MASTER BURN-IN THREAD --> All questions and information related to BURN-IN must go here only please!

This thread is a sticky on the Plasma and LCD Flat Panel Displays Forum: there is a SEPARATE thread for RPTV (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=63)

Link to Logo Petition (http://www.**************.com/burnin/petition.html)

Download Break In DVD (SVCD) (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6230381&&#post6230381)

WHAT IS "BURN-IN"

Typically, "burn-in" is defined as an uneven wear of a phosphor based display unit (Plasma and CRT for example). It is the phenomena of being able to "see" the remnants of something that was being "displayed" even though you are watching totally different content. It is not image retention which goes away.

HOW DOES IT OCCUR

It occurs due to content being viewed not in the aspect ratio of the display unit thereby aging phosphors in the display differently. For example, 4:3 content is being viewed as 4:3 content on a 16:9 display device with the side bars as "black". Viewing in this way for extended periods of time (not defined) will cause the phosphors in the middle of the unit to age faster than the phosphors in the black side bar. When phosphors age they decrease in brightness.

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF PLASMA OWNERS EXPERIENCE "BURN-IN"

Although there is no, as yet, survey of all plasma owners, many owners of such devices have not experienced it. Rough guess, less than 1%. The few that have would, IMHO, be guilty of "abusing" the display.

IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE TO CIRCUMVENT "BURN-IN"

Absolutely, the list is as follows:

1) Get your display "calibrated". Now if that entails a professional ISF calibration (~$400) or a calibration via Avia or DVE (~$40). That's your call. Alot of "damage" can be curtailed by dialing down the brightness and contrast from the get go.
2) Put some sort of "color" on the side bars when watching 4:3 content in its native aspect ratio. If you absolutely hate stretching 4:3 content, that is filling the 16:9 aspect ratio of the unit, then make sure that the side bars are set to either "gray" or some other color than "black".
3) Did I mention to dial down the contrast and brightness?
4) Vary your viewing habits. In this day and age of 16:9 DVD's, HD content and SD content this should not be difficult to be achieved.
5) Dial down the contrast and brightness, are you getting this part yet?
6) Plasmas are very susceptible to "burn-in" when in their infancy as the phosphors have not had a chance to age. A few hundred hours of watching varied material to age the phosphors is not unrealistic and will probably due a lot to curtail possible damage.
7) TURN DOWN THE CONTRAST AND BRIGHTNESS OF THE DISPLAY. Sorry, but I firmly believe that this is crucial to preventing burn-in damage.

OKAY, I'M A (put your own explicative here), I HAVE "BURN-IN" IS THEIR ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE

Are you sure it is "burn-in"? It may be "image retention", which is different. Image retention is the phenomena of being able to "see" what was just on the screen prior to turning off the unit. Image retention goes away and has no effect on the display. It may, however, be a sign that your contrast and brightness are too high. Burn-in stays on the screen forever, never disappears and really bad burn in can make text unintelligible.

Back to the question, is there anything that can be done to fix burn in? Yes, there is. As stated before "burn-in" is the uneven wear, or aging, of phosphors in the panel. You can reduce it by reversing the image of the screen. For example, let's say that you have the middle of the screen burned in because you used black bars when watching 4:3 content. Just put up grey bars or white bars for the side and don't display anything in the middle. How? Just unplug your STB from the unit when in 4:3 mode. The time it takes to "erase" the burn-in will be in direct proportion to the amount of time that was spent watching 4:3 content with the black bars

I WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BURN-IN

There is alot of information concerning this topic. A "Google" or "Yahoo" search will yield more results

AVS Forum Burn-in FAQ (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=224419)

Fujitsu Burn In Prevention (http://www.fujitsugeneral.com/service/Plasmafiles/Bulletins/Burn-In%20Prevention.pdf)

Extron Device to Help With alleviating Burn In (http://www.extron.com/technology/archive.asp?id=plasmab)

IS A PLASMA THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR ME

Unfortunately, no one can tell you definitively whether a plasma, or any viewing device for that matter, will be the best choice for you. There are too many considerations to take into account. Plasma displays offer one of the best pictures that can be found today. Only you are aware of what you would use the display for. Only you know what your budget is. Only you can make that choice.

CONCLUSION

Plasma displays can offer the viewer a very clean, detailed and saturated picture. Here (http://www.pbase.com/chunkofunk/screen_shots_gallery/)are some shots from a fellow poster who was kind enough to show us his picture quality from his Panasonic 42" ED unit. A "looking through the window" type of experience. As with any technological device, Plasmas can also be a very expensive wall hanging if "abused".

MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

After perusing this forum for several months and visiting several stores to see several different plasmas. We ended up "settling" for the Panasonic 42" ED unit. I must say that this unit displays one of the finest pictures that I have ever seen, probably not saying much ;), from any type of display device. I base my personal preferences after owning a 50" 4:3 Mitsubishi Diamond Screen rear projection television as well as your average run-of-the-mill 27" and 32" 4:3 devices and viewing a FP in a dedicated theater. My wife, not being as enthusiastic about this purchase as myself, has even stated that the PQ is much better with the same source (DVD's). We have enjoyed this unit now for close to one year and it has ~2,000 hours with, I am happy to report, no sign of "burn-in" and no sign of the display starting to dim.

My father, who is a technical writer for a subcontractor that does work on submarine antennae for Raytheon has always told me, "Be kind to your electronics and they will be kind to you." I am happy to report that his credo is doing very well by us.

New member on the block, I have Sony KE42TS2 and noticed during dark or all black scene a lighter shade 4:3 image retention. Was extremely upset since I have mine set on Widezoom for all my viewing, until I read a thread concerning burn-ib in this forum whereby if I selected power save this ghosting should clear. I happy to say it is getting better, my question is what causes it if I do all of my viewing in the widemode.

How can you have 4:3 image retention or burn in if you're not watching any 4:3?

That simply makes no sense.

Tell us more.

I believe the term is temporary burn-in, the shape of the middle section of my screen is similar to the 4:3 box. The outer edges are more black compared to this middle section. Additionally, I could make out the TV-Guide logo burn-in, again this is only obvious when the background is black or when switching inputs with no signal. By setting my power to 'reduce' the logo as well as this box like shape are gradually dissipating. I have seen within this forum discussion about the voltage being the reason for such an effect, if so, why the middle of the screen? Plasma is unlike CRT tube based display where lets say the concentration would be in the middle.

Originally posted by Sonny Curry
The outer edges are more black compared to this middle section. Additionally, I could make out the TV-Guide logo burn-in, again this is only obvious when the background is black or when switching inputs with no signal.

That doesn't make any sense at all.
-If you watch widescreen zoom all the time (as you said before) you should not get any burn-in.
-If you watched 4:3 content all the time with black bars on the sides then you could get burn-in, but the result would be that the middle portions of your viewing area are darker than the outside. This is because the phosphors in the middle have 'burned more' and become less bright than the less used ones on the outside.
-With no signal or the screen completely black then you should not see anything at all even if you had burn-in because none of the phosphors would be activated.

Maybe you are talking about after image or image retention.

I believe that is the correct term for it, why though is it taking so long to disappear? When I watch some DVD with the black bars on the top & bottom that only lasts a few minutes.

Originally posted by Mayor McCheese

-With no signal or the screen completely black then you should not see anything at all even if you had burn-in because none of the phosphors would be activated.
Are you sure about that? CRT's can definitely burn to the point where you see the image even with the set completely de-energized. I don't know about plasmas, but I wouldn't think they'd be all that different.

Originally posted by peebee
Are you sure about that? CRT's can definitely burn to the point where you see the image even with the set completely de-energized. I don't know about plasmas, but I wouldn't think they'd be all that different.

No, I'm not really sure about anything I write:)

I was just stating that based on my understanding of what burn-in really is. Because 'black' really is a signal and not a lack of signal then I'm probably wrong. But if none of the phosphors are being activated I would think there would be no way to distinguish between the brighter and darker areas.

After the recent discussions in this forum, I think it's generally agreed that there is some slight danger of "burn-in" for plasma screens due to uneven phosphor wear. So here's two features that I think manufacturers should include in their next generation panels (maybe I should patent these!):

1. Have an automatic screen saver mode built-in. My DVD player already does this, so I'm covered there, but I have a TiVo as well, and it's not uncommon for a static image to be on the screen for quite some time, whether it's a paused program or the "Now Playing" screen. Normally of course I turn off the TV, but I shouldn't have to: why can't the screen detect a truly static image after say a programmable period and turn off the screen for me?

(Of course, the "Now Playing" screen isn't truly static, so that would defeat this feature. Maybe the new HD TiVo will include an automatic screen saver function, or at least someone will hack the feature in -- it's gotta be easier for the TiVo to know when it's paused than for the screen to detect an unchanging input...)

2. Have a customized screen wipe function. Most panels seem to have a feature to drive a grey or white image to the screen to "wipe" the screen (I think this is mostly for image retention, not necessarily burn-in, but it should alleviate burn-in as well). And, most screens have a lifetime counter that measures how long a screen has been turned on.

So why not combine the two, and have a counter for each pixel that measures how long (and at what intensity) each pixel has been driven? Periodically, you could run the "screen wear leveling" routine and it would even out the phosphor aging of the screen. (You could even combine this with the screen saver: I bet it would look pretty cool seeing it in action -- maybe like the degauss function on computer CRT monitors.)

I'd guess you'd want a 48-bit value for each R-G-B (or maybe YPbPr?) at each pixel location. 48 bits gives you 16-bit intensity x 60 Hz x 60 seconds x 60 minutes x 24 hours x 365 days x 136 years. For an HD display at 1024x768, that works out to less than 16MB of storage -- insignificant compared to the cost of a panel.

So, what do you guys think? Is this workable? Does it solve the problem of screen burn-in?

- Matt

A major risk of burn-in is the "I fell asleep while watching a DVD on my plasma and when it was over the DVD menu screen was displayed for six hours" syndrome. Been there, done that. No screen saver will protect you from this because most DVD menu screens have some movement that will prevent the screen saver from coming on. A better idea is to employ a timer in the plasma or DVD player (like the Panasonic xp30) that can be set in anticipation of lights out.

The screen wipe function usually is a white bar that moves across the screen. If any white areas are displayed on the plasma, such as the lettering on a DVD menu, the screen wipe will do exactly diddly-squat.

The idea of a counter for each pixel is not technologically or economically feasible.

1. No Burn-in issue

That would be my first choice.

As long as plasmas are constructed with phospors there will be burn-in issues.

So, what do you guys think? Is this workable? Does it solve the problem of screen burn-in?

Yes, that would work (I've already suggested it myself.)

It would be very easy to do and not add much to the cost. It is just a bit more memory combined with the digital processing that is already there.

You say that you can also make out the TV Guide logo. Is it possible that you watch the TV Guide a lot? Does it have a center area that matches the lighter area? I don't have it so I'm not sure. But, even so, check your contrast and brightness settings as well. You should not see the logo unless you have it on much of the time or you are torching the panel.

The TV Guide logo comes up when you switch channels (Comcast Cable), and yes I do believe that the box resembles what accompanies the logo. I have turned down the contrast and gradually this box is disappearing. This is my first and last Plasma, I feel extreme care must be taken with this type of display (burn-in, reduced life, etc.) especially given the cost associated.

However, if you disregard the cost, it is the most bright and clear display I have seen, which was my reason for buying it.


FYI - Gear

Display - Sony KE-42TS2 (partially calibrated using Joe Kane's DVE disc)
Receiver/SACD/DVD - Sony AVD-C700ES
Speakers - F/R - In-ceiling Sonance 'Symphoney'
- Center- Gallo 'Due`'
- Subwoofer- Velodyne FSR-10
Cable/HD - Motorola 5100 'DVI -enabled'
Speaker cable & Interconnect by Nordost, Kimber Kable, Monstor (DVI), and Straight Wire (component)
Power Cables- by PS Audio xStream Radian (Right-Angle IEC) for wall Plasma, Shunyata Research and AudioQuest NRG-1 for Motorola box.
Surge Protection/AC filter - PS Audio Ultimate Outlet 'High Current'.

As you can see, I should be the last person to talk about cost....can wait to get the 55" Fujitsu, come-on lotto numbers ..

Does anybody use a Video Shift Device that moves the input signal slightly? I am talking about the device made by Extron model VS-200-SL. This device moves the video signal horizontally and vertically so slowly that it is not seen by your eyes, but allows the phospher to cool.

Originally posted by DodgeViper
Does anybody use a Video Shift Device that moves the input signal slightly? I am talking about the device made by Extron model VS-200-SL. This device moves the video signal horizontally and vertically so slowly that it is not seen by your eyes, but allows the phospher to cool.

what you refer to is also called a wobbler or orbiter: often a menu feature built in to many current plasma displays

However a former member Eric B pointed out that this does not really prevent burn-in: it just moves the image around a bit- and causes some image shift issues on some displays: perhaps better than nothing, but don't rely on it alone to prevent burn-in:

buying a separate box to do this is of questionable value for HT apps IMO

if some widescreen format material is in a wider aspect that 16:9 it will have black bars top and bottom - would watching for example a 2 hour film that is >16:9 wide aspect cause burn in at all - or just a temporary burn?

Originally posted by benji2004
if some widescreen format material is in a wider aspect that 16:9 it will have black bars top and bottom - would watching for example a 2 hour film that is >16:9 wide aspect cause burn in at all - or just a temporary burn?

Neither, it takes a much longer time than that. Nobody knows for sure but I suspect you would have to really work at it to create burn in with any of the newer plasmas. I've watched movies with the black bars, played video games with static images, and watched some 4x3 material with grey bars (although I really prefer JUST mode now) and I haven't even seen a hint of burn-in. I've taken all the necessary precautions and have left the burn-in worries behind me.

At our store, we had a Pioneer 5030 (last years model) that we were trying to get rid of. Being that it was an old model we only had the display to sell so we moved it to the front of the store and hooked a dvd player up to it. For at least 4 days, 9 hours per day it was frozen on one screen. In big white block letters it said "ALAN CUMMINGS". I'm sure it was frozen like that more, but I was only there 4 of the 7 days before it sold. The cheap dvd player would freeze before the movie even started playing and no one notice or cared enough to change the screen. Anyways, at the end of each day when it was time to turn it off I would switch it to a different input to see if there was any burn in. I never saw even the slightest hint of "ALAN CUMMINGS" anywhere on any screen.

