it out, but you know it's there and your eyes will be drawn to it every time you get into the car whether you want them to be or not.

Hi, I just bought a Hitachi 42HDS69 (brad- what model do you have) and am in the process of "breaking it in." Now, stupid question of the day but, when "should" IR or burn-in be present? After gaming on NCAA with those godawful bright white bars, signs of IR were present on a black screen as ligher images (more of an outline). I thought this was normal, but you all seemed baffled by Brad's story. Ater going to White mode or some regular TV, it goes away. I too, don't see the IR over light images, just dark. Actually, you can't see it at all when a signal is coming through, just on a black screen. Note, this is not visible when the set is off. Thoughts?

Hi mkaz527,
I have a 42HDS52. It's one model year older than yours. Something the Hitachi tech support guy mentioned that might be of interest in your situation and others is that in his experience, IR and/or burn-in (they are different) will be more noticeable on a darker background. This is different than what I've read but matches my personal experience. It's there on the screen even when the background is light, but might be washed out by the brightness. Perhaps by the time the retention is visible on a lighter background, it's really bad. If that's the case, I count my blessings that my level of burn is minor and only visible when the screen is black (but as you said, the TV has to be on of course).

One thing that sounds different between your situation and mine is that your IR goes away when you do the screen wipe. So to you, I'd say that if you've got your picture and contrast settings dialed down for what seems to vary from 100 to 1000 hours--take your pick--you should be fine and can enjoy in moderation. Just yesterday my visiting nephew left the DVD player on with a menu screen displayed. Of course there was retention, but I really wasn't too worried about it despite my other problem because I've got more hours on the TV now. Sure enough, by the end of the next movie, the IR from the menu was completely gone. This definitely does seem to me to be a problem that lessens with time. I just wish I had the magic answer as to how long that takes...

I'll have to check out that DVD for sure. Reminds me of the recordings with DiMeola, De Lucia and McLaughlin.
Hey hltr,
Ironic that you should bring them up. Just about a day before you wrote that, I was in the mood for some instrumental music, and went right to the San Francisco album. I recently found out that that album is available in multichannel hi-res audio, but I can't remember if it's DVD-A or SACD. Since I have an Onkyo combo player... ;)

Everyone here seems to accept non-permanent IR as O.K. Don't you guys watch any sports ? This is Baseball season, any game is 2 to 3 hours typically & they all have fixed score bars with logos. After 200 hours on my Panny I upped the picture to more standard settings (tuned with Avia) & watched a ball game. I could clearly see NESN 'HD' IR on the top of the screen when watching a movie (blue sky) or putting up a solid screen (burn-in DVD). Now, this went away but it took a couple of hours of use. Real annoying. I bought this set with the intention of normal watching patterns. If I want to watch a ball game or a letterboxed movie I'd like to think I could without having to cycle the burn-in DVD or leave a full screen movie on overnight to clear up IR.
I couldn't agree with you more on this. Unfortunately, until the next wave of technology arrives--which supposedly will allow CRT performance in flat panel dimensions--it appears we are stuck with the irritating limitations of our own purchases. Until we can get the TV studios to tame their logos and ticker boxes, we have to clean up after ourselves every time we watch a full-length sporting event. Please...please...someone tell us we're wrong about this!
-Brad

I bought my Panny last September and spent about 7 hours watching football the first weekend I had it. I had no sports ticker image retention at all. I did have the settings turned low -- I think -3 for brightness -- for the first 100 hours.

I did keep all the movies zoomed in for the first 100 hours. After that, I went back to letterbox without issue. I watch TV in the Panny's Just mode (which I prefer to 4:3), but when watching 4:3 DVDs like TV shows, I leave it in 4:3. Again, no problems.

I was very careful with videogames during the first 100 hours -- maybe 30-45 minutes of a game like MVP 2005 -- but then resumed my usual 10-12 hour a week habit. I've had no image retention at all until the NCAA ticker issue hit, and even that is very faint and only visible when the TV has no signal and I get within a foot of the screen. So far, it goes away after a few hours of TV or playing some other video games.

I was very careful with videogames during the first 100 hours -- maybe 30-45 minutes of a game like MVP 2005 -- but then resumed my usual 10-12 hour a week habit. I've had no image retention at all until the NCAA ticker issue hit, and even that is very faint and only visible when the TV has no signal and I get within a foot of the screen. So far, it goes away after a few hours of TV or playing some other video games.

So, what did you set your image settings to after the 100 hours ? Have it on Cinema mode or did you up it to Standard (with its picture setting of around 20 or so)? I'm just curious, at low levels I don't really see any IR, but when I tune with Avia the correct settings seem to be much higher, & that's where I see the IR.

So, what did you set your image settings to after the 100 hours ? Have it on Cinema mode or did you up it to Standard (with its picture setting of around 20 or so)? I'm just curious, at low levels I don't really see any IR, but when I tune with Avia the correct settings seem to be much higher, & that's where I see the IR.

Just for interest, this is a little table of picture quality settings for my Philips 50pf9631d plasma, which was bought on 7/15/2006. I have kept the settings at the "SOFT" settings and see no image retention, etc. so far.

