To be more accurate, are there any Pixelprotector users in the United States out there? Pixelprotector (for those who are unaware) is a DVD disc developed in the U.K. to help prevent/ correct screen burn in. Add to that the (yet to be verified) claim of "re-energizing dead pixels". Yes that is correct. They claim, in some cases, to be able to do that. Having a dead pixel on my plasma, and grasping at straws, I thought I'd try the disc out. If no luck with the dead pixel it would still not be a total loss. I'd have a disc that could solve any potential burn in issues. I would hope.
Problem is, the disc will not play on any of my DVD players. The disc was sent from a U.S. distributor so I assumed there would be no format or issues for reading the disc.

I'm waiting for feedback from the manufacturer (U.K.) in the meantime. Their website has no troubleshooting section and is very thin in the information area.

Is there anyone with this disc having the same problem?
Thanks

straker let me know how that goes please. i may try it out on my pio with one flakey pixel.

I'll let you know dtrell.....once I find a way to have my DVD player read it. Funny, my computer DVD writer reads it no problem. Anyone have an answer for this?
The DVD player I own is a 4 year old Panasonic that pushes out a great picture. I also tried it on a 1-1/2 year old Sony DVD/ VCR recorder which had no luck reading it either.

The problem is the DVD is probably PAL and you're attempting to play it on a NTSC DVD player. Your PC plays it fine because whatever player you're using is a region free player.

thats what i was going to say, its probably a PAL dvd. try playing it on a laptop using the VGA output to your panel.

Wouldn't the program Dead Pixel Buddy, and setting it too run through a cycle for a couple hours do the same thing?

Kevin

I did think of the NTSC vs PAL issue. The disc jacket says 'NTSC & PAL' so I assumed it has dual compatability, if that is possible.

I'm not familiar with Dead Pixel Buddy but I'll check it out. Thanks Kevin.

What about region code?

Wouldn't the program Dead Pixel Buddy, and setting it too run through a cycle for a couple hours do the same thing?

Kevin
all that program says is finds dead pixels. says nothing about fixing them.

What about region code?

I doubt seriously if a region code was on the disc. Region codes are only used by Hollywood to limit distribution of their movies on DVD.

i heard you could run the screen that you get from being on a wrong channel- you know the black and white "fuzz" and it sometimes repairs a "stuck" pixel (not a burnt one though) you could try that- jeff

Hi

I'm John from PixelProtector and as long as nobody feels I'm spamming I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. If you would prefer a personal reply please feel free to email me.

If people do think I'm spamming or doing anything you feel is inappropriate by responding here please just let me know and I will remove this reply immeadiately.

Many thanks,

john, can you explain how your program will possibly fix dead or bad pixels? i have a flakey red pixel on my pioneer 5070...it sometimes doesnt light and sometimes flashes on and off depending on what color and what shade and what brightness is being displayed. what do you think?

john, can you explain how your program will possibly fix dead or bad pixels? i have a flakey red pixel on my pioneer 5070...it sometimes doesnt light and sometimes flashes on and off depending on what color and what shade and what brightness is being displayed. what do you think?
I would be happy to however should I contact the board owner or admin/mods before replying inorder to make sure I am not breaking any rules?

john, can you explain how your program will possibly fix dead or bad pixels? i have a flakey red pixel on my pioneer 5070...it sometimes doesnt light and sometimes flashes on and off depending on what color and what shade and what brightness is being displayed. what do you think?

On the off chance its ok for me to reply here... There are two kind of problematic pixels, dead pixels and stuck pixels. A dead pixel is a pixel that the connection on the board has broken irrevocably. A stuck pixel is a pixel where the 'filter', for want of a better word, has frozen it isn't technically broken as the connections are still there but the crystal is stuck, our DVD can fix this by using different screen washes that are included on the disk. Dead pixels is a colloquialism for stuck pixels, a truly dead pixel is not possible to fix.

It sounds to me like a stuck pixel and not a dead pixel, these typically do not light at all. I would also be inclined to think its a stuck pixel because the effect varies according to the brightness and the colour, and this translates to the intensity and the wavelength of the emitted light respectively.

Just to make sure I am not censured or censored this is a response to a directly asked question and not a solicitation for business. We run a clean and open business and our only interest is in continuing that.

I hope this answers your question!

john, its not really a stuck pixel because sometimes it completely off, and sometimes it flashes. i think it may be a piece of dust on a trace or something that may be providing a slight short to the blue pixel's path, judging by how it reacts. on a pure red screen, i can look at it with a magnifying glass and it occasionally gives a flash on, but mostly its off. so the trace isnt dead, but it may be shorted by dust or something to blue.

can i get your disc at a discount and try it?lol

and i dont think youre spamming, i think youre bring up a possibly usable plasma tool that nobody else is selling. i think youd be in trouble if a forum sponsor had a similar tool. plus youre not trying to sell it, youre replying to posts about it.

hello john?

Hi, new here, but veteran on AV forums UK. John has ceased to post on AV forums, possibly due to rather searching questions being asked. His company are now under investigation by UK trading standards, as the claims on the website are too outlandish. Nobody can fix dead pixels, as he points out here, but the site claims they can. They claim to cure screen burn, which by definition is the irreversible damage to the phosphor coating. It reads like a wild west medicine show. The setup tools may be fine, nobody has chanced $45 on it yet, due to grave misgivings, or at least not owned up to it! Maybe he'll be more forthcoming here, it wasn't my wish to persecute him but to get a straight answer to a straight question: how can your DVD address individual pixels, how can it cure screeen burn, could you explain 'recalibrates pixels uniformly', nothing unreasonable, considering the claims made. If he will answer some of those questions here, I might place an order myself and post a review. I am a CEDIA member custom installer in UK BTW.