We also have a 42" Toshiba that is an open box item. It's set off to the side to make room for current models and unfortunatly where it's setting there isn't access to an HD feed. It's been in 4:3 mode with BLACK side bars for at least 2 weeks 12 hours per day. This also shows no signs of burn in or un even wear as of yet.

This has alevieted some of my concerns as I try to decide which plasma is right for me.

Someone please give an authoritative view on this; some others in other threads are saying viewing 2:35:1 for extended periods will cause burn-in.

They can't actually mean that if I decide to rent LotR 1-3 and devote 12 hours to watching all three back to back I am going to cause permanent damage to a display, can they? (Permanent damage to myself, perhaps, but to the display? ;))

Not for 12 hours, maybe, but 2.35:1 burn-in is a possibility as much as the 1.33:1 burn-in. But as someone has already mentioned, it's not as bad as you think.

Hong.

I think I have finally figured it out (the box like shape) in the middle of my screen, see my previous thread. I had done the reduction of contrast and brightness using Digital Video Essentials disc, and the box like shape resembles that image where you have two box shape side by side and you try and reduce contrast & brightness to match the optimum box! I remember having it on my screen for a long time, could that be the cause since I never view 4:3 material (mine set to Widezoom mode)?

I didn't want to bring up a store name but since Best Buy Guy spoke up first, here goes.

I was in BB the other day. They had a 50" Pioneer - last year's model, marked down from CDN $16K to CDN $8K. I looked at it for a while then flagged down the salesman. "Is this on sale because of the burn-in in the corner?" I asked. He said something about it being impossible, blah, blah, until I pointed it out to him - a big ESPN HD logo burnt into the bottom right corner. It seems they run a loop all day long on their TV's and that logo is there about 5 minutes out of every 15 or so. I offered to take it off his hands seeing as how it was ruined and everything. He said he'd go talk to the manager. I went over to look at the other plasmas on display and pretty soon 3 or 4 of his colleagues came around to look at the burnt display. I called them over to look at the 42' display 2 units down 'cause, sure enough, it was burnt with the same logo. I wonder if they'll unload them on some unsuspecting fool who believes that plasmas don't burn in. :)

I imagine we run the same feed as your local BB. Depending on the time of year, the ESPN HD logo is on more often then 5 of 15 minutes. For example, during January (super bowl) and the few weeks before march madness starts. There is also a Discovery HD logo 5 of 15 minutes. As I'm in the market for a plasma of my own I've been keeping an eye on them to try to weed out misinformation. We've only been open since November, and so far they havn't shown any signs of burn in. I've even gone as far to view them with all the lights in the store are off (after closing). I did this to see if I could find evidence of burn in and to see if the low black levels of the pioneer would bother me. So far I'm very pleased that burn in doesn't seem to be the HUGE problem the synics out there make it.

Best Buy Guy - I should not have singled you or your store out and I hope it didn't cause any offence. I like your store and worship there on a regular basis :)

The timing of the loop was just a guess. I haven't really timed it. The burn-in is only visible against a white or very light screen. It shows up as a light brown image of the border of the logo and faint lettering. It is quite pronounced on the older 50" which the sales guy said had been out for 6 weeks. It is much fainter on the newer 42" unit.

Cynics are not created in a vacuum. I have a Toshiba CRT RPTV that I burned playing XBox - my fault, I know. But, once burned, twice shy. The funny thing is that Future Shop (owned by BB in Canada) are now bundling XBox with a Tosh CRT RPTV. I'm sure they must caution people not to actually use them together. But this is a plasma thread and I'm off-topic.

Maybe I'm taking this whole burn in thing too far but:

Like most of you, I'm away from my Plasma for up to 12 hours a day while I'm at work.

My plamsa does not have a pixel orbitter, so what is the best way to educate non technical visitors and housemates about not burning in the screen?

For example my Mom was visiting and accidently activated the menu screen on my tube 27" -- while no damage was done, she did not know how to escape this menu and low and behold left it up there until I returned home from work - about 7 hours later. Luckily I did not have my plasma TV at that time, but this is just an example.

I wonder the best way to teach plasma ettiquette to guests? I dont want to scare them to death about damaging a $7500.00 TV, such they're afraid to turn it on - but I need to find a balancing point somewhere. What have been your strategies on educating your guests/kids/non-technical viewers, in the absence of your supervision?

Jason

Jason,

I not sure what plasma you bought, but most plasma has a screensaver mode you can set. (i.e. panny)..

All in One Remote with an OFF button that is like a general reset - when in doubt, turn off the plasma if nothing else is the rule of thumb at my house. haven't had any "real" problems aside from the wife leaving it on when she's in another room...for the HTPC portion, a inlcuded a blank screen as a screen saver after 1 minute of inactivity - never had a problem there...

I guess we shouldn't get too attached to these objects, since anything IS possible, and burn in can occur...

I'd hate to be the person at my house that causes it...

Slarsky, good idea about the HTPC.

I'm more concerned about day-to-day unsupervised plasma viewing by non-technical guests (wife, kids, girlfriend, mother, etc), during your/my absence. There's a number of things they can do that will permanently damage the TV. Heres some examples:

1) Leave it on a single channel for 8 hours straight with a non-transparent colored TV logo in the bottom right. This would happen with DiscoveryHD or InHD channel for example.

2) Non-technical person (most people I know), presses the wrong button on the remote, and leaves a menu on the display, and do not know how to get rid of it, so they walk away, go shopping, or whatever, w.out turning off the TV. This has happened to me before on my old tube tv.

These are all scenarios where I would leave my house to go to work in the morning with my Plasma perfect, and then I come back at 7:00pm at night, to find permanent damage. Ugh. I see three options.

1) Sell it and buy a DLP, LCD.
2) Unplug it M-F 7:00am until 7:00pm, and not allow TV viewing. This is kind of dumb.
3) Print out instructions, or guidelines for using the Plasma, and hope for the best. This would make me look anal.

Just trying to protect my $7500 investment,

Jason

This is one of the reasons I bought a Roku. It has a screensaver built in with the pass-through component inputs. If the Roku senses a static image on the screen for a set length of time, it will turn on and go into screensaver mode.

Works for me since all inputs to the plasma run via a component switching receiver.

Originally posted by Megalodon
1) Leave it on a single channel for 8 hours straight with a non-transparent colored TV logo in the bottom right. This would happen with DiscoveryHD or InHD channel for example.
I was under the impression that DiscoveryHD had one of the best, least damaging policy regarding their logo: it comes on periodically but never stays on more than 20-30 seconds at a time. At least it's been my (limited) experience. In fact, I feel I could watch this channel for 8 hours straight without needing to worry about their logo causing burn-in. Am I wrong?

Chris I do like the idea of the Roku. Was there any way to get it working through DVI/HDMI or are you stuck with component?

Just a few questions here, if I go HDTV will I have to suffer with black bars? Although quality looks better with the blackbars I really don't want burnin and I REALLY hate stretching. Isn't there a "real" version of widescreen for dvd or hdtv that fits the screen without black bars and doesn't look stretched or distorted without having to use zoom as well? I can't seem to find dvd's with 16:9 anywhere. I think I had one or two dvd's that had 16:9 as it said widescreen and fit the whole screen but the back of the dvd's never tell the ratios anymore.

My plasma is the poster child for abused plasmas.

I bought it used from a company I was working at, where it spent its first few years as a computer monitor in a network center showing basically the same web site 24x7.

No one knows exactly how many hours were on it when I got it, but it was probably north of 10,000 hours. It has some mild burn-in.

You can see some pictures of the burn-in in this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=275013&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

It often is completely unnoticeable. Which is good news; the fact that a set as abused as mine has such a small issue with burn-in is remarkable.

A worse problem is bloom do to (I think) heat build up. See the attached picture. If the set has been on for a while (particularly if showing really bright images like cartoons or sports) large areas sometimes wind up almost completely white. If you touch these areas of the screen it is hot enough to scald your hand, while the rest of the screen is only slightly warm.

Sometimes everything magically cools off on its own, and the bloom fades while you watch. Fortunately it is almost never a problem for DVDs, it usually shows up when watching TV. I don't know if this is related to burn-in, or if it is a defect in the set design. It's a Pioneer PDP-505HD.

The fans are all turning, although they don't seem to move a lot of air. I'm wondering if I can rig up small fans to force more air through the set.

I am shopping EDTV Plasmas and leaning towards the Panny pwd6uy but I have concerns about burnin from 4:3 viewing and playing xbox on this display. Has anyone had any problems with burnin? Also, I will watch a fair amount of SD content on this display...how does it look? Thanks

please try the master burn in thread at the top of the forum.

Also, a very large % of xbox games are 480p widescreen, and fill your display completely. (and look fantastic)

- pink

Burn-in update

I planned to post once every 3 or 4 months about any burn-in problem with my plasma. It has been over 6 months since posting so thought it was about time.

I purchased a 503cmx 20 months ago. It was for my 6 kids, will be 7 next week, to play video games exclusively. Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, etc. My kids do know to turn off when leaving the room and on occasion they will forget.

We have had NO burn in at all! I believe that the burn in fear is over hyped. The plasma will have memory from time to time but always erased once a different game is played.

Absoutely love the plasma!

-Jym-

Hello all

Another infrequent visit to AVS - never seem to have enough time these days/nights.

Those petrified soles who still haven't dipped their toes into the waters of Plasma ownership for fear of 'Burn-In' may be interested to know that Panasonic are saying the 7 Series displays (due in the UK in September 04) will have near CRT levels of tolerance to burn-in and the NEW Pioneer MXE1 Displays (April 04 for the 43" and June 04 for the 50") have a new mode that averages out peak white to minimise the risk of burn-in.

As others have posted I find with Panasonic and Pioneer Displays you have to try very hard to cause permanent damage and with Pioneer in particular I've now seen two displays that looked goosed but sorted themselves out after a few weeks of TLC.

Best regards

Joe

I want to thank everyone for all the useful information in this thread. Unfortunately, it confirmed what I suspected - that my Sony KE-32TS2 has burn-in. I got the TV last September. A few months after that, I got a high definition cable box. For the last few months I have been home recovering from an illness so the TV has been on a lot but I was still surprised to find that burn-in could happen so quickly. The problem is only noticeable when the TV is in widescreen. The edges of the screen are a little lighter. I need to learn not to look at the edges of the screen because it just upsets me. The worst part is that it's all my fault.

I hope the prices will fall quickly. Eventually I will probably buy another plasma, but I will be much more careful with the new one! I would urge everyone who has this model to be very careful not to watch the TV in HD when the program being shown is not in widescreen. The picture was so beautiful that sometimes I could not resist doing that and now I am paying the price. A painful and expensive lesson.

Susan -- You have the most reversible kind of burn in. Do you have the ability to hook up a PC? If so, you can make white sidebars with a black center and run that pattern for several hours unti the burn in has been evened out.

You might well be able to achieve that without a PC if you can get a black source that is 4:3 and switch the sideabars to the brightest grey the Sony will allow.

Also, if you haven't already calibrated with Avia or Video Essentials, you should do so as soon as you've reversed out the burn in.

OK, I've got two questions: (1) I tried to find the messages mentioned above that say why an orbiter won't help with burn-in, but I couldn't find them. Can someone explain why the orbiter/wobbler isn't sufficient? (2) What does one do about those shows that the networks put on the HD channels in 4:3 with sidebars? For some reason, if you zoom these, the sidebars don't go away (at least on my Panasonic) and so you're stuck with the sidebars unless you switch over to the SD channels. At lease the NBC bars are black and the CBS bars are white, so you can mix and match. Is there any other solution?

As to the orbiter/ wobbler question:

I think it was our old friend Ericbee that pointed out it is of limited use in some cases:

For example assume you have a logo or icon continually on your screen: all the orbiter function will do is move it around one or two pixels periodically- so the function may exacerbate the burn-in by making the logo/icon burn-in area slightly larger

As for side bars (which grey is supposed to be better than black as to wear the sides more evenly), many newer HD boxes will stretch the HD image to fill the screen. Most older HD boxes and most all televisions (which lock in full with HD) do not have the appropriate stretch function to remove the bars.

One of the reasons I ditched my old Samsung HD box and moved on to DirecTV and the LG3200A. It does a great job stretching the HD broadcast of 4:3 material.

I watched the Derby on NBC (channel 704 in HD here in New York) two days ago. I noticed that the channel logo (rings) seemed transparent, and so I felt it was perfectly safe to go on watching.

1) Was I right?
2) Is it true that transparent logos cannot cause burn-in?

Logo issues aren't going to be a problem over a 1 day period. If you have a really bright logo you may see some ghosting where it was if you leave it there for several hours. However, it will go away with normal use within another hour or so of watching something different. Also, during commercials the logo goes away.

The problem is for someone who leaves their plasma on a certain channel hour after hour, day after day. Like if you kept your TV on CNN all day long and it had a static logo. One of the worst offendors for me is the history channel.

rogo, thanks for your suggestion about the PC. I had seen the suggestion at the top of this thread about using white bars on the side, but since I am not sure I would be able to do this correctly, I am afraid to play around with it. I might just make the situation worse.

As for the calibration, since it is clear that I do not know what I am doing I think it would be a good idea for me to hire a professional. If anyone can recommend someone in NYC (Manhattan), I would appreciate having the information.

I did find that by turning off the cable box and turning on the TV in HD, I get gray bars at the side and black in the middle of the screen. Maybe it is worth trying this for a while. (If this is a bad idea, someone please tell me before I cause more problems.)

Susan, if the grey bars line up with where the burn in is, then you can use that for awhile to even out the burned in areas... That will work -- but only if the borders are aligned... Otherwise, you'll help matters somewhat, but worsen them somewhat.

SusanNY -

I own the slightly earlier commercial model, the Sony PFM-32C1, with 4317 hours on it. I have always watched 4:3 as 4:3 with black sidebars and many 2.35 movies. I checked this morning with an Avia Pro 30% IRE gray screen and I see no evidence of burn-in either visually or with instruments in the 4:3 area or the 2.35 area. The center of the screen measures 11.41 cd/m^2 while the upper left corner measures 10.79 cd/m^2. If there were burn-in the corner measurements would be higher.