PICT CONT BRI COL SHRP COLOR TEMP
RNGE 0-100 0-100 0-100 0-7 N-W-C

RICH 100 44 80 5 COOL
NATL 85 46 58 3 NORM
SOFT 75 46 58 1 NORM
ECO 63 46 46 3 NORM

Sorry for the chopped up table, but hopefully you get the idea.
John

does anyone have any advice for playing the 360 on a 42hp66? I just got a new one and I am worried about burn in and ir. Is it ok to play it on this tv? Thanks for any advice.
I have a Pio 4271. I put it in game mode the contrast is default at 30 I put it a 20 still looked fine. first 25 hrs I played no more than 1 hr. after that Heck with it I played 5-6 hrs. I still play 5-7 hours if theres nothing to do. I watched World cup soccer no IR. I don't have a 360 I just play Halo2 live so it can depend on the game also. Lots of screen changes. I watch in full or wide mode only. 100 hrs I put game contrast @ 25 and my Standard I set higher for movies. default was 40 contrast. i set it a 35 run in powersaver mode mean a little less bright. 200 hrs I keep it the same. 1000 hrs then probally doesn't matter as long as I don't use vivid mode.

I don't mean to doubt the experts on this board, but I see so many posts of almost paranoid folks warning of burn in issues, of not playing games for 100's of hours, keeping settings low for the burn in period, etc etc..

I just installed my new panasonic 58, and I see no warnings whatsoever for this type of break in. One would think there would be all kinds of warnings - similar to the types of warnings on recharable batteries to make sure you charge fully prior to first use. Its in the manufacturer's best interest, even if they might consider burn in not a warranty problem.

So my question is, is this "break-in" period stuff a relic of past plasma experiences, and not really that applicable to current versions? To be honest, if not for my browsing of this board, I never would have even thought of it, so I am curious why the vast majority of others who install plasmas and don't read this board aren't having tons of issues with their plasmas - and moreso why Panasonic, as an example, never even suggests such a burn in period?

Again, not meant to disrespect the experts, I'm just wondering if maybe the new technology has soved some of these problems?

That said, after blowing 5k+ on my system, I'll heed the burn in period recommendations anyway! lol.

panasonic actually recomends 1000 hours before IR/Burn-in risk is substantially reduced.

here is a link to the little known panasonic "white paper":

panasonic white paper ( http://www.dynamicdigital.ca/documents/Plasma%20Facts%20and%20Myths.pdf)

Panasonic's web site recommends a 100 hour break-in period. You can find the FAQ here. (http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PlasmaFAQ?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&langId=-1&catGroupId=24973#tv4)

The break-in period is for real. I'm on hour 61. Almost there.

I was very careful with videogames during the first 100 hours -- maybe 30-45 minutes of a game like MVP 2005 -- but then resumed my usual 10-12 hour a week habit. I've had no image retention at all until the NCAA ticker issue hit, and even that is very faint and only visible when the TV has no signal and I get within a foot of the screen. So far, it goes away after a few hours of TV or playing some other video games.

I agree w/ this post 100%, right down to that awful ticker on NCAA (and apparently Madden 07). The image retention is so slight, that unless I'm a nose length away from it when there's absolutely no signal coming through the screen, I can't see anything. I have about 150 hours on my plasma, and seem to be doing ok. Yes, IR happens, is it permanent? Nope. Chill out.

Panasonic's web site recommends a 100 hour break-in period. You can find the FAQ here. (http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PlasmaFAQ?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&langId=-1&catGroupId=24973#tv4)

The break-in period is for real. I'm on hour 61. Almost there.

Again, the average consumer isn't going to go searching on the website. To me, if it were important, it would be in the user manual - in fact, I would expect a big red flyer right when you open the box yelling at you to read before hooking up. I don't see even a mention of break in anywhere in any of the material shipped with the unit.

Again, the average consumer isn't going to go searching on the website. To me, if it were important, it would be in the user manual - in fact, I would expect a big red flyer right when you open the box yelling at you to read before hooking up. I don't see even a mention of break in anywhere in any of the material shipped with the unit.

The User Manual for my new Philips 50PF9631D does have a fairly visible and strong warning on Pg 2:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warning concerning stationary images on the TV screen
A characteristic of Plasma Display Panels is that displaying the same image for a long time can cause a permanent after-image to remain on the screen.This is called phosphor burn in. Normal use of the TV should involve the showing of pictures that contain constantly moving and changing images that fill the screen.
Examples of stationary images (this is not an all-inclusive list, you may encounter others in your viewing):
• TV menus;
• Black bars: when black bars appear at the left and right side of the screen, it is recommended to
change to a picture format so that the picture fills the entire screen;
• TV channel logo: present a problem if they are bright and stationary. Moving or low-contrast
graphics are less likely to cause uneven aging of the screen;
• Stock market stickers: presented at the bottom of the TV screen;
• Shopping channel logos and pricing displays: bright and shown constantly or repeatedly in the
same location on the TV screen.
Examples of still pictures also include logos, computer images, time display, teletext and images
displayed in 4:3 mode, static images or characters, etc.
Notes:
- reduce contrast and brightness when viewing
- once burn-in occurs it will never disappear completely.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to say they are at least trying....

