I'm trying to determine the severity and solution of this issue - I got a 5080 right before Christmas and we probably have about 100 -120 hours on it, with a mix of HD widescreen and 4:3 programming. I set the 4:3 sidebars to black on the cable box rather than gray to presumably reduce burn-in or IR. Kids sometimes watch 4:3 for a few hours a day but not excessively.

Last night watched one of the old Star Wars DVD's on widescreen with the kids and after turning all of the lights down, in space scenes or in transitions with full black screen, the sidebars show up as slightly lighter than the rest of the screen so you can still see a trace of them.

Ran the video pattern and the lighter sidebars were still there this AM. While watching normal HD it isn't apparent except in scenes that are full black (even then you have to look for it).

Is this burn-in or uneven wear and what is the best way to fix or rectify it? I'm a little disappointed because we have not set this on torch mode and have made sure to mix up the pictures we watch each day. I thought the gray bars would have been worse than full black but I can't tell if they sidebars have been overused or underused.

any insight on this?
THanks

Its IR. It will eventually go away. Since you chose not to break-in the panel (or read the IR "warning" guide that came with your panel), you need to refain from any and all 4:3 material for at least 100 hours. Also make sure that the orbiter is on.

so are the bars on the side overused or underused?

Let me ask this - what use is the orbiter if you have IR? I thought the point of it was to prevent IR & burn-in but it apparently doesn't work?

The side bars are underused.

The problem is when watching 4:3 the phosphor in the side bars is relatively inactive - producing only a slight black. The phosphor within the 4:3 is active - therefore aging more quickly than outside of that area.

If you set the bars to gray then the phosphor would be used.

However, you still have to use care as active picture content within the 4:3 varies and the bars are using phosphor at a constant rate.

Orbiter shifts the image so as to spread out the use - affecting mainly static logos and such.

I usually run a few minutes of inversion mode (inverts colors: ie, black bars become white and so on) after watching a 2.35 movie. This way the phosphors that were black are aged with white. Doing this leaves no IR black bars.

Doing that evens the phosphor wear. Dont do that excessively as it wears the phosphor quicker and shortens the time to half life.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll see how the next month goes watching full mode before any inversion.

I'm lucky in that it is not a big problem at this point and only noticeable at night and in dim lighting with black scenes. You kind of have to look for it. With any normal ambient lighting in the room or from windows it is not discernable. I think I caught it before I had a huge difference in the phosphor wear.