My set has picture inversion and I think yours does also. On my set it is located under screen saver. I have never had to use this feature for burn-in prevention. I have on several occasions used it for 2 to five minutes to dissipate image retention.

Having your set calibrated is unlikely to do anything about burn-in. I have had my set ISF calibrated and have done innumerable calibrations on it using the Color Facts 6000. If you want to be super cautious then keep contrast set toward the middle. After adjusting the A/D converter on my set I have actually increased contrast to about 160.

I suspect what you are experiencing is image retention. After excitation the phosphors do not immediately go back to their original level. This means that if I switch from a 4:3 program to a DVD I may for a briefly see the 4:3 outline. Using image inversion reverses this in that all pixels are now the same - that is not returning to their original levels. I have seen image retention last up to 8 hours.

I think the gray bars do line up with the burn-in. Doing this seems to be my best bet. (Maybe one day someone will sell a DVD with white on the edges and black in the center - those of us with burn-in can just play the DVD every night until the picture evens out.)

The reason I suspect it is burn-in and not image retention is that the problem is still there after several days. I have stopped watching non-widescreen programs in HD so now the black bars don't appear on the edge of the screen when I watch TV. The problem is only noticeable when there are light colors on the edges. For example, a white background shows up as one color at the edge (where the black bars appear in non-widescreen pictures) and another in the center of the screen.

If I ever get this evened out, I'll try adjusting the contrast, etc. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I appreciate the help.

Well, I just got my Pioneer 5040 up and installed last Friday... as I had just mentioned in a previous thread.

I wanted to check out the Xbox on the thing, and so I popped in HALO... since I havent yet beat it. Well, I probably put in about 8 hours since Monday. Every so often, i would hit pause, or flash over to TV, just to be sure there wouldnt be burn in where the stagnant life meter was, and weapon meter was.

Well, as I shut off the XBOX and the screen went blank this afternoon, I noticed that there is BURN IN at the top left corner of the screen where the weapon bar was!

I cant BELIEVE it!

Is it actually THAT easy to burn a plasma?

I even had the settings cranked down!

I mean, its faint... not noticable except for dark scenes, but I know its there!

Im still in shock.

It might just be some retention. Watch TV on it for a while and see what happens.

I second jrock65, it's likely just image retention.

Watch some TV or other material for awhile and it should go away fairly quickly.

Possibly image retention, but still a warning sign.

Halo thread merged here. Sounds like image retention to me.

Random thought: Is it time for the plasma mfrs. to put a 200-hour warning in the manual? Is it necessary?

There's an "Important User Guidance Information" section in the front of my manual. I don't think it would have hurt had they added the 200 hour info there.

I too would think that it is image retention. I have xbox and have played for greater than 3 hours (that's about as much as I can handle without burning out;)). Any way, I have never experienced burn-in or image retention although this is on a panasonic and not a pioneer. Not really sure if that has anything to do with it and my settings are really down there on the scale of the panasonic. Well below the "0" that marks the mid way point on brightness and picture settings.

What would I do other than drinking myself into a coma? Vary the material you watch, stretch everything (hope you're not an OAR fanatic, not that there's anything wrong with that). I'll betcha that it's taken care of pretty quickly.

If your unit has a "screensaver" you may want to delve into that to see if a swipe of the screen with a white scroll bar may help.

Keep in touch to let us know how you made out. I would be very curious to see if maybe it was just the age of the unit/phosphors and if it relieves itself after a while of viewing different content.

You should have died more often.:)

PS I wouldn't play any one game for 8 hours straight on these units, although they do look awful good, it is just a game. If I was going to be into an all night thing on gaming I would vary the gaming material.

OFF TOPIC:

Rich, I bumped that thread in the local reception area in which you posted a question. Sorry about that...I let it slip my mind to watch it. Hopefully foxeng will see it and answer your local FOX affiliate question.

Back to Burn-In......

Thanks woodrow, and yes I did see that Foxeng replied but had no definite answer.

Back to burn-in topic.

I just wanted to report my experience over the weekend. Friday night I had a bunch of people over for an XBox night. 4 Xboxes, 4 Tvs, 16 people.

Anyways, we had one of the XBoxes hooked up all night to my Panny PW6UY. We played Halo from about 6pm - 4am. I stretched the picture to fit the TV, since this isn't a 16:9 game. Twice during the night, I ran the white bar across the screen a few times, "just in case." I spent a good part of Saturday examining the picture. I can't find any indication of burn in at all.

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to condone anybody play Halo on their plasma for 10 hours straight. Just wanted to report what I experienced.

I'm considering buying a plasma set right now.

After reading this thread I can't help but be a little scared by all this burn-in talk. I don't want to live my life having to check the tv every time I watch something for a few hours or play a game for a few hours. I don't need the extra anxiety in my life having to worry about a $6000 piece of electronics equipment.


It just seems that there are so many potential pitfalls with these sets. Almost every single network on tv has some logo on the screen and you always have to worry about that.


I basically get the impression that the only material you are completely safe watching on a plasma is a 1:85 dvd. :confused:

Originally posted by Tigerriot
Almost every single network on tv has some logo on the screen and you always have to worry about that.
Yup. Unfortunately. The model they should all follow is Discovery HD, where the logo comes on only intermittently and therefore does not cause any risk of burn-in. Why have the logo present all the time (except during commercials) is beyond comprehension. Maybe they think it's "chic." It's just plain stupid, if you ask me.

Yeah, or why not also have the logo switch from the left side to the right side as well? You could have it on for 1 minute every 10 and it could also switch from left to right each time.

How about a dancing logo that flits about the screen like a little digital pixel nymph?

:D

I have had a Panasonic plasma for about a year and a half. I don't stretch 4:3 content. I play games on it (PS2). After all this time (it gets a lot of use), it only has slightly uneven wear from the side bars. It's not noticeable at all unless you have a solid white screen. There are no station logos or game HUD elements burned in at all.

In my opinion, burn-in worries are way overrated. The meaningless amount of "burn in" I have could have been prevented by using stretch mode. I could set up a "reverse pattern" to wear the side bars to the same level as the central 4:3 area.

Well, I have a question that may be stupid, but hasn't been addressed anywhere in this thread.

Can high color or sharpness contribute to burn in? When I watch standard cable I like to set the color and sharpness level rather high, but I keep the brightness and contrast extremely low.

Is this a concern at all? My gut tells me no, but I figured I should ask.

By the way, I have a Panny TH37PA20U and I am loving it. Without question the best purchase I've ever made.

Great forum. Got lots of useful information prior to making the jump into plasma, so obviously I am a newbie.

I just got a Panny 42 PX25 and when I go to watch Lord of the Rings and other widescreen movies, even in zoom mode there's black bars on the top and bottom of screen. Is there a way to get rid of the black bars?

I'm very worried about burn from watching movies like this. I probably watch on average 2 movies per week.

Should I be worried about burn in from these black bars?

Is there anything I can do to help prevent burn in from this?

From what I read, the channel logo is not a big issue for burn-in because of regular commercial breaks from programming, right?

Thanks.

Originally posted by katetsai
the channel logo is not a big issue for burn-in because of regular commercial breaks from programming, right?
Channel logos that stay on throughout uninterrupted movies (and there are a lot of such movies, especially on premium channels) are a definite issue for burn-in. The question is: how much of an issue? Say you watch one such movie every day -- with the logo in the right bottom corner -- will burn-in eventually show up? Anyone knows?

Originally posted by katetsai
I'm very worried about burn from watching movies like this. I probably watch on average 2 movies per week.

Should I be worried about burn in from these black bars?

If you are only watching 2 movies per week (with black bars at the top and bottom) then I wouldn't even think about burn-in. It will take a lot more than that to cause problems.

Originally posted by Mayor McCheese
If you are only watching 2 movies per week (with black bars at the top and bottom) then I wouldn't even think about burn-in. It will take a lot more than that to cause problems.

Agree. 2 movies per week = ~ 4 hours worth of viewing. IMHO, not a problem. At least I haven't experienced it .:)

FWIW, re: channel logos, also have not had a problem watching ESPN, TNTHD (thanks E*), etc.

The point is that if you vary your viewing habits, ie the type and format of content you will not experience burn-in. Display a static image for, say, ever and yes there will be burn-in.

These displays are becoming more "mainstream" with the consumer. The average consumer "surfs" (I know I am the average consumer;)). We watch SD (stretched from E* for Nick, and the kids shows maybe "food network" every now and then), HD (normal friggin magnificent via both E* and OTA), and DVD's (very good above SD but below HD).

Can't think of another display device that I would rather have for all the different types of content that we view.

FYI, today in "BestBuy" flyer they had the Sampo Plasma 50" for under $4k.:cool:

Originally posted by katetsai

Should I be worried about burn in from these black bars?

In a word, no. As to their presence, search for aspect ratios, or read the sticky post in the Home Theater General forum on this topic.

My philosophy: the plasma is for the enjoyment and betterment of movies. Let it do its job, and don't be stressed about hypothetical "damage" to the plasma from using it.

I got my HD hook-up last night, watched CSI:Miami and PQ was great! HD RULES!

Thanks again for all the great info & make my mind more at ease with purchasing a plasma.

I was reading somewhere on this forum that the new plasmas have something that prevents burn in? what feature is that called? If kids play x-box and leave, If I turn off the tv but not the game console does that help prevent burn in?

Xbox is a terrible system. Poorly designed controller, almost no AAA games, and poorly designed hardware. PS2 and GCN have huge quantities of superb games, with sleek hardware, and good controllers. Hah. Xbox 2 will not even have a hard drive, nor will it be able to playback Xbox games. What does this mean? The best way to prevent burn-in on your plasma is simply not to play the Xbox. It is a terrible console to begin with.

How about a remotely constructive comment, Nintendo boy?

Jason, I'm not sure to what you refer. If you turn the TV off, the console can remain on indefinitely with no risk of burn in, however.

Mark

If Congress mandated no burn-in displays could the Video Manufacturers comply? Would it also be possible to create electronics that could filter out all burn-in questions at AVS? The mind staggers with such possibilities!

My Daewoo display has something called Dynamic Pixel Management, which is supposed to prevent burn-in. I have no idea how it works, or if it actually does though. I'm sure there are some more experienced posters who would know for sure ;)

> The best way to prevent burn-in on your plasma is simply not to play the Xbox.

and PS2 and GCN. Or Atari, Commodore or PC, for that matter. Oh, and not watching CNBC, ESPN or anything that has tickers. Are you satisfied yet? :p

Turning off the TV should be fine. I do play Xbox games occasionally (also watch ESPN and CNBC, for that matter) for the past two years, and I haven't noticed anything much.

Hong.

If you have especially bad burn-in is this covered under most larger store's warranties? They sometimes mention they cover "wear and tear".

If so it would seem to be a good idea to get an extended warranty, so if you get burn-in after a few years you can just get it replaced.

Originally posted by Jayzen
If you have especially bad burn-in is this covered under most larger store's warranties? They sometimes mention they cover "wear and tear".

If so it would seem to be a good idea to get an extended warranty, so if you get burn-in after a few years you can just get it replaced.

Many, if not all, warranty's, manufacturer or extended, will not cover burn-in.

Sorry.

I play hours of xbox at a time with my pwd6uy, and have no issues. I used DVE to calibrate my xbox, and then turned down the contrast/brightness settings just to be sure.

Just so you know, xbox has a self dimming feature on it. :D Leave the system alone for about 5 minutes, and it drop it's brightness about 75% (from 100% down to about 15%). Nice addition which will help avoid any burn-in issues that would worry you.

You can also turn the "wobbler" function on. This shifts the image a few pixels at a time, not enough for you to notice, but supposedly enough to help avoide burn-in.

-JR

Thank you. actually no game station yet but with two kids already asking for it, I thought I better ask the question. Just making sure before I buy a plasma 42 inch. Just not completely sold on the DLP especially the Samsung. I hestiate with anything Samsung- past bad experience.
I am getting the panny std dwuy and was seeing if they had the hardware that helps reduce burn in?

Speaking of calibration? When I buy the plasma due I need to get that done? Or can I due it myself? What is it? I will turn down the color contrast.

Calibration is not just toning contrast down. It is about adjusting your display to more accurately display the image (or have your display perform better). It is not just for plasma displays.

You can hire someone to do it or you can buy a calibration DVD, such as Digital Video Essentials or AVIA and do it yourself. The DVDs are not as comprehensive as the professional calibration, but for most, they are enough.

Hong.

Merged with master burn-in thread.

Link to Alan Gouger's post about Sharp LC-30 LCD burn-in (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3661342#post3661342)

Originally posted by stormsweeper
I have had a Panasonic plasma for about a year and a half. I don't stretch 4:3 content. I play games on it (PS2). After all this time (it gets a lot of use), it only has slightly uneven wear from the side bars. It's not noticeable at all unless you have a solid white screen. There are no station logos or game HUD elements burned in at all.

LOL, if this obvious sign of burn in doesn't have you worrying, then I suggest you start. You've owned your plasma for only a year or so and you already have signs of bars on the sides? That's not a good sign at all, and the more you use your plasma that way, the WORSE it will get. The burnt-in bars on your plasma are by no means "meaningless" or "overrated."

In my opinion, burn-in worries are way overrated. The meaningless amount of "burn in" I have could have been prevented by using stretch mode. I could set up a "reverse pattern" to wear the side bars to the same level as the central 4:3 area.

If a year of non-stretched 4:3 footage has already given you signs of burn in, imagine playing your favorite videogame on a daily basis, with the HUD or health bar in the same place for around 2-3 hours a day? Stretch modes may be able to protect your screen from burnt-in bars, but not burnt-in health meters.

Originally posted by Odnetnin256
Xbox is a terrible system. Poorly designed controller, almost no AAA games, and poorly designed hardware. PS2 and GCN have huge quantities of superb games, with sleek hardware, and good controllers. Hah. Xbox 2 will not even have a hard drive, nor will it be able to playback Xbox games. What does this mean? The best way to prevent burn-in on your plasma is simply not to play the Xbox. It is a terrible console to begin with.

geezs, I thought this stuff only happens on Gamefaqs :p

Originally posted by staticks
LOL, if this obvious sign of burn in doesn't have you worrying, then I suggest you start.[rambling]

Dude, calm down. If I magically ruin my plasma with a less than 1% difference in brightness along the side edges, it's my problem, not yours.