Hope this helps.
John

The User Manual for my new Philips 50PF9631D does have a fairly visible and strong warning on Pg 2:


But this is a warning against burn in, I'm talking about a break-in of 100 using lower settings. I noticed my panny actually shipped with the settings very bright - why would they do that if they wanted you to use lower settings for 100 hours?

(re-posting my thread's stuff here)

Well....I know well enough

not to pause a pic on the plasma for a long time...
Keep the image maximized
keep the contrast brightness down
etc etc


But to my surprise, yesterday I saw that my Pioneer PIO 4312 plasma has bars at the top and bottom. :eek: I can only see the burn on a all black screen, like going to an input which has nothing connected. So the plasma’s center has the burn in (because that is where all the DVDs play)

How did that happen?
Well I can only guess that it because of watching widescreen (letterboxed 2.40:1 or whatever you may want to call them) movies which do not fill up the whole screen.

I always used to keep my brightness/contrast to the factory setting... (keep it a zero.) I was thinking of a calibration but never thought about turning down the contrast / brightness until I got around to calibrating. I did do the basic AVIA/DVE stuff. I had to turn down the color as it was too hot.

So anyway, this is a surprise to me. I always thought that keeping the controls at the factory setting should not cause a burn.

The good thing is that with a full screen image, the burn in cannot be seen. :o

Anyone else has encountered this issue?

I have a deaf person in the house, so we need to have the closed captioning running. Currently, I have a 65" RPTV that is starting to show burn-in from the captioning. You can see "grids" from the captioning background. I even have the background set to the translucent gray, instead of the solid black.

I am looking to change to a 50" plasma, and was curious if anybody had any comments/thoughts about options to reduce the burn in from the captioning.

(re-posting my thread's stuff here)

Well....I know well enough

not to pause a pic on the plasma for a long time...
Keep the image maximized
keep the contrast brightness down
etc etc


But to my surprise, yesterday I saw that my Pioneer PIO 4312 plasma has bars at the top and bottom. :eek: I can only see the burn on a all black screen, like going to an input which has nothing connected. So the plasma’s center has the burn in (because that is where all the DVDs play)

How did that happen?
Well I can only guess that it because of watching widescreen (letterboxed 2.40:1 or whatever you may want to call them) movies which do not fill up the whole screen.

I always used to keep my brightness/contrast to the factory setting... (keep it a zero.) I was thinking of a calibration but never thought about turning down the contrast / brightness until I got around to calibrating. I did do the basic AVIA/DVE stuff. I had to turn down the color as it was too hot.

So anyway, this is a surprise to me. I always thought that keeping the controls at the factory setting should not cause a burn.

The good thing is that with a full screen image, the burn in cannot be seen. :o

Anyone else has encountered this issue?


Gee, I just spent 5k on a plasma last week and reading these types of post just makes me sick that i cant watch 2.35 widescreen movies without zooming it. The zoom just makes it look like **** and I see the edges cutoff.

:mad: :eek:

You can watch movies in 2.35:1 with your plasma. Just not for the first 100 hours. Or if you do, you might want to zoom the image. But you can certainly watch movies in the original format after the break in period. Now if you watched nothing but 2.35:1, then over time you might begin to see uneven wear. If you mix it up with some HD and SD (stretched) content, you should not have a problem.

(re-posting my thread's stuff here)

Well....I know well enough

not to pause a pic on the plasma for a long time...
Keep the image maximized
keep the contrast brightness down
etc etc


But to my surprise, yesterday I saw that my Pioneer PIO 4312 plasma has bars at the top and bottom. :eek: I can only see the burn on a all black screen, like going to an input which has nothing connected. So the plasma’s center has the burn in (because that is where all the DVDs play)

How did that happen?
Well I can only guess that it because of watching widescreen (letterboxed 2.40:1 or whatever you may want to call them) movies which do not fill up the whole screen.

I always used to keep my brightness/contrast to the factory setting... (keep it a zero.) I was thinking of a calibration but never thought about turning down the contrast / brightness until I got around to calibrating. I did do the basic AVIA/DVE stuff. I had to turn down the color as it was too hot.

So anyway, this is a surprise to me. I always thought that keeping the controls at the factory setting should not cause a burn.

The good thing is that with a full screen image, the burn in cannot be seen. :o

Anyone else has encountered this issue?

Are you sure it's burn? I doubt that it is. Give it a few days of regular watching or keep on it for 24 hours. That'd be a real POS set if you got letterbox burns. I watched a few LB''s movies on my new Hitachi 100 hours in and there's not even the slightest case of burn. You're probably just experiencing IR. If those crazy bastards who did the testing left Half Life 2 on pause for 48 hours were fine, I think you'll be OK as well.

TMullenJr, I'm also in need of some advice about Closed Captioning on plasmas. My guess is it will be a problem until the plasma is fully broken in at around 1000 hours.

Ok, so here's my issue.

