Originally Posted by
charliemax 
Take some deep breaths and breath slowly. (kidding)
Here's my theory (i have no empirical evidence to support it, besides my TV broke in great)... I have over 200 hrs on my G10, with 120 of them using D-Nice's color slides at the Vivid mode/settings.
The 120 hr slide break-in is to uniformly "season" the cells/pixels. A calibrator doesn't want to do their precision adjustments, then have them thrown off later as the set further breaks in. For their own reasons, they must see a TV broken in with slides for 120 hrs, as a stable, workable product.
I am not a fan of heat stressing electronic equipment, unless you want to test its components' short-term durability. With those slides running, my 50G10 draws almost twice the current, than normal operation. And it gets HOT. So this was the break-in schedule....
4-5 hours per day with the slides and Vivid, and a couple hours per day of normal viewing (it's a bedroom TV), just keeping the contrast down around or below 50 for normal viewing. After the first 5 days, I cooked it twice with the slides/Vivid for 12+ hrs straight (it was a weekend, so I was around, and could check it periodically). Since nothing detonated, I then resumed the normal daily regimen. It's just an opinion or superstition, but I don't think baking the TV for 120 hrs in 5 or 6 days is a good idea. That's trauma, not break-in.
The outcome of this is a mature system in a relatively short period of time. Ideal if you want it calibrated ASAP from the date you bought it. If calibration is something you may want "someday", or don't plan it, there is no reason to not just watch your regular programming. In that case, it may take a little longer for the display to come up to an even, optimum performance, But so what.
So that's break-in. Now for image retention.
I had minor issues with this, because I never read instruction manuals. I don't game, but I would consider that the highest risk for IR. You get playing, and lose track of time. Although I do have a habit of putting on financial news and getting occupied elsewhere. Bloomberg has the ticker at the bottom, and runs commercials with an SD screen and sidebars. I got faint sidelines and a slight "dirty" central screen and bottom at one point.
But here's the thing. Just like the TV is more susceptible to IR in its first hours, the scrolling bars are more effective during that period, also. IMHO, the way that Panasonic implements the bars is insufficient to maximize their effectiveness. They move too quickly, and only for 15 minutes. Then throws you back to viewing program.
To do an effective scrubbing, they should run for at least an hour (and it would be nice if it just turned the TV off at the end. That way you could start it before bed, and not worry about returning to turn the TV off) My answer to this design "weakness" is that i run it 4 or 5 times consecutively when out of synch areas appear. It's a drag, but that's a design issue to be taken up with Panny. My main point being that some accidental IR is not a life sentence, it is recoverable. And another point being that during scrolling, you may clearly see "dirty" areas and small frame lines long after you have had the TV. Don't freak, they are part of doing business with a plasma HDTV, they will have absolutely zero discernible effect on your viewing material
So:
-If you aren't in a hurry to break-in the TV, you can just watch regular programing. Keep the contrast at 50, (and you may learn that a TV with a wide native contrast, doesn't need the contrast jacked, anyway. Fundamentally, contrast is mostly a level gain for whites.) And keep the picture spread wide without bars. With average TV watching, this might be an inconvenience for what?, a few weeks?
- Should the set be touchy, and you get some IR. Scrub it off. They clean-up real nice.
-I don't doubt that some people take the TV home and nuke it in Vivid or game for 22 hours straight. Odds are, if they didn't care to know to care for it in the first place, they don't really care or even notice the consequences.
-Don't fret yourself. Since i started with audio equipment 40 yrs ago, a/v equipment with better than common performance (particularly at a tremendous value price), historically needs just a bit of thoughtfulness on the part of the owner to realize its optimal performance. Most everything has trade-offs. Those which don't, cost an arm and a leg.
- Enjoy your set. It has to have the best bucks to PQ ratio in this year's design generation.
. This is my plan of action.