I have a question that hasn't been addressed in this thread yet... I am planning on ordering a 50PHD6UY either this week or next week. I had asked in the main plasma forum about a "break-in period" but I thought I'd ask here as well. Is there a time in the begininning when no 4:3 images should be viewed at all? I've heard 100 hours is a good time to break in the plasma. Am I asking for trouble if I view 4:3 right away? I am planning on watching a mix of of different aspect ratios and want to avoid stretching if possible.

Calibrate your display for brightness and contrast (important) with Avia. Watch you're varied content for a hundred hours or so then recalibrate. IMHO, a problem would arise if you were to watch only 4:3 material. You state that isn't the case, so.....
good to go.


Just my .02

Logo Petition

Please don't forget to read & sign the Logo Petition

http://www.**************.com/burnin/petition.html

Can u post more than once...like say I have a family of seventeen can I vote for each one?

Mark, I know that you have a large familia. Right?

This petition is right on the mark. As of now, 434 people (including me) have signed it. If you have not, please do so.

Originally posted by katetsai
I just got a Panny 42 PX25 and when I go to watch Lord of the Rings and other widescreen movies, even in zoom mode there's black bars on the top and bottom of screen. Is there a way to get rid of the black bars?

I'm very worried about burn from watching movies like this. I probably watch on average 2 movies per week.

I agree with the others that 2 movies per week shouldn't have you worried.

However, if you still want to stretch the movie out you should be able to do it on your set by using the "zoom" on the TV and not the DVD player unless they've changed things. On my TH-PWD5UY if I put the Plasma Display in "zoom" mode while watching widescreen movies (like LOTR) in progressive mode (480p) it doesn't really zoom the picture in the normal sense, it stretches the picture on the horizontal axis to fill the screen and only removes a few pixels from the vertical axis.

Hope that makes sense and like I said, I can only speak to the TH-PWD5UY model, not the newer ones. FYI - I'm feeding a signal from a Denon DVD-1600, which is set to progressive mode and 16:9 output, to the plasma display via component video.

I'm Sorry but it seems to me that Plasma Technology is not worth it's current price. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm Spending over $5000 dollars on a television and I have to baby sit it's usage: THATS RIDICULOUS!!! It's like buying a Ferarri and being told that you can only drive over 50MPH 20% of the time. It is completely unacceptable that companies have not fixed burn-in issues on current generation plasma displays as the technology has been around since the early 90's. Message from above: SAVE YOUR MONEY!! Plasmas may have excellent BRIGHT PICTURE performance, but most have extreme difficutly in dark scenes: Case in point: Last night watched Mystic River on a Pioneer PDP-434HD. Spent most of my time trying to make out which character was speaking in the dark scenes because you couldn't see faces!! If I pay 5 grand for something, it sure better work. I can tell you that I am returning my plasma and may wait several years for something better. I was told by an industry expert that Plasma technology is a stepping stone for the future, and that current generation plasmas will outdate themselves within 3-5 years. As LCD technology catches up, (Currently as good a picture but much more $$) Plasma will fall by the wayside.

TO FUTURE OWNERS:
Beware, that $5000 you spent on a TV will probably the worst investment you will ever make. Let's face it, What is the point of owning something so expensive that you are afraid to use because it may ruin the screen rendering it useless!! If only 1% of plasma owners experienced burn in, then manufacturers would not be so quick to void warranties of burned in units. My opinion is that burn-in, ghosting, etc is totaly unacceptable when spending this much money on a television.

I Forgot to mention. I called pioneer and asked about burn in and the Tech I talked to said that he gets 20-30 calls a day from people who either have logo burn in or black bar burn in from "anamorphic" wide screen. His reply to me about burn in was to RETURN THE TELEVISION!! He admitted to me that Burn-in is a serious issue and it happens much more frequently than companies admit. As for stretching the sreen on ZOOM mode. What the hell did I pay 5 grand for a televison set to watched oblong characters in a movie because I have to avoid burn in!! GET REAL PEOPLE!

Jugdish, you just put a big smile on my face. :)

On an another note, it looks like the petition is picking up the pace and getting more votes! Excellent! :D

-JR

Let's keep this in perspective.

Even the beloved CRT RPTV's will get burn-in. Go over to that forum and do a search, you'll find alot of threads concerning burn-in.

IMHO, if anyone is to be using a display device and most of their viewing is 4:3 content then I would suggest not even considering a 16:9 display, unless of course it is a FP. Phosphors are phosphors and as long as display devices have phosphors they will age differently if they all aren't being used for the same duration. Ergo, you get burn-in.

For our habits a plasma is perfect as it is unobtrusive and we watch alot of varied programming.

FWIW, Jugdish I do not agree with many of your statements and as usual, it all depends on the end user. Further, burn-in will not "ruin" the screen, it may ruin the viewing pleasure though.;)

Pssst, I don't think LCD has "as good a picture" as plasma, and so far my absolute worse investment was in a little company called "Mack Trucks". That cost me a fair amount of $$$. FYI, I am about as "real" as a person can get.

Just my .02

Originally posted by Jugdish75
I'm Sorry but it seems to me that Plasma Technology is not worth it's current price. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm Spending over $5000 dollars on a television and I have to baby sit it's usage: THATS RIDICULOUS!!! It's like buying a Ferarri and being told that you can only drive over 50MPH 20% of the time. It is completely unacceptable that companies have not fixed burn-in issues on current generation plasma displays as the technology has been around since the early 90's. Message from above: SAVE YOUR MONEY!! Plasmas may have excellent BRIGHT PICTURE performance, but most have extreme difficutly in dark scenes: Case in point: Last night watched Mystic River on a Pioneer PDP-434HD. Spent most of my time trying to make out which character was speaking in the dark scenes because you couldn't see faces!! If I pay 5 grand for something, it sure better work. I can tell you that I am returning my plasma and may wait several years for something better. I was told by an industry expert that Plasma technology is a stepping stone for the future, and that current generation plasmas will outdate themselves within 3-5 years. As LCD technology catches up, (Currently as good a picture but much more $$) Plasma will fall by the wayside.

TO FUTURE OWNERS:
Beware, that $5000 you spent on a TV will probably the worst investment you will ever make. Let's face it, What is the point of owning something so expensive that you are afraid to use because it may ruin the screen rendering it useless!! If only 1% of plasma owners experienced burn in, then manufacturers would not be so quick to void warranties of burned in units. My opinion is that burn-in, ghosting, etc is totaly unacceptable when spending this much money on a television.

I Forgot to mention. I called pioneer and asked about burn in and the Tech I talked to said that he gets 20-30 calls a day from people who either have logo burn in or black bar burn in from "anamorphic" wide screen. His reply to me about burn in was to RETURN THE TELEVISION!! He admitted to me that Burn-in is a serious issue and it happens much more frequently than companies admit. As for stretching the sreen on ZOOM mode. What the hell did I pay 5 grand for a televison set to watched oblong characters in a movie because I have to avoid burn in!! GET REAL PEOPLE!

He he he... That's a knee slapper. You know though, some folks won't catch your sense of humor here and may take you seriously. You might want to do an edit and add ":D :D :D" just to be sure.

I thought the posts were hilarious though. You are off to a good start! Welcome to AVS!

I am officially freaked out about plasma burn in . I had been planning on purchasing a pio 5040 this weekend but now i'm not sure. How much more susceptable are plasmas to burn in over standard direct view crt tv's. Why can't they do something to minimize this (burn in) rather than changing the end users viewing habits. Should I settle for a rear projection dlp or lcd and live with the lesser quality? Any advice would help.

Originally posted by Jugdish75


Beware, that $5000 you spent on a TV will probably the worst investment you will ever make. Let's face it, What is the point of owning something so expensive that you are afraid to use because it may ruin the screen rendering it useless!!

Oh dear! I guess the last two years I've been enjoying my display was a mistake! I never should have turned the darn thing on! ;) Thank you for showing me the error of my ways. :D

LITTLEpeter, welcome to the forum! It's really up to you to decide, but if you just follow the instructions near the beginning of this thread and use common sense (no torch mode, use a calibration disc and mix up your viewing (aspect ratio wise) and the other advice you'll find here) you're in a much better position to prevent any problems than those who buy plasmas without doing their research first.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

I currently use a Zenith 15" LCD as a television/computer monitor. I have had it for about 6 months. I use it mostly as a computer monitor but do watch tv here and there on it. I have managed to PERMANENTLY burn the windows start logo in the lower left hand corner as well as a faint burn of the lower blue line of windows XP. It doesn't bother me, but use this as an FYI: ANYTHING, including LCD, which people seem to rave about, CAN burn in. I have a friend who owns a bar and has a sony GWIII 50", the one with the previous bulb issues. He mostly has it on CNBC and now has a faint burn in of the stock ticker at the bottom!! Nothing is immune from burn in. DON'T be mislead about DLP or LCD, if abused, you will get BURNED.

I just got a "refurbished" Sharper Image Personal Entertainment Center (DVD/TV/etc.) with a 7" LCD screen. I was surprised to see the following in the user manual:

-----
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING USE OF VIDEO GAMES, COMPUTERS,
DSS OR OTHER FIXED IMAGE DISPLAYS.
The extended use of fixed image program material can cause a permanent “shadow image” on the screen. This background image is viewable on normal programs in the form of a stationary fixed image. This type of irreversible TFT LCD panel deterioration can be limited by observing the following:
•Reduce the brightness/contrast setting to a minimum viewing level.
•Do not display the fixed image for extended periods of time.
•Turn the power off when not in use.
Note: The marking or retained image on the TFT LCD panel resulting from fixed image use is not an operating defect and as such is not covered by Warranty. This product is not designed to display fixed image patterns for extended periods of time.
-----

Then later in the same manual, when describing TV screen modes:

-----
IMPORTANT: Do not allow 4:3 mode to be displayed for an extended period.
This can cause a permanent after-image on the LCD Screen.
-----

I was under the impression that LCD screens are not subject to any permanent burn-in problems, though it is difficult but possible to get a temporary burn-in effect.

Is there any truth to this warning? Is someone at Sharper Image just being overly cautious?

I know this mini-portable system isn't exactly the home theater type stuff generally discussed here, but I don't know why this 7" screen should be any different from a burn-in perspective than other LCD screens.

Mark

Originally posted by Joe Fernand
Hello all

Another infrequent visit to AVS - never seem to have enough time these days/nights.

Those petrified soles who still haven't dipped their toes into the waters of Plasma ownership for fear of 'Burn-In' may be interested to know that Panasonic are saying the 7 Series displays (due in the UK in September 04) will have near CRT levels of tolerance to burn-in
Does anyone have any additional information about this or perhaps a source for this information? If this is true, it's a feature in the 7 series worth waiting for - at least for me personally as I am a gamer.

I own a 42 panny almost a year......I watch approx 4 hr per day.... This plasma has been the greatest investment I ever made..Maybe I don't fit in to the group of people who are talking about BURN-IN...but I will tell you this set has the greatest picture I have seen in a long time... I am sold on Plasma.....................Vinman:

Originally posted by PiperBri
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

I currently use a Zenith 15" LCD as a television/computer monitor. I have had it for about 6 months. I use it mostly as a computer monitor but do watch tv here and there on it. I have managed to PERMANENTLY burn the windows start logo in the lower left hand corner as well as a faint burn of the lower blue line of windows XP.

I use an HP2025 LCD, and I have burn-in where my windows task bar is. I have two rigs hooked up to my monitor, both use different task bars, and one (from what I can see) bar is burned in. I've attached a picture, which doesn't show it all that well. What you can't see in this attached picture is how clearly the icons on my taskbar have been burned into the unit.

I'm guessing this isn't image retention, since I either turn my computer off all weekend, or at the very least turn the monitor off. My unit is on "danger mode" however, brightness is at 100% and contrast at 50%.

-JR

LCD technology should not suffer from permanent burn in at all, because of the way the panel works. If it does occur(and its extremely rare) you should easily be able to reverse it with activity in the burned in area.

Your problem is that the taskbar is pretty much static, so heres what you can do.

Create a screensaver(should be a freeware one out there somewhere) and make it so white fills the whole screen. Then turn off monitor powersave, so its displayed without the monitor turning off. You should see the burn in disappear(its going to take a little while though).

You could also move the taskbar to the top of the screen, but that changes your workflow, so I guess that isnt a valid approach.

And when it has disappeared, turn on a regular screensaver so it wont happen again :P

-Yahoo

Originally posted by YahooSerious
Create a screensaver(should be a freeware one out there somewhere) and make it so white fills the whole screen. Then turn off monitor powersave, so its displayed without the monitor turning off. You should see the burn in disappear(its going to take a little while though).

You could also move the taskbar to the top of the screen, but that changes your workflow, so I guess that isnt a valid approach.

And when it has disappeared, turn on a regular screensaver so it wont happen again :P

-Yahoo

I'll give that a shot yahoo, thanks for the tips. :) In regards to having a regular screensaver, I'm pretty much working on my rig all day, so there really isn't a time I would have a screensaver come on. I do have a screensaver currently set for 10 minutes inactivity (firm standard at our company). I'm guessing that the image retention/burn-in has been caused by my long 8 hour work days. :D

I'll give your suggestion a shot and see if it gets rid of the "burn-in".

-JR

Sharp offers to replace my burned-in LC30HV2U!

Thanks to Mike53, a rep from Sharp called and said they want to replace my LC30 that I reported here with burn-in

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3661342#post3661342

Arrangements have been made to replace it with a new LC30HV4U

Thanks to Mike and Sharp:)

Working at an A/V retailer, I get the advantage of seeing how all technologies fare objectively. Plasma will "self-correct"; in other words any image ghosting will disappear if you run full screen material for a few hours afterward. This always happens where some new guy will leave a DVD's menu screen up and it ghosts. Once the movie is on repeat, the image goes away, typically by the end of business that evening.

LCD can etch, but you really have to try!

I'll agree that "Burn-in" can exist given enough abuse...

I'm currently looking at 3 Fujitsu 42" SD plasmas with some pretty obvious burn. They're all displaying mostly static images, and have been doing so 24x7 for the past 4 years (except for a few hours while some stuff was moved around). One of them has now started to turn itself off randomly.