I have a Pio 4360 and am currently near 200 hrs. I decided to hook up my PS2 to it to continue playing Final Fantasy X, and hooked up my component cables to input 3. I played Xbox 360 on this thing for hours before hand keep in mind, but on my user settings with the contrast at 30 after 100 hrs.

Anyways as I was playing on the PS2 after about an hour, I noticed something that resembled burn in the lower right hand corner. Thats when i switched it over to xbox 360 and as I was moving through the dashboard, I could see the life HP/MP meters with the characters names! For my life I couldnt figure out why it did this when 360 was fine until it dawned on me...input 3 was in DYNAMIC MODE :(

Needless to say I have wedding crashers, zoomed in on loop right now and will continue with it for 24 hours. Im hoping this is only IR or whatever its called, but I've got to admit I'm pretty worried. Im hoping all of that bright white text in DYNAMIC mode didnt scorch my pixels. Has anyone else had this problem??? If you have, some reassurance would be great. Thanks.

Needless to say I have wedding crashers, zoomed in on loop right now and will continue with it for 24 hours. Im hoping this is only IR or whatever its called, but I've got to admit I'm pretty worried. Im hoping all of that bright white text in DYNAMIC mode didnt scorch my pixels. Has anyone else had this problem??? If you have, some reassurance would be great. Thanks.

It happened to me after playing various 360 games. I have about 150 hours on my set (Hitachi) and while IR can be annoying, I doubt what you have is actually burn-in. Does your TV have a "Wipe" function or some sort of screen saver? If so, run that for 10 minutes and it will probably fade away.

So, what did you set your image settings to after the 100 hours ? Have it on Cinema mode or did you up it to Standard (with its picture setting of around 20 or so)? I'm just curious, at low levels I don't really see any IR, but when I tune with Avia the correct settings seem to be much higher, & that's where I see the IR.

I'll be honest, I could never get the brightness (white) calibration quite right with the Avia -- when I ran the test, it seemed like I had to turn the brightness way up to "calibrate" the set, which made the picture way too bright for my tastes.

So I worked backwards and did the contrast first -- +9, I think which I used on all three settings, then set brightness to +1 for Cinema (for DVD watching), +3 for standard (my TV setting), and I think +6 or 7 for Vivid (gaming). I calibrated the colors and was satisfied with my picture.

Like I said, until NCAA 07 came along, I had zero IR issues (or at least none I noticed) for the past year. Even with NCAA, I only notice it when there is no signal and I'm about a foot away from the set. It does go away completely but takes a few hours or TV or other gaming. I'm not worried, just keeping an eye on it.

[QUOTE=Brando70]I'll be honest, I could never get the brightness (white) calibration quite right with the Avia -- when I ran the test, it seemed like I had to turn the brightness way up to "calibrate" the set, which made the picture way too bright for my tastes.

QUOTE]

I noticed that with Avia also. When set per thier procedure the whites were really bright, up near the top end of the adjustment scale. I also tried calibrating with the THX optimizer on an 'Incredibles' DVD that I've got. Not bad, but not the best either. I was going to pick up one of the 'Monster' calibration disks thats mentioned elsewhere in these forums to see how that came out.


In any event, the panny's display is just outstanding to my eyes. I'm still cranked pretty low & limit watching things like ball games & XBox for fear of IR. After I accumulate a few more hours (probably up around 400 to 500 or so) I'll get a little braver & crank things up a bit. Other than making sure I don't leave the set on for a couple of hours without anyone in the room (I had a habbit of doing that with my Sony CRT) I really haven't changed my viewing habbits by a great deal. Still think this plasma's picture is head & shoulders above the Viewsonic LCD HDTV I had & returned. The picture is so much better (in dark scenes) I'll take the IR tradeoff any day.

It happened to me after playing various 360 games. I have about 150 hours on my set (Hitachi) and while IR can be annoying, I doubt what you have is actually burn-in. Does your TV have a "Wipe" function or some sort of screen saver? If so, run that for 10 minutes and it will probably fade away.

No, I don't have a wipe function, I've checked into that. My DVD player is still looping so I'll find out when I get home whether or not it is still there or not. Has anyone else had their Pio on dynamic and had this problem?

Follow up on possible burn in for my Pio 4360:

Looks like it was just a mild case of IR. I looped a dvd for about 18 hours, and all lines and what not are gone. ALL of my settings are now USER, and for god's sake everyone...


STAY AWAY FROM DYNAMIC

Some basic stats:

1. Fujitsu 42" 1080i plasma.
2. Initially used it at 1024x768 non-stretched (black bars right+left) - approx 30hrs (10 sessions of 3 hrs on average for PC use)
3. Watched a full screen DVD and noticed what you see on the attached pic
4. About 4/5 months on, after paranoia-ingly using full screen only with no black bars etc. see attached image

Nothing seems to be changing! :mad: The side bits which I "abused" aren't even going purple!! And no, I have not left the screen on overnight with a 4:3 image.

Am I just stuck with this, or is this a fault circuit or something??

Thanks!!
Rajiv

Looks like a faulty circuit. Defintly doesn't look like uneven screen aging.