I just got a Sharp LC-32D50U..it has SIX stuck pixels. Im heart broken as I waited three weeks for the set to arrive. I called Sharp and they want me to take pictures..."then they will get back to me". Somthing like this product would be great...It would be great to see a review to see if the claims are true.

Hi, new here, but veteran on AV forums UK. John has ceased to post on AV forums, possibly due to rather searching questions being asked. His company are now under investigation by UK trading standards, as the claims on the website are too outlandish. Nobody can fix dead pixels, as he points out here, but the site claims they can. They claim to cure screen burn, which by definition is the irreversible damage to the phosphor coating. It reads like a wild west medicine show. The setup tools may be fine, nobody has chanced $45 on it yet, due to grave misgivings, or at least not owned up to it! Maybe he'll be more forthcoming here, it wasn't my wish to persecute him but to get a straight answer to a straight question: how can your DVD address individual pixels, how can it cure screeen burn, could you explain 'recalibrates pixels uniformly', nothing unreasonable, considering the claims made. If he will answer some of those questions here, I might place an order myself and post a review. I am a CEDIA member custom installer in UK BTW.

Just to clear things up as far as we are aware we are not under investigation by trading standards, we run a clean open business and take pride in producing a good product at a fair price. That said the disk isn't a miracle cure and its not our intention to market it as such, however it does work for the majority of our customers, and have many positive customer responses.
I decided to leave avforums because people where being rude, aggressive and seemed unable to separate what I was saying with what they thought I was saying (see cognitive dissonance)

To your particular questions, it is not possible to natively address each pixel on the screen you can to some degree however address lines on the screen but individual pixels would realistically require some sort of digital interface to locate and colour individual pixels.

Recalibrate pixels uniformly, simply put all the washes cover the screen uniformly and with the same intensity.

OK, John or anybody else...is there an NTSC DVD for us in the States to use?

If not, when might one be available and from where ??

Yes there is, when you visit the site it recognises where you have come from and changes both the currency and the playback system to the right one for your locale, so for the UK its Pound Sterling and PAL and for the US its US Dollars and NTSC. If you want to change the locale setting just click the relevant flag in the top right hand corner.

John,
Typically how long dose it take PixelProtector to remove a fair amount of image retention?

John,
Typically how long dose it take PixelProtector to remove a fair amount of image retention?

That's a difficult one because it really does seem to vary from case to case, that said the washes tend to get rid of a fair amount of retention after the first use (which is about 3 hours of display time) but in some cases its a more gradual processes with two or three runs of the disk before the screen is back to normal. I hope this answers your question.

That's a difficult one because it really does seem to vary from case to case, that said the washes tend to get rid of a fair amount of retention after the first use (which is about 3 hours of display time) but in some cases its a more gradual processes with two or three runs of the disk before the screen is back to normal. I hope this answers your question.

Yep. Thanks.

I just ordered this from Amazon. After a marathon Guitar Hero 2 session on my XBox I noticed some image retention on my Panasonic plasma. Hopefully this disc can clean things up.

I just ordered this from Amazon. After a marathon Guitar Hero 2 session on my XBox I noticed some image retention on my Panasonic plasma. Hopefully this disc can clean things up.

Let us know. If this thing works to any useful degree others here may find it useful.

I just ordered this from Amazon. After a marathon Guitar Hero 2 session on my XBox I noticed some image retention on my Panasonic plasma. Hopefully this disc can clean things up.

Any update?

Ave,

I'm actually thinking about ordering this disc for a slight image retention problem I'm having on my Panasonic TH-50PX60U Plasma Set. See thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=858781

Not sure if John's still here and not sure if anyone else can answer this Question - but one thing I did want to ask is - are there any side-effects or known problems of using this dvd to try & cure image retention? I see vertical lines on my screen in a certain shade of grey. They were retained from a faulty "Burn-In DVD" that I ran on my set for hours trying to speed up the burn-in period.

Now, only in certain shades of grey, not in any other color - I see these vertical bars on the screen. I would like to use the PixelProtector disc and see if it can cure it - if it can really do what it claims it can.

Any user out there who's had success with PixelProtector?

Thanks.

I own this disc

There are 3 'washes' that come with the disc

Snow wash: Runs 1 hour. This is NOT pure antenna snow.This looks like a grid that's about 20 boxes high, 35 boxes wide. Each box has a rotating swirl of white, multiple shades of grey, and black. There is no definition between the grid boxes, it just looks like a cut/pasted construction job when making the image. I have noticed no IR from the cut/paste job.

Color Wash: Runs for 1 hour. This is more for LCD's. But it looks like a smearing of multiple colors over the screen that is constantly moving and adapting colors. My problem with this for Plasma's is that this image is NOT uniform/balanced. There are some parts of the screen that over time... use more yellow, and not enough blue, and other parts that are the opposite. I wouldn't use this for curing burn in, as I tried it a few hours and it gave me 'slight' retention .

White Wash: Runs 2 hours. Pure white screen. Nothing more to say.

The really bad thing is that after the cycle, the DVD returns to a menu. Which means you MUST babysit it unless you program a loop.

When curing IR, the first thing I do is run the snow wash once or twice. After that, I will run the break in DVD for 4-6 hours.

@ Lodrin,

Reading your description, i'm not sure if there's anything in this Disc that'll actually help me out with my slight image retention problem. Snow Wash doesn't look like a cure, and Color Wash as even you suggested is perhaps not best for Plasma - that leaves White Wash - not sure if that's worth $40 and will cure my problem.