There's a few CRTs that are displaying roughly the same images & have been on for the same amount of time. Two of them have already been replaced, and the remainder are nice and toasty.

This is total and utter abuse, and I imagine it'd be very very difficult for someone with a plasma at home to "burn-in" their panel unless they're *really* stupid and accidentally leave it on a DVD menu for a few months ;)

Originally posted by markrubin
Sharp offers to replace my burned-in LC30HV2U!

Thanks to Mike53, a rep from Sharp called and said they want to replace my LC30 that I reported here with burn-in

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3661342#post3661342

Arrangements have been made to replace it with a new LC30HV4U

Thanks to Mike and Sharp:)


Mark, that's good news to hear & congrats on getting a new Sharp replacement. Kinda puts back a little faith in these mfg'ers.

A bit OT...I just read the Perfect Vision August '04 article on the Fujitsu P50 and how it might just be the best Plasma made at this time...had my mouth watering, for sure. Anyway, the article also stated that the P50 did not use gray bars for viewing 4:3, and I was wondering if you had to take EXTRA precautions to avoid burn-in on your P50 when viewing 4:3 programming? BTW, how have your experiences been w/the P50 when viewing SD? Thanks, JB

Originally posted by cajieboy

the article also stated that the P50 did not use gray bars for viewing 4:3, and I was wondering if you had to take EXTRA precautions to avoid burn-in on your P50 when viewing 4:3 programming?

I don't like to stretch the picture :if the source is 4:3 that is how it is viewed

no extra precautions needed after a break-in period of 100-200 hours in my opinion:

I watch a mix of lots of programming and follow reasonable precautions to avoid burn-in

never had burn-in on a plasma:)

Originally posted by markrubin
I watch a mix of lots of programming and follow reasonable precautions to avoid burn-in
What do you do about logos -- those that stay on all the time except during commercials? Some are pretty big and dangerously so -- "Animal Planet" is an example. For this very reason I stay away from this channel. Shouldn't I?

Logos are a source of concern: I will watch a movie on Trio but will not leave the channel on continuously because of their d*** red logo:

similar concerns for CNN, CourtTV, Animal Planet, crawler bars, et al

You could sign the Logo Petition (link in signature below)

Not much else you can do but avoid/limit watching these channels

Originally posted by markrubin
Logos are a source of concern
You could sign the Logo Petition (link in signature below)
I've already signed it. Those who haven't yet, please do so now.

I'm curious to know if the Petition has already been sent to the network stations. If not, I think it should be sent now to each one of them, and a new copy resent to them at regular intervals as more signatures are added. Only if they are repeatedly reminded that their logos are actually bad for business (unless they conform to the suggestions accompanying the Petition) because they drive people away, is there a chance that they will take action (IMHO).

The model they should all follow is Discovery HD (channel 706 on TWC in Manhattan). I can watch this channel for hours every day and never fear burn-in from the logo.

My Sony KE-37X910 will has white bars, not black bars when displaying 4:3 material.
Will this decrease my changes of burn-in?

Hey guys,

Check this out when you have a chance.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=415612

Originally posted by YahooSerious
Create a screensaver(should be a freeware one out there somewhere) and make it so white fills the whole screen. Then turn off monitor powersave, so its displayed without the monitor turning off. You should see the burn in disappear(its going to take a little while though).

Hi there Yahoo,

Any suggestion on how long to leave the white screensaver on? I set my taskbar to auto-hide, put a white background to my computer, which I've had on all day so far. I don't see a difference, and I'm wondering if it's safe to leave on an all white screensaver over night.

-JR

Originally posted by markrubin
Sharp offers to replace my burned-in LC30HV2U!

Thanks to Mike53, a rep from Sharp called and said they want to replace my LC30 that I reported here with burn-in

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3661342#post3661342

Arrangements have been made to replace it with a new LC30HV4U

Thanks to Mike and Sharp:)

Kudos to Sharp: they delivered a new LC30HV4U today and took away the burned-in unit

Thanks again to Sharp and Mike53:)

I've got a new plasma screen (3 wks old) and I've already detected some very slight burn in. On ESPN HD, they have the side bars that have "HD" written in them during some of their programming. When I'm switching between inputs, I can tell a very faint burn-in of those lines.

Also, there appeared to be a slight burn-in from the channel information guide at the top of the screen although that appears to have gone away now.

At any rate, am I being to burn-in paranoid? Or is this just the way plasma screens are. Its a Hitachi by the way.

You should read the Master Burn-in Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=444258)

Glad to help. We want no unhappy customers out there.

Originally posted by Mike53
Glad to help. We want no unhappy customers out there.

Man, I wish all companies felt this way. It's funny...I can't even get a guy who works for Denon, and advertises at AVS, to offer advice on the best way to go about getting a Denon DVD player serviced!!

Nice job Mike. SHARP is on my list of customer friendly manufacturers now.

Although, after the way I harrassed you in that thread a few weeks back, I'll bet your saying..."good, I hope you and your player rot".:D

This thread should be moved to the "master burnin thread", hence the "all questions go here" statement. With that being said you would have hit alot of peoples email accounts for answers concerning this topic.

At any rate, what about 3.5 % :), adjust your sets contrast and brightness, that should do it. Go out and get Avia if you don't have it yet and use it.

As an aside I finally witnessed "image retention" on my unit the other night. Had just started up the DVD "Galataca" (very white and burning type in the beginning of the movie) when the youngest came and said he didn't feel well and would I go upstairs with him.

Turned everything off and for ~1.5 secs the beginning of the movie was there...then magically not there.

Burn-in, as stated before, is overly hyped, IMHO.

Dave, Rogo, Mark, time to move this puppy.

Done. I feel the power running through me.... :)

I concur highly with the recommendation to get Avia or Digitial Video Essentials (the former is easier to use).

If you have not seen this month's issue of The Perfect Vision, get a copy.

Mark

Originally posted by rmcgirr83
This thread should be moved to the "master burnin thread", hence the "all questions go here" statement. With that being said you would have hit alot of peoples email accounts for answers concerning this topic.



Oops. I should have figured that the message should go in that folder.


Does anyone have any experience with the ESPN side bars? Thanks.

Originally posted by JuiceRocket
Hi there Yahoo,

Any suggestion on how long to leave the white screensaver on? I set my taskbar to auto-hide, put a white background to my computer, which I've had on all day so far. I don't see a difference, and I'm wondering if it's safe to leave on an all white screensaver over night.

-JR

For what it's worth, I've changed the area of my taskbar, put my computer to show an all white background at all times, and even left the computer on for a 6 hour period with an all white screensaver on.

The burn-in/image retention on my LCD is still apparent, and has not faded or vanished, if anything, it appears it's blurred or something.

-JR

Originally posted by seabay
Oops. I should have figured that the message should go in that folder.


Does anyone have any experience with the ESPN side bars? Thanks.

I know exactly what you're talking about. That's their "new and improver" version. It has not manifested itself on my set, FWIW my panny's contrast and brightness are in the negatives on a scale of -30 to 30. That is for watching regular SDTV, for HDTV my set was professionally calibrated but still the picture setting is -20.

Get Avia/DVE and run it,IMHO, it will do a lot to curb the phenomena that you are experiencing.

Some movies are that really wide anamorphic 2.8 to 1 or something that would put letterbox on even a 16:9 . What potential for burn in is there, considering that watching 4:3 is discouraged due to burnin on the sides.

Ben-Her is 2.76 but no modern films are shot in an ultra wide aspect ratio. 16x9 is 1.78, so any film or program with an aspect ratio greater than 1.78 will be letterbox. Many 1.85 films are open matted to 1.78 and/or many displays overscan so you want see the small black bars. 2.35 is the next most common aspect ratio used.

As for burn in potential, it depends. LCD won't burn in. And a properly calibrated plasma is not likely too.

The Panasonic I just got has an auto mode that slightly elongates the picture for either 4:3 TV at the edges or fills in the top and bottom bars for really wide format DVDs.

There is a slight distortion at the very left and right edges of a TV image that is stretched in this manner but the center of the picture is in a normal ratio as far as I can tell. This mode does not bother me in the least as most of the action is in the middle 36" or so of the screen.

When the auto mode fills in the top and bottom of an ultra wide movie format, there is a slight distortion of that characters appear slightly slimmer. For most films this is not bothersome but I could see where an extreme wide format film such as Ben Hur it could be a distraction as the picture would be stretched from top to bottom to the point that the characters would be un-naturally bean pole like.

Unfortunately I have not figured out yet how to make the top and bottom black bars a lighter color. For the bars that fill out the screen of a 4:3 picture, I have configured the bars to be light gray.

Originally posted by ChuckofTahoe
Unfortunately I have not figured out yet how to make the top and bottom black bars a lighter color. For the bars that fill out the screen of a 4:3 picture, I have configured the bars to be light gray.

I've been wondering about this very question. I don't yet have my plasma (I soon hope to own a 42PWD6UY), and so I don't have any experience with its modes of operation. But I've seen posters talking about the grey sidebars for 4:3 material, and have wondered about grey top/bottom bars for greater-than-16:9 material...

I'm now guessing that it may not be possible to get the grey top/bottom bars, because, and correct me if I am wrong, that is actually program material that is encoded on the source, as opposed to absence of signal (for 4:3 material.) As such, the plasma wouldn't be able to tell that it was supposed to make it grey.

Is that right?

- s.west

Originally posted by swest
I've been wondering about this very question. I don't yet have my plasma (I soon hope to own a 42PWD6UY), and so I don't have any experience with its modes of operation. But I've seen posters talking about the grey sidebars for 4:3 material, and have wondered about grey top/bottom bars for greater-than-16:9 material...

I'm now guessing that it may not be possible to get the grey top/bottom bars, because, and correct me if I am wrong, that is actually program material that is encoded on the source, as opposed to absence of signal (for 4:3 material.) As such, the plasma wouldn't be able to tell that it was supposed to make it grey.

Is that right?

- s.west

Yeah, I have not figured out how to convert the top and bottom black bars to white or gray. I am not sure this is because it is part of the signal though.

Actually, in Panasonic auto mode, the Plasma seems to have an uncanny ability to sense the black bars for both 4:3 to the right and left or black bars at the bottom and the top for DVD >16:9 widescreen movies and then perform a combination of either zoom or stretching the image to fill in the void with the active picture area.

The distortion at the very left and right edges in JUST mode for 4:3 signals is very acceptable to me and I have no problem watching TV in this mode. All I have to do is watch out for Channel bugs or nasty black bars that are part of the signal (such as stock market tickers).

The AUTO mode works really well for DVD movies and eliminates the black bars I think through a combination of slightly stretching the image vertically and a mild zoom. On most movies, it is not bothersome though I will continue to seek new solutions to this issue.

One caveat, even in AUTO mode I have observed a very small black bar at the bottom of some DVD pictures. This is only 3-4 pixels wide and can be programmed out using the picture vertical postion adjustment.

Screensavers: I am also using scrolling horizontal white bars every 15 minutes for 1 minute, peak contrast limits and the wobble screensavers. If I am watching a DVD and have eliminated the top and bottom black bars, I suspend the scrolling white bars for the duration of the movie.

Originally posted by ChuckofTahoe
The AUTO mode works really well for DVD movies and eliminates the black bars I think through a combination of slightly stretching the image vertically and a mild zoom.

???

The AUTO mode isn't available for DVDs.

Originally posted by BruZZi
???

The AUTO mode isn't available for DVDs.

It is for me BruZZi. I am feeding all of my signals into a Receiver (Kenwood VR 5700). My signals are Sony DVD, Xbox, DIrectTV through a TIVO.

With my VR 5700 selected to DVD, I select Panasonic Auto. If I am currently in FULL mode, it immediately eliminates the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen by expanding/stretching the picture.

It works quite well IMO.

chuck-

using plasma at 6250+ ft elevation?

Originally posted by jeremys
chuck-

using plasma at 6250+ ft elevation?

So far so good. My unit is actually 6,600 or so. I have heard of problems up here though maybe this were the first 2-3 generations of Fujitsus. I figure if this is a problem it would show up in the first year of warranty and I could send the unit back for repair.

The manual for the Panasonics does not specify an altitude limit. Some other brands do and on the later models the limits are in excess of 9,000'.

Originally posted by ChuckofTahoe
Unfortunately I have not figured out yet how to make the top and bottom black bars a lighter color. For the bars that fill out the screen of a 4:3 picture, I have configured the bars to be light gray.
You can't. Unlike the 4:3 black bars that are produced by your DVD player or display, the black bars on a 2.35:1 film are part of the image.

Originally posted by nm88
You can't. Unlike the 4:3 black bars that are produced by your DVD player or display, the black bars on a 2.35:1 film are part of the image.

There you have it.

Originally posted by ChuckofTahoe
It is for me BruZZi. I am feeding all of my signals into a Receiver (Kenwood VR 5700). My signals are Sony DVD, Xbox, DIrectTV through a TIVO.

With my VR 5700 selected to DVD, I select Panasonic Auto. If I am currently in FULL mode, it immediately eliminates the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen by expanding/stretching the picture.

It works quite well IMO.

That's Interesting. :)

Originally posted by Woodrow
Man, I wish all companies felt this way. It's funny...I can't even get a guy who works for Denon, and advertises at AVS, to offer advice on the best way to go about getting a Denon DVD player serviced!!

Nice job Mike. SHARP is on my list of customer friendly manufacturers now.

Although, after the way I harrassed you in that thread a few weeks back, I'll bet your saying..."good, I hope you and your player rot".:D Nah, I don't take anything personally. But I guess I am really an LCD "fanboy". ;)

There are tons of 2.35:1 movies that leave bars.

You can watch such movies 20% of the time without any concern.

I echo Rogo's statements. I have a PIO which has a ton of display options to fill the screen, but if you alter your viewing habits, you'll be fine. Furthermore, each letterbox seems to be slightly different. Vary your viewing habit...burn-in is overexxagerated.

Aaron

Originally posted by William
LCD won't burn in.

Off topic, but sadly not true. :( Check here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4054394#post4054394) for more info.

-JR

Don't worry about it. Watching one super-wide 2-3 hour movie isn't going to cause permanent burn-in. Just mix it with some full screen viewing.