So, for the 1st 30 hours you used it for pc display, except with black bars, left & right, essentially in 4:3 mode if I understand you correctly ? If that's the case I'd say it looks like burn-in. Panny indicates that the 1st 100 hours on a plasma are critical to avoid burn-in. Even though you've got a Fujitsu that would still apply. (Your complaint is the 2 'lighter' vertical bars on the left & right, correct ? I assume you took a picture with the PC display running & the problem isn't that the Internet Explorer image is burned into the screen !!)

Why don't you try making & running the burn-in DVD for a couple of days straight. Maybe that will even things out a bit.

When I get home tonight, am going to try the burn-in DVD like you said.

The thing is, if it really is 100 hours, then what happened to the effect of the other 70 hours on the side bars? They are STILL whiter than white. Surely they should have also become somewhat purple? Even if burn-in was exponential, it doesn't make sense.

I guess if someone could explain to my why the above is the case, I'd understand. But as the side bars refuse to "burn in" that's what's making me think.

oh yes, and no, problem is the colour... IE isn't burned into the screen. Thank god!!! ;)

When I get home tonight, am going to try the burn-in DVD like you said.

The thing is, if it really is 100 hours, then what happened to the effect of the other 70 hours on the side bars? They are STILL whiter than white. Surely they should have also become somewhat purple? Even if burn-in was exponential, it doesn't make sense.

I guess if someone could explain to my why the above is the case, I'd understand. But as the side bars refuse to "burn in" that's what's making me think.

oh yes, and no, problem is the colour... IE isn't burned into the screen. Thank god!!! ;)

Burn-in is supposidly permanent. You may be out of luck. Best to try to even it out, minimize it as much as possible. Some people have had luck making a reverse image using that to fix things up. Search the forums.

Some basic stats:

1. Fujitsu 42" 1080i plasma.
2. Initially used it at 1024x768 non-stretched (black bars right+left) - approx 30hrs (10 sessions of 3 hrs on average for PC use)
3. Watched a full screen DVD and noticed what you see on the attached pic
4. About 4/5 months on, after paranoia-ingly using full screen only with no black bars etc. see attached image

Nothing seems to be changing! :mad: The side bits which I "abused" aren't even going purple!! And no, I have not left the screen on overnight with a 4:3 image.

Am I just stuck with this, or is this a fault circuit or something??

Thanks!!
Rajiv

Are you saying that in the FIRST 30 hours you ran a PC in 4:3?

Are you saying that in the FIRST 30 hours you ran a PC in 4:3?

That's what I assumed he was saying. Not too good.

Some basic stats:

1. Fujitsu 42" 1080i plasma.
2. Initially used it at 1024x768 non-stretched (black bars right+left) - approx 30hrs (10 sessions of 3 hrs on average for PC use)
3. Watched a full screen DVD and noticed what you see on the attached pic
4. About 4/5 months on, after paranoia-ingly using full screen only with no black bars etc. see attached image

Nothing seems to be changing! :mad: The side bits which I "abused" aren't even going purple!! And no, I have not left the screen on overnight with a 4:3 image.

Am I just stuck with this, or is this a fault circuit or something??

Thanks!!
Rajiv

Looks like burn-in. But there is hope.

Do you have an option for white side bars on the Fujitsu?

What you need to do is display a black 4:3 center section with white side bars. 20-30 hours of that should even the burn in out since that is how long it took to obtain the burn-in.

If you only use the full screen image on the Break-in DVD it could take 200 hours for the burn-in to fade if you go by the 15% rule.

TMullenJr, I'm also in need of some advice about Closed Captioning on plasmas. My guess is it will be a problem until the plasma is fully broken in at around 1000 hours.

One thing I wonder about is: what determines the location of the closed captioning on the screen? At times/channels I see them on the upper left and at other times/channels on the lower left. I guess those are the most innocuous locations. I think I could live with upper right or lower right. It might be nice to have the programmable option in the TV or DVR to choose to vary the location. It may help that (at least on my DISH ViP 622 DVR) there are many choices for the style, color, transparency, etc. of the CC, so varying that might help minimize the burn-in/image retention. I use CC a lot, and so far, no problem with burn-in.
John

So my 50PX60U reached 100 hours the other day. I haven't changed by Picture/Brightness settings yet. During the daytime Picture 15 and Brightness 5 seems perfect, but I'm not sure I want to bump the Picture up that much after just 105 hours. Does everyone else throw caution to the wind after 100 hours, or increase settings incrementally over time?

Just bought my plasma - 42HDS69. It's still in the box. I started reading this thread and got really paranoid about my decision. This set is going to be our primary television. My wife works nights so the set could potentially be in use nearly all day long. Then I noticed that this thread started over 2 years ago, and my understanding is that the newer sets are much better about burn-in. So now I really don't know what to think. It seems the only constent message is to turn down the brightness and contrast, got that part. Other than that...

