Hey, just bought a panasonic th-42px75u with my girlfriend recently. Its probably nearing the 100 hour mark and several movies with blackbars on top and bottom have been watched on it as well as the usa channel a bit to much. I can't see anything when viewing normal tv, but If I turn it to a different input where its just a black screen I can kinda see where the black bars and usa logo were. If I steer clear of the black bars and usa for a while will it go away? And how long should I be careful of these viewing habits before I can just not worry and watch what I want? And should I try to get a plasma break in dvd and run that for a while? Thanks for any advice or input! I'm a plasma noob.

It shouldn't take long at all. I gently broke my 60U in for the first 150 hours and after that I threw caution to the wind. I only noticed IR one time and it was gone in minutes when I switched to some full screen programming. Enjoy your tv.

I have the exact same tv. I bought it last week but it was one of the display models from Best Buy, it had a manufacture date of October 2007. The salesman said that it was only on display for a few weeks. I notice the same exact IR. Every time I switch from tv to another input and have a black screen, I can see images from the last screen shot (words, menu bars, etc.) I have no Idea if this is normal or not, I'm kind of worried because it was a display model and I'm sure that they did no kind of break in. Am I worrying for nothing? I haven't checked the hours but I assume it was in the store for 25 days, at most 15 hours a day...so 375 hours?? Will the IR eventually get better or did it hurt the tv being on Vivid for 37 hours at the store?

I have the 50" 6U and I have IR when watching letterbox movies and playing games. However, the IR goes away after a few minutes. It's annoying, but I think it's normal. I broke my set in fairly well, but the issue still pursists. I am going to try and RE-Break it in soon, and I will post my results.

I've had my 60U since June of 2006. I had MSNBC on continuously today with sidebars for four hours. I just checked it and there is no sign of IR. I don't know why some of you are seeing it. I have only seen any IR once since I've had this display and after I changed the channel it was gone in less than a minute. Maybe I just got lucky with this tv.