Please people. Back away slowly from your aspect ratio control and stretching modes and leave the original film aspect ratio be, as God (the director) intended. Do that, and no one here needs to be hurt.

Regarding burn-in, I've had the Panny ED plasma for over two years and have enjoyed many, many 2:35:1 films (black letterboxed bars top/bottom).

No burn-in whatsoever.

As far as I know, being able to select the panasonic auto mode does not depend on the source material but rather on the input. It works via composite and s-video but not on component.

As for back bars and auto zoom , I can tell u the following, I watch my cable box analog channels via s-video (bit based on rich suggestion, so I have a diff picture adjustment) and when it is pure 4:3 material (no black bars) it will stretch automaitcally to JUST mode, however is there is a commercial in still basic 4:3 mode but with black bars, the panny recognizes that and does some sort of zoom. Like on E! channel it will flip back and forth between just and a zoom mode depending on the transmission. Check it out on E!

Clever panny !!!!


Erick:D

Originally posted by kacang
As far as I know, being able to select the panasonic auto mode does not depend on the source material but rather on the input. It works via composite and s-video but not on component.

As for back bars and auto zoom , I can tell u the following, I watch my cable box analog channels via s-video (bit based on rich suggestion, so I have a diff picture adjustment) and when it is pure 4:3 material (no black bars) it will stretch automaitcally to JUST mode, however is there is a commercial in still basic 4:3 mode but with black bars, the panny recognizes that and does some sort of zoom. Like on E! channel it will flip back and forth between just and a zoom mode depending on the transmission. Check it out on E!

Clever panny !!!!


Erick:D

Voila. I am using a single output from my receiver going to the Panny's input 2 using S Video. Therefore auto mode works for either source DVD or SAT TV on my set up. I may later use a component hookup to one of the other inputs to try out the DVD on this but right now the picture looks pretty damn good via S video and for me, the less wires the better as far as clutter.

Originally posted by R HARKNESS
Please people. Back away slowly from your aspect ratio control and stretching modes and leave the original film aspect ratio be, as God (the director) intended. Do that, and no one here needs to be hurt.

Regarding burn-in, I've had the Panny ED plasma for over two years and have enjoyed many, many 2:35:1 films (black letterboxed bars top/bottom).



Thanks for your awesome posts with respect to finetuning the brightness and picture controls. I kind of wish you had come up with some less disgusting descriptions of your fine posts than "Polishing The Turd" and "Steaming a Rat". Though I guess in some cultures Rat might be considered a delicacy.

I can't find a control for contrast on the basic menu. I just assumed that "PICTURE" in my menu is the same as what you are describing as contrast. I did not really look in the advanced menu yet as I wanted to take it all in as much as I can before monkeying further with the picture controls.

Your advice above with respect to watching the DVD in FULL mode and leaving the black bars top and bottom sort of assumes that you have turned down the brightness, picture and contrast, etc. settings.

I tried out your polishing the turd settings for my standard broadcast watching last night and found the picture results to be awesome. But for DVD watching, I am still preferring the factory settings on AUTO that are relatively torch like and potentially damaging to the display. For DVD I find the "turd" setting too dark (missing detail in dark scenes) and even the factory CINEMA settings a touch on the dark side for DVD night, indoor and cave scenes.

So for now I am watching DVD's in relative brightness and high contrast and am therefore leary of having black bars displayed for 2+ hours. In Panny auto, the distortion is very, very slight. I am not fooling arond with the V and H picture size and position controls except to eliminate the 3-4 pixel black bar that sometimes occurs at the bottom of the screen.

Thanks again.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I can't find a control for contrast on the basic menu. I just assumed that "PICTURE" in my menu is the same as what you are describing as contrast.

On my plasma it's called "contrast," however on many displays I've seen the contrast control inscrutably labelled "PICTURE" so I'm sure you're right.

Your advice above with respect to watching the DVD in FULL mode and leaving the black bars top and bottom sort of assumes that you have turned down the brightness, picture and contrast, etc. settings.

Not necessarily. The threat of burn-in is mitigated not only by turning contrast/brightness down, but simply by mixing up the material you view on the plasma. For instance, my family watches normal TV channels stretched (using "JUST" mode) to fill the screen. Since movies come in a variety of aspect ratios, some filling the 16X9 screen, others being letter-boxed, there's really no worry about 2:35:1 letter-boxed movies burning in. Plasmas don't burn in that easily and you'd have to watch a truly abnormal number of letter-boxed movies in a row to actually end up with detectable burn-in.

My picture settings for watching movies, while down from factory blaring mode, are still fairly vivid. And as I wrote, after two years of watching every 2:35:1 movie with black bars, there is no burn-in at all. Don't worry about watching 2:35:1 letter-boxed movies in regards to burn-in.

I tried out your polishing the turd settings for my standard broadcast watching last night and found the picture results to be awesome. But for DVD watching, I am still preferring the factory settings on AUTO that are relatively torch like and potentially damaging to the display. For DVD I find the "turd" setting too dark (missing detail in dark scenes) and even the factory CINEMA settings a touch on the dark side for DVD night, indoor and cave scenes.

Yes, what works for NTSC typically doesn't work for DVD. There is no perfect picture setting that works for all of NTSC or DVD/Hi-Def. What I've done is simply create different picture settings. I have one for NTSC, one for DVD etc. (For instance, I've created personalized image settings in the "Cinema," "Dynamic" and "Normal" picture setting modes).

Cheers,

Originally posted by R Harkness
Not necessarily. The threat of burn-in is mitigated not only by turning contrast/brightness down, but simply by mixing up the material you view on the plasma.

My picture settings for watching movies, while down from factory blaring mode, are still fairly vivid. And as I wrote, after two years of watching every 2:35:1 movie with black bars, there is no burn-in at all. Don't worry about watching 2:35:1 letter-boxed movies in regards to burn-in.

Cheers,

That's reassuring to hear but I will probably continue to be cautious until my display matures a bit.

That is a good idea to use the unwatchable NORMAL and DYNAMIC modes for your custom settings and I already have your turd settings dialed in for NORMAL.

As DYNAMIC mode is almost useless, I will tweak that down for my DVD settings or maybe tweak CINEMA slightly for DVD. RIght now AUTO (which is relatively bright) is working really well for my DVDs. Do you know if AUTO adjusts the brightness or other picture adjustments automatically depending on the ambient lighting? And are these automatic ambient lighting adjustments are disabled in the other modes?

I think I read this somewhere in the manual.

On another note, does any manufacturer make a 2.35:1 (21:9) plasma display? It seems to me there might be a market for a dedicated movie use plasma. I suppose with a projection system this would handle all of these super wide aspect ratios making the market need for a ultra wide plasma unit superfluous. It would still look pretty cool hung on a wall though.

My picture settings for watching movies, while down from factory blaring mode, are still fairly vivid.
Rich, just out of curiosity, what is the % of picture/contrast, brightness, and sharpness values do have yours set to, compared to the max possible settings on your tv? Though the range of these values varies from model to model, I'm assuming the % values would be somewhat in the same range.

I HATE stretch modes (even the non-linear Just), so I watch all 4:3 material with gray side bars. I like black bars better, but I've read that gray helps to prevent uneven "wear". My question is this: can burn-in result over time even if you mix up your viewing? Say my family watches SD 2/3 of the time and widescreen 1/3 of the time. Will the times that I watch widescreen "wipe" the screen enough, or may I still get burn-in eventually? I have a Panasonic PT-42PD3-P plasma.

Chris

I couldn't get my Panny to switch aspect ratio at all. Someone told me it was because my source is feeding the Panny 1080i, which Panny will lock up the aspect control.

So now I have horizontal bars while watching DVD, and vertical bars while watching 4:3 OTA broadcasts (CBS/NBC). If I have any burnins, it would be the rectangular box on 4 corner of the screen. :)

Related question: What is the resolution that resembles closest to 42PWD6UY's resolution? 1080i/720p/420p?

I'm sorry, we're going to have to merge this thread with the master. Please take all other conversations to another thread.

Originally posted by ChrisDixon
I HATE stretch modes (even the non-linear Just), so I watch all 4:3 material with gray side bars. I like black bars better, but I've read that gray helps to prevent uneven "wear". My question is this: can burn-in result over time even if you mix up your viewing? Say my family watches SD 2/3 of the time and widescreen 1/3 of the time. Will the times that I watch widescreen "wipe" the screen enough, or may I still get burn-in eventually? I have a Panasonic PT-42PD3-P plasma.

Chris

Well I have had the exact same plasma as you for the past (jeez, has it been that long) 15 months. We watch a slew of programming. From DVD's that are 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 (which BTW I really don't like), 4:3 SD "Just"ified, Digital OTA left at OAR and HD via Dish left OAR.

No burn-in as of yet...and I really don't feel it is an issue. As has been stated previously I feel that I will upgrade/downgrade (depends on how you look at it) before the plasma burn(s)-in....the gas needs refilling....the panel dying...etc.

RE: Stretching on one source..it is true that the "Just"ified mode will be locked on HD sources (ie 720p or 1080i). FWIW why would you want to justify a signal that fills up the screen to begin with.:confused:

To be perfectly honest, I had an easier time picking out which plasma than picking out speaker/receiver/amp upgrades. Can't seem to make up my mind...and the wife isn't helping either. In fact, I showed her the "Rockets" in "Rosewood" to which she just shrugged and said "They're okay but we don't have any rosewood furniture in that area".:rolleyes:

RichH, nice to see you back, enjoy your vaca?

Juice, WTF, did you send my baby back to me via carrier pigeon or pony express? Maybe you should have used the "tortoise" as I hear he is much faster than the "hare".

With any 1080i or 720p widescreen source, you should always run at Full. Just is only for 480p or 480i. With HD sources, it usually locks into Full, but with anamorphic DVDs, you still COULD set it to Just on a widescreen film, but it distorts the image. It's a pain when you have to keep switching. With my HD DirecTV/Tivo receiver, you can set resolution (1080i, 480i, etc.), Ratio correction (Full or Pannel added to source). The plasma can change format as well (Full, Just, Normal, etc.).

With all that to worry about, I just decided to go what looks best, and do my best to reduce burn in by keeping the contrast lower and use gray bars insted of black. My wife would tell me that if I get burn in, it would give me an excuse to upgrade. She knows me too well.

Chris

Originally posted by Mike53
Nah, I don't take anything personally. But I guess I am really an LCD "fanboy". ;)

Very nice of you Mike.

As far as being and LCD fanboy....I was wrong. Helping someone get a new display like that makes you an LCD enthusiast in my book. Again, nice job and a VERY nice contribution to the forum. You're an asset to this forum, and I hope you stick around.:) Sorry again for having given you a hard time.

Originally posted by JuiceRocket
For what it's worth, I've changed the area of my taskbar, put my computer to show an all white background at all times, and even left the computer on for a 6 hour period with an all white screensaver on.

The burn-in/image retention on my LCD is still apparent, and has not faded or vanished, if anything, it appears it's blurred or something.

-JR

Sorry for the late response.

I've checked with my suppliers of LCD screens, and the response from sales is that burn in or retention "cannot happen" with LCDs. We know this to be untrue of course, but salespeople(sadly) arent always the most technical bunch.

So I chatted with a few engineers, and they mostly agreed that an all white screen should probably alleviate any retention issues, but they couldnt answer if this was harmful to the screen or not. I mostly got an answer like "it does stress the screen a bit with all white, but I'm not sure if it will shorten the lifespan in a big way"

I never had this problem myself, so I dont know how long such a prosess will take. You say its blurred now, is that only because you moved the taskbar, or is it blurred after the all white treatment?

I dont have a close relationship with HP, but I will try to get some straight answers about what actually happens when an LCD "burns in". Maybe that could help to find a solution.

-Yahoo

Super thanks YahooSerious! :)

I originally set the taskbar to autohide, but after a day felt that I'd just move it to help out. I gave it an all white background, and did my best to keep any windows out of the area of the "burn-in/image retention". Not seeing a difference after a couple of days, I tried the 6 hour white screen.

I wish I could take a better picture of it, but for some reason the digital camera I'm using doesn't like to focus on it.

I wouldn't have thought it was burn-in if it didn't match the icons on the taskbar that was there. If it hadn't, I would have simply thought that perhaps there was a part of the screen that was a bit dirty, or it just wasn't as bright in that area. But, since I can literally see the icons of specific applications in the area, it has to be some sort of burn-in or image retention.

I've put my screen to a black background now, and the burn-in/image retention area is pretty much invisible.

-JR

just curious im about a month away from ordering my panny pwd6uy from V/A, been doing tons of research here at AVS, my question is basically will transparent network logos burn in or not? since they are transparent, the original image is moving behind it so im guessing that wouldnt cause burn in, but there is still concern on my part, any info on this?

Master Burn In Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=444258)

This thread has several discussions about logo burn-in. I would suggest you post in that thread (if you have not done so yet).

Good Luck!

Originally posted by emulatorX
just curious im about a month away from ordering my panny pwd6uy from V/A, been doing tons of research here at AVS, my question is basically will transparent network logos burn in or not? since they are transparent, the original image is moving behind it so im guessing that wouldnt cause burn in, but there is still concern on my part, any info on this?

Personally, I don't give any thought to the transparent logos. I leave the PBSHD logo on the screen for hours on end with no fear. You can see the transparent logo get "scrubbed" by color and contrast behind it. No reason to worry IMO.

edit...spelling.

I found this on an industry newsletter:

Apex says it has no plans for plasma. "We have concerns about liability issues with plasma, plasma has the potential degradation issue over time, we just don't want to deal with that issue," said Steve Brothers, president of APEX Digital Inc.

But what does he know?

The hospital that I worked just bought a few dozen NEC industrial plasma for displaying static images of schedules and directions etc . The images are changed at most once a day. The plasma will go black every 15 minutes and a bright white narrow band the entire height of the screen will wipe across the screen from left to right. The whole process last only a few seconds and seem to be doing the job. It reminds me of car windshield wiper!:)

CR*P. I waited a good 100 hours before watching 4:3 for any extended period of time on my p50 (got in Jan '04). However, I just recently noticed some burn in, i.e., the edges ares slightly brighter. ARRRRGH. :(

Has anyone else had this happen with their p50 and had it reverse itself after watching alot of 16:9 material? I hope so or I'm gonna be spitting mad. :mad:

Edit: Just read rogo's suggestion about hooking up a PC and doing a white/black reversal. If the screen doesn't even out after a few hours of 16:9 viewing I'll give it a shot.