1) Should I ban my wife from HGTV? (due to the little house shaped logo, not because it's dumb)

2) Should we be concerned about pausing our tivo for extended periods of time? (1-2 hours) What about leaving the tivo on the "now playing list"

My understanding is that the set is much more sensitive to burn-in when it is new, thus the need for a break in period. I assume the reason for the break in period is to evenly age the screen (phosphors or whatever) past the early sensitive stage. If this is the case, then would it not makes sense to initially crank up the contrast and brightness and fill the screen with all white for day or so? It seems like this would "speed age" the screen past the sensitive stage, then turn down the brightness and contrast.

Any help/advice is appreciated. Again, normally I would search for these answers but I was not sure if the answers applied to the new models.

Thanks

Yes, the newer PDP screens are apparently much more resistant to burn in, however - some simple rules still should be followed.

during break in:

Avoid all static images (bars and station logos included) for the first couple hundred hours.

After break in, HGTV is fine - I think it is more of a water mark as opposed to solid white, correct?

In general:

NEVER pause the Tivo or DVDs for more then a couple minutes (even after break-in) and definitely avoid the static "now playing list".

ALWAYS try to stretch 4:3 material to fil the screen.

NOTE: Although the first 200 hours are genreally accepted as the most dangerous time - many manufactureres recommend being careful for over 1000 hours.

Your theory about "speed aging" seems sound, but I wouldn't suggest it - stick with the general rule - full screen moving images, low contrast for the first 200 hours.

That's good news that it seems to be fading out. The only suggestion I could make is to see if there is a plug-in for XP that would make the menus disappear unless you need them. I'm a Mac guy and I know it's available there, but I don't know about XP.

Well you could set the task bar to auto-hide. Then the start button and task bar
will disappear when not needed. :eek:

My Panny 42PX60U is set to be delivered tomorrow and I have been reading these forums for over a week to figure out proper break-in procedures. I have tried burning the break-in DVD but it won't work on my Mac. I was able to burn the CD on my PC at work but my DVD player won't play SVCDs.

Are there any alternatives that anyone was able to burn on a Mac? If not, I will just make sure to leave it on full screen content without logos when I am home and suffer through a longer break-in period.

Thanks for all the other info I have been able to pick up. This site is great and has clued me in to things I never would have considered.

Sorry guys, quick update.

Fujitsu think it is a faulty circuit after sending them some pictures, and are going to take away my screen for repair!!

If it does come back in the same state as it left, will try everyone's suggestions.

Thanks guys!!! :)
Rajiv

My Panny 42PX60U is set to be delivered tomorrow and I have been reading these forums for over a week to figure out proper break-in procedures. I have tried burning the break-in DVD but it won't work on my Mac. I was able to burn the CD on my PC at work but my DVD player won't play SVCDs.

Are there any alternatives that anyone was able to burn on a Mac? If not, I will just make sure to leave it on full screen content without logos when I am home and suffer through a longer break-in period.

Thanks for all the other info I have been able to pick up. This site is great and has clued me in to things I never would have considered.

I was in the same boat as you (Mac owner). I just ran Discovery HD channel 24/7. They never display logos for more than a few seconds.

I was in the same boat as you (Mac owner). I just ran Discovery HD channel 24/7. They never display logos for more than a few seconds.

Thanks. I will try that this weekend.

I have a coworker with a PC trying to burn the DVD this weekend so hopefully I will have it to use next week.

gotta make a few posts so I can give a link to an interesting article

gotta make a few post before I can use urls

hope this is the last one

These interesting, recent articles. I only wish they revealed which models were tested.

Tormenting the Plasma (http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/fredmanteghian/061406torment/)

Burn Baby Burn (http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/fredmanteghian/070606Burn/)

a couple of questions.

I just got a panasonic th-42px6u yesterday.

1) from reading the owners manuel (which doesnt mention breaking it in at all) and reading the posts on here it is said not to watch shows in 4:3 or still images or whatever for a "long time". how long exactly is a "long time". will I get burn in if I watch a show for an hour, 2 hours, 5 hours. what is the average "long time"

2) once you reach the 100 hour mark is it still not suggested to watch shows in 4:3 format as I personally dont like stretching the screen out

3) I notice a almost clear line running horizontal across the bottom of the screen about 3 inches up, right about where letterbox would be. is that a tv malfunction or a burn type thing that might go away?


thanks

A way to help burn-in, is it true that a way to fix this is buy putting your TV on Air broadcast and having no attena hook-up which would cause a constant snowy or static picure (like having cable service disconnected), will fix this problem or other burn in problems? I've read this on wikepidia website and other forums that by doing this for a hour on your TV will depolarising the gas particles on a plasma and clear this up. One one website on guy explained that a TV Technician told him that at there repair shop they leave it on a plasma TV for 24hours to fix this. Is this true?

One of my best friends, Dan, is the son of Hitachi's Vice President. He's interning overseas in Japan for the summer. He works for Hitachi's plasma test team and I guess a big part of that involves burn-in testing. I spoke to him recently and he told that they would put a static image up for 8 hours on 50% contrast and 50% brightness and no burn-in would appear. Of course they do all types of other tests where they would see burn-in's but he said those are unrealistic circumstances and that you really have to abuse your plasma. So I definitely think that burn-in's (although they exist) are made to be a bigger deal sometimes than they actually are.