However, this begs a question. If the reason there is burn in is because the center pixels have "aged" more than the side pixels, then I'm a bit concerned about the longevity of my p50. If after only 8 months there is a difference (however slight) in aging between center and side, that's not good no matter how you slice it.

Goombawa,

As you know, I'm as anal as the next person, well, actually, more than the next person, but honestly, I see no signs whatsoever of burn-in on my P50 after 19 months. None. And I've repeatedly looked very carefully.

I have noticed that slight "pinking" along some edges as others have mentioned, but can only notice it on a bright white screen.

When can you see the burn-in? How much of the time do you spend in 4:3?

I know your contrast and brightness are down, but which gamma are you using? I really think the gamma settings drive burn-in. Although I have not tested my conclusion here, I do believe that any of the torch modes, Dynamic, Real1, and Real2 will hasten burn-in. Static unfortunately can not hold black, so I only use Fine except on a really bright day when I am watching a sporting event that is really important to me since you do lose some "pop" with Fine in significant ambiant light.

David.

I've had my 50" 6UY for a couple months. I have not stretched 4:3 material and I have not shied away from it. In fact I probably watch more 4:3 at the moment than anything else. I haven't seen any signs of burn-in. I do run the white bar screensaver overnight every once in a while. No problem.

Originally posted by MarketingProf
Goombawa,

As you know, I'm as anal as the next person, well, actually, more than the next person, but honestly, I see no signs whatsoever of burn-in on my P50 after 19 months. None. And I've repeatedly looked very carefully.

I have noticed that slight "pinking" along some edges as others have mentioned, but can only notice it on a bright white screen.

When can you see the burn-in? How much of the time do you spend in 4:3?

I know your contrast and brightness are down, but which gamma are you using? I really think the gamma settings drive burn-in. Although I have not tested my conclusion here, I do believe that any of the torch modes, Dynamic, Real1, and Real2 will hasten burn-in. Static unfortunately can not hold black, so I only use Fine except on a really bright day when I am watching a sporting event that is really important to me since you do lose some "pop" with Fine in significant ambiant light.

David.

I spend a fair amount of time in 4:3 but did not expect there to be an issue after waiting out the 100+ hours initially. I can see the burn in when watching HD 16:9 material, i.e., the area where the black sidebars from 4:3 viewing are slightly brighter.

Now, here's my concern:

The reason I see this difference is because the center area pixels/phosphors have been firing more than the black sidebars, right? Well, that also means that if I had been watching 16:9 HD exclusively, the amount of brightness lost would still be the same, only it would be distributed uniformly across the entire screen.

That SUCKS.

The fact that I can already see a decrease in brightness after only 8 months leads me to the conclusion that either the p50 sucks or plasma techology is lame. Again, I am not talking about the fact that 4:3 viewing causes the differential in brightness. I am talking about the fact that 8 months of viewing causes a noticeable decrease in brightness period.

I would have accepted this at ~ 2 years, but 8 months????? I am completely regretting my $8K+ purchase. Should have gone with a cheaper model at half the price (so it wouldn't be as big a hit replacing it later on) or gone with a 40" LCD which is less susceptible to brightness fade.

Sigh.

P.S. I also heard from a reliable source that Fujitsu does not recommend viewing 4:3 material for more than 15-20% of total viewing time. Just great. Shouldn't that be in the manual or some warning sticker? Not happy about that at all.

Originally posted by goombawa
I spend a fair amount of time in 4:3 but did not expect there to be an issue after waiting out the 100+ hours initially. I can see the burn in when watching HD 16:9 material, i.e., the area where the black sidebars from 4:3 viewing are slightly brighter.

Now, here's my concern:

The reason I see this difference is because the center area pixels/phosphors have been firing more than the black sidebars, right? Well, that also means that if I had been watching 16:9 HD exclusively, the amount of brightness lost would still be the same, only it would be distributed uniformly across the entire screen.

That SUCKS.

The fact that I can already see a decrease in brightness after only 8 months leads me to the conclusion that either the p50 sucks or plasma techology is lame. Again, I am not talking about the fact that 4:3 viewing causes the differential in brightness. I am talking about the fact that 8 months of viewing causes a noticeable decrease in brightness period.

I would have accepted this at ~ 2 years, but 8 months????? I am completely regretting my $8K+ purchase. Should have gone with a cheaper model at half the price (so it wouldn't be as big a hit replacing it later on) or gone with a 40" LCD which is less susceptible to brightness fade.

Sigh.

P.S. I also heard from a reliable source that Fujitsu does not recommend viewing 4:3 material for more than 15-20% of total viewing time. Just great. Shouldn't that be in the manual or some warning sticker? Not happy about that at all.

I get your point (actually got it the first time), but again, what gamma setting are you using for most of your viewing?

If you are always in one of the torch modes, then the phosphers will fade faster. I can not draw a good conclusion here since I can only rely on my memory form 19 months ago as to the unit's brightness, but I don't detect a significant change in brightness.

Which brings to a more important question. With all the hoopla over burn-in and useful life, why aren't the reviewers for the major rags doing long term testing? Given their common viewing rooms, etc. they could have thousands of real time hours on a couple of units and report every 6 months inlcuding measurements at a specific setting, or have I missed something?

Sorry David, wasn't sure if my first post was clear. And when I rant, it is not directed at you or your comments in any way. :)

I am using Fine mode 100% of the time, with 85 lum, black level 0, contrast +2, brightness +5 and exhibition mode off. So definitely not "torch mode". If I switch to effective or conventional mode, it definitely gets alot brighter.

I agree, there needs to be more data available. I cannot believe that I'm a special case and that I'm the only one who has this decrease in brightness. However, to be fair, I probably would not have noticed it if not for the 4:3 burn in. But that's besides the point. The fact that it *did* lose brightness in 8 months (albeit slight) is totally *unacceptable*.

I think the reason the hard data is not out there is because it would hurt sales, although you'd think the LCD/DLP camp would be plastering the net with it. Maybe they were and I just didnt pay attention because I never considered LCD/DLP (can't stand the PQ).

I'm not sure that these settings would make a difference but I also run predominantly with...

Gamma (Picture Mode): Fine
Contrast: -5
Brightness: 0
Color: -14
Tint: 0
Sharpness: -16 (off)
"User" RGB: R: 210 G: 220 B: 217
Luminance: 70
Black Level: 0

So my luminance (white level), contrast and brightness are a bit lower, but I doubt those subtle differences would matter. I also switch to Real2 mode sometimes if I'm watching a good game in the middle of the day with lots of ambient light.

How many hours on your P50? I've got 2800 total use hours on mine (which shockingly works out to be about 4.8 hours per day).

I looked again just a few mintutes ago and saw no burn-in at all after 2800 hours.

Now, I'm no physicist (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night :)), but is there any possibilty that external environmental conditions could affect phosphor burn-in? Anyone out there that can answer that speculation? It just seems that we have no rhyme or reason why some folks experience burn-in and others do not when we can rule out settings and watching habits.

David

My TH42PWD4UY is still ok after 4500 hours. I use it everyday as my normal PC monitor.

David - I have 2176 hours on my panel so far (averaging about 9 hours/day...yes, I am a teleholic). I don't think the settings will make much of a difference since the relative difference will still be there. Still, I can't believe there is a decrease with just 2176 hours. :(

Esben - the thing is, unless there is an area on your panel that has been used less than the rest, e.g., like the sidebars in a 4:3 image, it would probably be difficult to know if there has been any brightness decrease.

Originally posted by goombawa
I can see the burn in when watching HD 16:9 material, i.e., the area where the black sidebars from 4:3 viewing are slightly brighter.


1) You say black side bars. Isn't the recommendation to use 50% gray sidebars. Is this a typo?

2) Perhaps the loss of brightness is not linear over time. And projecting your 8months of brightness loss over the life of the unit is not valid. Perhaps that is the reason for the 100hours break in period. (I don't know I'm just speculating. So maybe the situation is not as dire as you might think. Once evened out, brightness loss may slow down)

3) Even it out / reversal: Can you not que up a dead source / image in 4:3 & watch with white side bars, or gray side bars?

Originally posted by goombawa
Esben - the thing is, unless there is an area on your panel that has been used less than the rest, e.g., like the sidebars in a 4:3 image, it would probably be difficult to know if there has been any brightness decrease. I only have the extra 2 pixels black border on each side of the screen.

Originally posted by Slack
1) You say black side bars. Isn't the recommendation to use 50% gray sidebars. Is this a typo?

2) Perhaps the loss of brightness is not linear over time. And projecting your 8months of brightness loss over the life of the unit is not valid. Perhaps that is the reason for the 100hours break in period. (I don't know I'm just speculating. So maybe the situation is not as dire as you might think. Once evened out, brightness loss may slow down)

3) Even it out / reversal: Can you not que up a dead source / image in 4:3 & watch with white side bars, or gray side bars?

1. Yep, it is the recommendation, but the p50 has no option to generate grey sidebars. They are black unless you are viewing an HD channel that is broadcasting 4:3 images, e.g., Letterman.

2. I would love to believe that, however I have no reason to see why it would "slow down" over time.

3. Good idea, and rogo has been kind enough to give me a few suggestions on that note. Currently I don't know of any 4:3 black sources though.....but I now have a PC in the room and will ask him how to line up the images correctly (don't want to make the situation worse by creating more un-even burn in.)

I have to be honest here and say that I'm extremely disappointed/bummed out. All that money down the tubes, because I can't stop looking at the brightness difference. I'm almost at the point where I want to try and sell it, take the loss (which will be thousands), and get something else. What that would be however I have no idea, but I'm soured on plasma right now. :(

This is a long thread, so forgive me if this question has been asked and answered. Not to diminish user disappointment upon experiencing burn-in (I would be really upset) but is burn-in really all that noticeable when you're not looking for it? In other words, if you've got some kind of burn in, do you actually see it during normal viewing if you're not looking for it?

Originally posted by robnalex
This is a long thread, so forgive me if this question has been asked and answered. Not to diminish user disappointment upon experiencing burn-in (I would be really upset) but is burn-in really all that noticeable when you're not looking for it? In other words, if you've got some kind of burn in, do you actually see it during normal viewing if you're not looking for it?

It depends on...

1. Where the burn-in is located
2. How large the burn-in area is
3. How sensitive/good your eyes are
4. The program you are watching, e.g,. scenes with alot of sky, snow or other bright images will show it more than a darker or more complex image.

Question: does anyone know how to use a PC to create a reverse 4:3 image, e.g., white sidebars/black center? I want to toast my sidebars to try and "even" things out, but also do not want to create more problems. Just wondering if anyone has done this and what dimensions they used.

Thanks. :)

I have an image reversal screen saver setting. When I set the aspect to 4:3 and show a white screen, and activate the mode, the side bars get white and the center becomes grey. You could try that.

Thanks esben. Where can I get that saver?

goom,

I am very sorry to hear about your burn-in. I hope you can reverse it.
Can you give us an estimate of what percentage of what you watched was 4:3?

Thanks,
Nick

I'd say about 35%...

Why not all of use the strech and zoom options for the 4:3 I mean is that bad watchin tha format stretched or zoomed to risk burn in ? still havent opened my plasma but m readin this to be aware on what to come ....

Stretch mode is "tolerable" but 4:3 native is still preferrable. (to me) If you flip between normal and wide, I can really tell the difference (people get fatter). I suppose the best way to be happy it is to not compare the two directly. Maybe at some point you just adjust to the stretched image. Given the choice of 4:3 burn or fat people, I'll take the latter.

Do plasma TVs have a higher chance of getting burn in than the old analogue tube TVs? I've played videogames for like 10hrs straight on the tube tvs and they've never got burn in, so would a plasma also be able to withstand it? And is it true that LCDs cant even get burn in at all?

Originally posted by Beefgude
Do plasma TVs have a higher chance of getting burn in than the old analogue tube TVs? I've played videogames for like 10hrs straight on the tube tvs and they've never got burn in, so would a plasma also be able to withstand it? And is it true that LCDs cant even get burn in at all?

a) Yes, if left at standard torch mode.

b) I've played video games for long periods of times (I'm guessing 5-6 hours max), and have had no burn-in or image retention.

c) No, I'm typing this email using a HP2025 LCD which has burn-in on it. Check previous pages in this thread, I posted images of the burn-in.

-JR

I have had the same experience as juice wrt gaming. I have not had any issues with image retention.

Originally posted by goombawa
Thanks esben. Where can I get that saver? It's in the menus of the display. Accessed through the remote. If you can't find it there, you can't get it.

What display do you have?

Originally posted by goombawa
Stretch mode is "tolerable" but 4:3 native is still preferrable. (to me) If you flip between normal and wide, I can really tell the difference (people get fatter). I suppose the best way to be happy it is to not compare the two directly. Maybe at some point you just adjust to the stretched image. Given the choice of 4:3 burn or fat people, I'll take the latter.

For regular broadcast 4:3, I like to zoom and then reduce the horizontal and vertical size to bring in a lot of the picture back in that's lost in the overscan. It keeps the proportions right and as a bonus it cuts out a lot of bugs, tickers and other junk.

Originally posted by deeann
For regular broadcast 4:3, I like to zoom and then reduce the horizontal and vertical size to bring in a lot of the picture back in that's lost in the overscan.

I tried just that and was surprised to find that DirecTV appears to vary their encoding a bit over the image - the left and right edges of the picture (i.e. what is normally eaten by overscan on most TVs) was much more pixelated than the middle portion of the screen ... I guess they try to get extra bits everywhere they can.

I saw this nice Mitsubishi plasma at a B&M store. They were showing a dvd of the Two Towers and it looked nice. Unfortunately when I get my new display I will be viewing like around 80 percent on 2.35 dvd. So guess I shouldn't get a Plasma if I don't zoom the picture to fill the screen, which I don't prefer. But just for info do most plasma sets have an option to zoom in nicely to crop the picture just enough to remove the top/bottom black bars.

Originally posted by goombawa
What display do you have? A Panasonic TH42PWD4UY.