I remember Dan had a plasma in his bedroom when we were in high school. We certainly didn't take care of that thing, as we didn't even know about burn in's then and his Dad never said anything. We used to play all types of Playstation games and sometimes going out to dinner or to a party with the game on pause. We stayed at his parent's for about a week at the end of Spring quarter and we looked really hard for burn-in's. I just started getting into Plasma technology this year so I was really curious as to the damage we had inflected on the plasma unknowingly back in high school. Both Dan and I couldn't find any burn-in's. It is worth noting that the plasma is about 4-5 years old and it doesn't have a "screen wipe" feature where we can clearly look for burn-in's. But we did look pretty hard all over the screen and came up with nothing. Now move ahead 4 years and I'm sure the technology today is far superior. I will be getting a Hitachi plasma (at 50% off thanks to Dan's dad) in about a month or so and I will not be too concerned with burn-in's. I think as long as you are even semi-careful, you should be fine with not getting burn-in's on your plasma.

My 360 has a "visualizer" when music is played. Basically, a full-screen saver.

To speed up the break-time, can I just leave this "visualizer" on over night and keep the tv on?

I really want to watch my movies and play my 360, so 200 hours seems like an eternity to me!

Dont worry about it. I played Oblivion, GRAW and PGR3 from day 1 on my th42px60u. For the first 100 hours I set the TV on Cinema and all other settings at "0" when playing xbox. Now (probably 300-400 hours) I have it set to whatever looks best to me and I dont even worry about burn-in.

10k I think you were fortunate. But I think there is some wisdom in a modicum of caution for the first 100 hours. For me that was about 15 days, not that long of a wait. During that time I had Picture and Brightness at 0. And I played no XBox. Lots of people will disagree with me, but I'm not sure plasma TVs and game consoles are a good mix. I use an LCD monitor for gaming.

I think a lot of people confuse image retention (which goes away) with burn-in (which does not). You get plenty of image retention on a plasma when there are any static elements on the screen for an extended period of time. Whether it is Fox Sports Baseball, NBC Sunday Night Football, the World Cup, or XBOX360. Having watched plenty of sports, and having played plenty of XBOX360, I can say that in my experience the image retention has always gone away 100% to the point that I can not see any after image on either a pure white screen or with the TV on with no video source going to the input (a great way to see plenty of IR). Additionally, as my tv has gotten "older", the image retention is generally less noticeable and goes away at a faster rate than when I first got the TV.

Your mileage may vary.

Because of the ESPN logo permanently burned into my plasma TV, I was a little apprehensive when I heard that "Monday Night Football" was moving from ABC to ESPN. 3+ hours of that bright white logo and bright red ticker...not good. But has anyone noticed that the ESPNHD logo is translucent and unobtrusive, and the red ticker only appears at the 18/28 updates? I don't have to be afraid of football! I'm not going to claim that I had anything to do with that, but I did complain to them a number of times. :D

Hi
I was just wondering, is the Break In DVD any good for the first 100 hour?
Or is it more harmful than beneficial?
Thanx for any input..............John

But has anyone noticed that the ESPNHD logo is translucent and unobtrusive, and the red ticker only appears at the 18/28 updates? I don't have to be afraid of football! I'm not going to claim that I had anything to do with that, but I did complain to them a number of times. :DActually, a number of content providers have moved in this direction... which is a good thing. ;)

In the UK there are also a number of channels that have moved from solid coloured logos to grey transparent ones (elsewhere I've read them describes as watermark logos). These don't seem to cause my plasma any problems at all, unlike BBC News 24 which is really nasty.

Hi
I was just wondering, is the Break In DVD any good for the first 100 hour?
Or is it more harmful than beneficial?
Thanx for any input..............John
The only harmful thing is that you put hours on the panel but don't get to enjoy it. I have the break-in DVD, never used it except to see if it worked. I just kept the screen filled and kept the contrast and brightness down for about 200 hrs., never had a problem.

The only harmful thing is that you put hours on the panel but don't get to enjoy it. I have the break-in DVD, never used it except to see if it worked. I just kept the screen filled and kept the contrast and brightness down for about 200 hrs., never had a problem.






Thank you for your input.
I guess it's always good to be on the moderate side.

My 360 has a "visualizer" when music is played. Basically, a full-screen saver.

To speed up the break-time, can I just leave this "visualizer" on over night and keep the tv on?

I really want to watch my movies and play my 360, so 200 hours seems like an eternity to me!


Any feedback on this idea would be appreciated. If I watch only 2-3 hours of tv per day, it would take me over a month to reach that 100 minimum "break-in" point.

If I did the visualizer overnight for 10hours/night it would only take me about 2 weeks!

I am primarily getting this tv for movies and my 360 HD gaming, so I want to speed up this break-in, if possible!

You could use a break-in CD

Actually, a number of content providers have moved in this direction... which is a good thing. ;)

Has anybody gotten a response from ESPN's Viewer Response Team in regards to their graphics and burn-in? I just sent them an email today, I expect a swift response from them. :rolleyes:

You could use a break-in CD


How do they work and are they expensive?

How do they work and are they expensive?
It is free, you just download the file and burn it to a CD or DVD, it puts different colored screen up and changes them every minute or so and will run on all night if you want it to.

I downloaded it.

I wonder if this would be better than the 360's visualizer?

Has anyone dones this overnight to expediate break-in?

Thanks for the file.

I downloaded it.

I wonder if this would be better than the 360's visualizer?

Has anyone dones this overnight to expediate break-in?

Thanks for the file.
Yep, many have used it, and it works fine, I don't know anything about your "Vizualizer"

Hey guys,

I was wondering what are my chances of burn-in on a plasma after the 600 hour mark? I should be close to the 700 hours soon, and I just recently bought an Xbox 360. I am a gamer, and I been playing PS2 and Gamecube on the plasma and hadn't had any issues of burn-in or IR for that matter but I always limited my gameplay to around 10 hours a week.

But lets just say I play video games for a maximum of 20 hours a week and probably watch tv around 12-15 hours a week. And the games I play usually have some sort of static bar. I play for a maximum of 3 hours in a row in any session before I just get bored and turn it to watch some TV or go to bed. Should I vary my viewing habbits?

I have Panasonic 50" 500u model and I also used pretty high contrast when playing video games (contrast =20 ).

Hey guys,

I was wondering what are my chances of burn-in on a plasma after the 600 hour mark? I should be close to the 700 hours soon, and I just recently bought an Xbox 360. I am a gamer, and I been playing PS2 and Gamecube on the plasma and hadn't had any issues of burn-in or IR for that matter but I always limited my gameplay to around 10 hours a week.

But lets just say I play video games for a maximum of 20 hours a week and probably watch tv around 12-15 hours a week. And the games I play usually have some sort of static bar. I play for a maximum of 3 hours in a row in any session before I just get bored and turn it to watch some TV or go to bed. Should I vary my viewing habbits?

I have Panasonic 50" 500u model and I also used pretty high contrast when playing video games (contrast =20 ).

For your 20 hours a week of video games are you talking about the same game with same static bar? If you are, then I would recommend you play TV or full screen movies for about 60-80 a week in addition to the games you play.

If you rotate between 4 or 5 different games during the week so that each game is played 4-5 hours, then you should be fine with 12-15 hours of regular TV.

As long as any static image is not display more than 20-25% of the time given the number of hours already used on you display.

You could even play games 100% of the time if you rotate evenly between 6-7 different games as long as the HUD's are distinct in each game.

I downloaded it.

I wonder if this would be better than the 360's visualizer?

Has anyone dones this overnight to expediate break-in?

Thanks for the file.

You could put it on FFWD :D

You could put it on FFWD :D

LOL!

Yes, and Rewind if I get burn-in!

Passed the 100 hour mark on my Panny 58PX600U and have used the AVIA home theatre DVD to callibrate the picture settings. Here is what I came up with:

Picture: +5
Brightness:+4
Color: -4
Tint: -7
Sharpness:+6

I am curious to know the settings of anyone else that has used a callibration DVD to compare.

I posted this on the original Break in DVD thread but no on answered....

Sorry if this has been asked before..

I serously want to start using this dvd to break the 100 hour mark on my brand new panasonic, however I would like to now if any research was done in order to make this "break in DVD"...

I kinda understand the usage of RGB colors+grayscale, but how is this better than say, moving images? Is it not dangerous showing a solid color for a while on a plasma?

Shouldnt it be better to show a continuosly scroll of colors, that pans horizontaly on screen?

Not sure if I'm in the right thread - please direct me if not. I just have some general questions about deterioration/artifacts in my PDP.

Bought a Vizio P42HDe last year and watch mostly HD programming on Cablevision over a 25' HDMI to DVI gold cable. Also use an upconverting 3:2 Toshiba DVD player over the same cable. I have enjoyed the TV but have been frustrated by blockiness/mosquitoing with fast motion (since I spend most of my time watching sports & DVDs), which seems to be a bigger problem on certain feeds (NBC's HD for example is much worse than ESPN's). There is also a bit of false contouring, especially with darker scenes. Part of the problem is related to the viewing distance, something I can't do much about in my house. And in general I could live with this PQ since I know I bought an entry-level set and shouldn't expect A+ performance.

However recently I have begun seeing crops of small red pixels intermittently which appear along the contours of objects, stay for a few seconds and disappear, only to return later. This seems to happen after the TV's been on for awhile, toward the end of a game for example.

So, as I'm a beginning technophile, I wonder:

1. Is blocking/mosquitoing with motion related to codec? In which case I can do very little about it. I doubt this because it seems to vary from channel to channel.

2. W/R/T#1, what about deinterlacing? Would a set with an upgraded deinterlacer handle motion from sporting events or action films better?

3. Could this be related to my cable feed - and would a satellite feed likely improve things?

4. How important is the length of the cabling (my wife hates exposed cables :rolleyes: )? And the quality of the cables? Mine are gold plated Radio Shack generics - is upgrading to something like Monster likely to provide a noticeable difference?

5. What's the deal with the red dots? I can't even find a piece of jargon that describes them...anybody else have an issue here?

Your comments are most welcome.
Thanks
BV