I have a Plasma and have both contrast and brightness below 50%.
If I watch 2:35 movies with black bars on the top and bottom, for a while and then switch to a all black screen, I can clearly see the black bars on the all black screen. If I then fill the entire screen with a regular picture for 1 min or less and switch back to an all black screen, the black bars dissapear.

1. Is this common for pretty much all plasmas?
2. Is this something I need to worry about?
3. If so, what can I do? I already have the contrast and brightness below 50%

P.S. - my plasma is only about 2 months old

What you see is common.

larry

So I don't need to worry about this?

Sounds like a mild-but-reversible case of burn-in. Since watching 16:9 content for "1 min or less" clears up the lines from watching 2.35 content for "a while", I would not (and I do not) worry.

This is not burn in, but retention. My panel was very susceptible to this early on, but as time goes on it has really reduced in occurrence. Keep the contrast down. Its a coin toss in the brightness. Keep what you can stretched. I don't know what plasma you have , but use any anti-burn features it has.
I have my NEC programmed to come on at 4 AM 1 day a week and run an all white screen for 45 minutes and another day it comes on for and hour and does the screen wipe.

It seems that the first few hundred hours of operation are the most critical.

You may want to check out the master burn-in thread for additional information.

Threads merged

I have something called "screen saver orbiter" on my plasma.
What does this do?
How do I use it?

An orbiter is supposed to move the image every so slightly so that the image is never in the same spot on the screen. It is an menu choice on most displays and you simply need to turn it on through the menu.

Quick question....what 'safety' features does the Panny 42" ED consumer model have to prevent burn-in?

I started reading though the burn in thread but it's sooo much info.

Just need a simple answer.

Right now I'm just leaving my plasmas settings as it came. Not turning down anything.

But, almost everything I watch fills the entire screen, or I make it, and I don't really have any static images.

So, no fear of burn in right? I guess the only thing that could happen is me cutting short the life of the plasma a little bit by leavings the settings high.

Eventually I'll play with all the settings, just have a lot going on right now and haven't gotten around to itl.

And where is contrast setting anyway on the Panny ed?:confused:

I had the same last Q: "picture" = contract on the Panny ED.

You should have your set calibrated, not for just for burn-in, but so that you have the proper colors displayed.

Burn-in is a little overexaggerated. Here are the rules:

1.) Be careful during your first few hundred hours. Just like when you buy a new vehicle, the set needs to be run a little. It is most susceptible damage during it's initial few hours. So no static image and lots of varied viewing material.

2.) Avoid static images. This is true for most displays. It doesn't mean you can't pause a movie...it means don't abuse your set with hours and hours and hours of the same image. Common sense, if there is such a thing, should be applied.

3.) Vary your viewing material. Don't watch 2:35:1 DVDs or CNN for 100 hours straight. Run some DVD, some TV, some X-box, or whatever. Also, try to use the whole screen when watching TV.

4.) Don't panic if you see image retention. You can run an all white screen or simply changing your viewing material should clean it up. Image retention is temporary but is an indication that you aren't using your set properly.

5.) Get your set calibrated. High brightness and contrast settings not only cause image retention, it produces inaccurate colors.

No problem.

But try to watch a full screen as much as you can on the first couple hundred hours.


EDIT: Thanks agogley. :D

Originally posted by sabes35
I had the same last Q: "picture" = contract on the Panny ED. picture = white level
brightness = black level

My mistake obviously meant "contrast" Someone told me picture was this in another post. If its not contrast, does picture need to be turned down? Or would u only turn down the brightness.

turn down both. If you don't have yet something to proper calibrate(DVE or Avia disks), then put everything at "zero" until you proper calibrate it.

Does anyone know of any way to eliminate burn-in once it has occured or a way to perhaps balance out the rest of the phosphers so they are at the same level as the burn-in ones?

Also, does anyone have any recommendations for preventing future burn-in given my specific situation - which is that i am displaying a video that incorporates a still image for 7 hours a day, 6 days a week. i know that's a big no-no, but i have to do it.

Hi Michael,

Welcome to the forum. Please see the thread at the top of the page; the moderators want all burn-in stuff to go in that thread. Lots of answers in those posts!

Robin

I have a brand new Pioneer 5040 just installed today. We had an open house and were displaying a THX demo disc that was supposed to keep looping through material. Either my builder or wife (or someone at the open house) stopped the disc and a bright red image in the shape of a box with white letters stayed on the screen for possibly up to 6 hours. When I came home to play with it I put in a movie and in dark sequences I see this box with the writing. In your professional opinions is this permanent or will it go away. I swithched it from Dynamic to Standard which reduced the brightness and will change more settings tomorrow. Please help! I hope they didn't screw up a $7000 tv!

It should go away with more useage...6 hours is not a lot of time.

Went to CompUSA for some window shopping today and saw the Panasonic 42 HD consumer plasma model on display. First I noted that the color was way superior to all other plasma/LCD models. The Lion King DVD was on the menu section and when I pushed play, I noted that the menu images were burned in impressively.

Asked the staff people and they said that they have had the Lion King DVD in the player/TV for the last two to three weeks (I asked, not longer than that). They too noticed the burn in and did not seem to concerned about it.

And the people at CompUSA abusing a plasma relates to us how.....?

You'll get burn-in on any display type if you leave the same DVD menu on the screen for weeks at a time...

If you are planning on doing that, yes, I would steer clear of plasma.;) You can damage other display devices that way for far less money.

Originally posted by Woodrow
And the people at CompUSA abusing a plasma relates to us how.....?

You'll get burn-in on any display type if you leave the same DVD menu on the screen for weeks at a time...

If you are planning on doing that, yes, I would steer clear of plasma.;) You can damage other display devices that way for far less money.

This does not relate to you or other members who do not "abuse" their plasmas. I just wanted to relate the impressive nature of the burn in. The menu was almost "etched" in to the screen......:(

Originally posted by chp5592


The menu was almost "etched" in to the screen......:(



I heard that if you turn it upside down and shake, it the screen will be cleared for more enjoyment.

Originally posted by wblynch
I heard that if you turn it upside down and shake, it the screen will be cleared for more enjoyment.

:D

Originally posted by wblynch
I heard that if you turn it upside down and shake, it the screen will be cleared for more enjoyment.

Only if you have the model with the two knobs in the right and left lower corners.

Kal

Kal
I believe you can find plenty of knobs at CompUSA. :D

BruZZi
50" 7UY? Totally awesome!!!

Originally posted by Joe Murphy Jr
Kal
I believe you can find plenty of knobs at CompUSA. :D

BruZZi
50" 7UY? Totally awesome!!!

Hey JMJ, long time no see. :)

It was about time to get the 50" . :D :D :D

I moved to another state at the end of July and the computer was not set up until today. Actually, I got a new computer in August and today it finally came out of the box! Sadly, it's not a dual-processor G5 Mac -- just another POS PC (but a little newer and a lot faster than the old POS).

I've been having a lot more sex lately, so maybe the damn computer needs to go back in the box. :p

I noticed a similar example of horrific burn-in in London at Paddington Station - they had plasmas for the train departure times and they didn't seem to have taken burn-in into consideration in the design of the software driving the displays. Yuck!

You can leave a static image on an LCD display until the bulb burns out, and when you still won't have any burn-in. You just have to deal with the higher cost, motion blur, and poorer brightness. There are trade-offs for all monitor types.


Originally posted by Woodrow
And the people at CompUSA abusing a plasma relates to us how.....?

You'll get burn-in on any display type if you leave the same DVD menu on the screen for weeks at a time...

If you are planning on doing that, yes, I would steer clear of plasma.;) You can damage other display devices that way for far less money.

You can leave a static image on an LCD display until the bulb burns out, and when you still won't have any burn-in.

I've seen burn in on lcd computer monitors where I work.

What you probably have seen is image persistance/retention, rather than burn-in. This happens when an LCD is held in the same state for an extended period of time. However, unlike burn-in, where the phosphors have lost their phosphorescence and it's irreversible, 'exercising' the pixels on an LCD with dynamic images will eliminate the problem.

We had burn-in on our command center CRT monitors after only a few weeks. After a few months, it was to the point where the screens were unreadable at any resolution. We have since replaced them with LCD's, and after several months, we have no burn-in issues and can continue to display them at high resolution.

Originally posted by KenV500
I've seen burn in on lcd computer monitors where I work.

There have been a few reports about burn-in on LCD's by more than one person.

MarkRubin has/had it.
JuiceRocket has/had it.

I am curious though if the PDP at CompUSA was in "torch" mode as, in my experience, most of the B&M stores (CC, BB, Compusa, etc.) leave these units in torch mode so that they look bright on the sales floor.

FWIW, I have had my set for over 15 months and have played x-box halo on it for 5+ hours at a time...straight. I have not experienced any burn-in nor image retention. Then again I had my display pro calibrated and, IMHO, it was worth it.

YMMV.

Just my .02

What you probably have seen is image persistance/retention, rather than burn-in. This happens when an LCD is held in the same state for an extended period of time. However, unlike burn-in, where the phosphors have lost their phosphorescence and it's irreversible, 'exercising' the pixels on an LCD with dynamic images will eliminate the problem.

That's possible. This display has been on 24/7 for probably 3 years. As it was rebooting the screen turned medium blue, the "burn in" was black underneath where the image was soon to appear (a 3"x4"box, only parts of the box showed this effect).

Interesting that Panasonic has a warning about watching in 4:3 mode for an extended period of time in SIX different places in their plasma manual. But it only takes a little common sense to prevent burn-in and make it a non issue.
Check out the Master Burn In Thread.

we at compusa got a memo about 8 months ago about turning down our tv's to appropriate ISF settings. i was shocked to see it but it mentioned something ab out ISF. anyway i already turned down my tv's to where they should be but i wouldn't be suprised if at other stores they didn't do the same.

I've had a rear projection HD CRT for 5 years. About 50% of time was used with Xbox and PS2. I've been fairly careful and had no burn in problems.

Can anyone shed some light on plasma burn in risk vs. CRT? Yesterday, I had the good fortune of getting to play a preview build of Halo 2 on a plasma which looked just awesome. yesterday and I'm struggling with the LCD vs. Plasma question for a 2nd TV that will be used extensively for gaming.

I own a Panasonic 50" 6UY and prefer plasma's picture to LCD. That said, if you can put up with the motion lag via LCD, I'd suggest going this route over plasma if you're going to use the display extensively for gaming or computing.

But can anyone give me a sense of relative burn in risk CRT vs. Plasma? Are plasmas more likely to burn-in than CRT?

Yes, but not by much (I'd estimate about a 10% - 15% greater risk).

However, take a look at one of the latest Panasonic 7UY threads. It seems that Panasonic has found a way to decrease the risk of burn-in to below that of a CRT display. That said, I'd still go LCD for extensive gaming or computer use with a display.

Originally posted by Joe Murphy Jr
Yes, but not by much (I'd estimate about a 10% - 15% greater risk).

That said, I'd still go LCD for extensive gaming or computer use with a display.

How about a situation in a bedroom where there will be a significant amount of watching of stations with static image issues (Fox News, CNBC etc.) ?

Originally posted by nwild
But can anyone give me a sense of relative burn in risk CRT vs. Plasma? Are plasmas more likely to burn-in than CRT?

Either can be burned in if not properly taken care of. If you want an example of how I recently burned in a CRT direct view read my How-to guide for ruining your TV (http://deeann.blog-city.com/read/849301.htm) (off-site link).

Looking at possibly picking up the Panasonic TH-42PD25U/P, and I am wondering if anyone has had any problems with burn-in (with or without adjusting the contrast) with this model? I would me using it for mostly TV and DVD's, with a little PS2 mixed in if I can get away with it. All info is appreciated!

You should check out the "MASTER BURN-IN THREAD".

So, after reading all the threads i don't seem to get a warm-fuzzy feeling that there is a definitive answer to this or not.... anyone?

If i want to watch 4:3 TV on the TH-42PWD6UY, will using the medium brightness gray-bars mitigate the potential burn-in issues as well as running in *JUST* mode?

Any input?

Thanks!

Sam

Hi smarsh66 and welcome to the forum.

To answer your question I will give our viewing habits for a reference.

We watch ~70% of SD (via sat), ~25% of DVD and ~5% of HD.

We normally "Just" the SD, however, there are a few (~10-15% of that 70%) where we watch in "Un-Just" mode. No grey bars either. We haven't had a problem with burn-in or image retention.

Then again we aren't watching 4:3 content in it's native resolution all the time.

The point is, if you vary your viewing habits and have calibrated your unit I don't think you will have a problem. However, I won't be held responsible either. ;)

I do believe that the grey bars will in fact mitigate the potential (nice way to say that BTW) of burn-in issues.

YMMV.

I also have TH-42PWD6UY. Just to add to what rmcgirr83 said. After each session of tv watching in a way that does not fill the screen fully (yes, even for dvds that have black bars on top and bottom 2.35:1) I usually run screen saver for 1-3 hours, right away. FYI: I watch 25% SD of which half is on HD channels upconverted and has black bars which you cannot remove.

Another friend of mine, has had TH-42PWD4UY for a couple of years and he has used the same process I described above all along, he has no burn-in. Just vary your viewing habits, do run in torch mode (factory mode with things turned up waaaay high), and once in a while maintain the screen with screen saver. Every month on the same date I run screen saver overnight for about 10 hours or so in addition to after watching with grey or black bars. This is a small price to pay for no burn-in and well-maintained set.

Vadim

I will keep it in mind.... yes, burn mode is a great way to describe the factory settings. I immediately put the picture level down well into the negatives..... not only was it badly blooming the picture, but it made NTSC look horrible!

Thanks again.

I'll have to wait until January to get my monitor calibrated by Gregg Loewen.... He's not in San Diego again until then. He calibrated a previous CRT for mois and did an outstanding job.... in the mean-time Digital VE calibration it is.

Sam

FWIW, Greg also did my set as well and I was pleased with the results.

I just read a letter in UAV where the writer discussed that many folks miscalibrate their digital displays by turning the contrast down too far, thereby reducing the ability of the display to put out as many levels of brightness as is possible. The point was that if you turn your contrast down below where whites begin to crush, then you reduce the, say, 8 bit based gray scale from 256 levels to maybe only 6 bits for 64 levels.

Anyone know whether this level is then so high that burn-in is at risk?