Plasma Break-In (Slides/DVD): Purposeful or Pointless?

The slides/dvd only get you through the first 100 to 150 hours faster. You shouuld wait until after those first 150 hours before doing a professional calibration as the settings will change as the set ages.

For safety sake, I would avoid high contrast lines being shown for extended periods of times, black bars and video games for the first 100 hours. This point is more my opinion and precaution than 100% necessary but I wouldn't view these things with a fresh plasma.

-Evangelo2

^^Yes. All using the slides do is allow you to get through the break-in period more quickly. You could do the same watching full screen content for the first 150 to 200 hours.

I've heard HD content with no "hard" logo will work just as fine as the DVD's or slides...

Great thread. Exactly correct. People are having unnecessary paranoia with this slide break in crap.

Quick question:

Say I keep watching TNT, and the TNT logo sits their for hours and on an all black screen I can still see the IR from the logo. After about 1 minute of watching another channel or 20 seconds in the scrolling bar feature, the IR is completely gone on the all black screen.

Does the fact that this IR no longer exists mean that the pixels are "ok" (lack of a better word).

I guess what im asking is: Just because any temporary IR always goes away, does that mean I am being safe with the screen/aging it correctly?

Or should I be trying to completely avoid the IR all together.

(ps: I dont really watch that much TNT, just an example b/c i do love to watch HD channels with their damn logos!)

I have the same question as well. After the 150-250+ hours of burning in with the slides/watching tv, do I still need to worry about image retention from playing video games (2-3 hours+) or computer usage (icons)?

I only have my own experience to share:

I had a Samsung HT-P5064. I did ZERO break-in. I did a basic user calibration (think THX Optimizer ) and started watching whatever I wanted right away. During the first week or so, I often noticed image retention. Logos or HUDs would linger. But after only a few minutes with different content or a full white screen or the "wipe", the after-image would always go away.

I also watched 4:3 content with the black bars on the side and 2.35:1 content with the black bars on the top and bottom. I would get image retention of the bars too. But again, they would always go away after a few minutes with different content.

After the first week or so, the image retention happened to a lesser degree. I would still see after-images, but they wouldn't be as obvious and they wouldn't stick for as long as during the first week or so.

Now, a couple of years later, I still get some image retention, but it still always goes away. The worst of it seems to only happen on the right hand side of the screen. For example, 4:3 content with black bars on the side will result in image retention of the right hand side bar, but virtually nothing of the left hand side bar. Again, with different content, the after-image of the bar always goes away.

I HAVE noticed that my pixel response time seems to have gotten much longer now though. Before, if I was looking at a bright object and then the screen suddenly went to all black, there was basically an instant transition from the bright object to pure black. Now though, when a bright object is on screen and then it suddenly goes to all black, there is a momentary lingering after-image of the bright object. It's a lot like what the old LCD displays looked like when they had slower pixel response times!

So I don't know...maybe never breaking in the TV somehow made this slower pixel response time happen a couple of years later. But I truly do not think this is the case because any image retention during the first year pretty much only happened on the sides, the top/bottom or the corners. This slow pixel response thing is happening in the middle of the screen as well as all other parts of the screen, so I really do not think that break in had anything to do with it.

Bottom line - I don't think you need to break in a plasma. I CAN say that the plasma definitely "settles" during the first few hundred hours of use and so, if you're planning to hire a professional calibrator, you really do want to have it in use for a few hundred hours first so that the settings won't change after the calibrator leaves.

If image retention scares the bajeezus out of you, then fine, go along with the crazy, dim break in settings and never showing static images or black bars thing. But from my experience, the whole "break in period" wouldn't have done anything other than prevent me from enjoying my TV for a week or so!

When you buy a new car do you break in the engine by driving the auto 100 mph for 100 hours?

No, but you shouldn't drive the same speed constantly for any long duration the first 4-500 miles, though. This isn't really a good analogy, though, as this is mechanical break-in compared to a plasma screen. The first few hundred miles is when all of the moving parts get settled, and is much more critical than pixels changing color.

Poor example is poor example. besides many manufacturers of cars, if not all at present do not require any kind of break in.

You simply drive as you would drive.

Redundancy is redundancy?

You have grown old

I think breaking in is nonsense. It may have been important 5 or 10 years ago, but not any more. If the owners manual doesn't recommend burning in then it's probably not needed. The manufacturer stands to lose money if a TV isn't burned in and is damaged as a result.

Also, the theory of breaking in is a mechanical thing. The idea is the phosphorous on the screen is initially very bright and with use, it dims to a steady state. It's believed that brighter phosphorous is more likely to permanently burn in than aged phosphorous.

Should read "break-in" instead of "burn-in"

Panasonic only says to go easy on the non-full screen viewing for the first 100 hours. That's it.

People continue to get confused over the purposes of the slide break-in; it is less so for preventing burn-in, but more so for evenly aging the phosphors as quickly as possible so that a calibration can be completed (so that the phosphors won't change after investing in a professional calibration). Burn-in with plasma is a long-gone issue. You would have to seriously abuse your new PDP before getting any permanent burn-in (i.e. leave bright static images on for days (maybe weeks) at a time)!

Checkout the results of this torture test: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pi...0-%20FINAL.pdf
They left a bright, static image on screen for 48 hrs straight! Burn-in? No. Image retention? Yes, but remedied later.

No, The slides are so that you can break your set in exactly as the isf tech broke his set in. So that in his opinion your set will be exactly like his and you can get as close as possible results from using his service menu adjustments which have not been published yet over 6 months later.

That is ALL the slides are for.

They have nothing to do with...
being a better way to break in
being a faster way to break in
or anything other than being the same procedure he used.

No, Not sure who the "he" you are referring to. The OP was asking about using slides for breaking -in the plasma; not about a specific procedure as you seem to be implying.

The slides procedure was inferred by D-Nice. It is to be used if you intend on using his service menu adjustments, which are 6 months later yet to be posted.

You can certainly use the slide method to burn thru the 100-150 break in period faster.

That is the only thing ever intended for using the slider method.

The slider method isn't a must do, It isn't the only way, And you can certainly just watch your set simply being more mindful of the content for the first 100ish hrs.

So the answer to the OP is no there is no need for him to do the slides because he, like me does not intend to ever use service menu settings that are yet to be posted.

My post that you picked up on and quoted were specifically aimed to reply to my quoted area. Which does not state the proper reason the slider method was posted in the first place. His post insinuates that you need to do the slider method because its the best way. Which is far from a truthful statement.

I love this thread!

I recently bought a PN58B650, and the only thing I'm doing is stretching out 4:3 content and not leaving anything paused for more than 5 mins. In the first week, I had the contrast down to 50, and the pic was unwatchable. So I jacked it up to 96 (C net settings), much better.

I almost didn't buy the set cause of what all the paranoid posters were saying about break-in and IR... I didn't want to baby the TV.

There are folks out there that are running the break-in dvds/slides 24x7! I think that is complete crap.

I watched full content during day and let the slides run at night to the 100 hour mark, I know it is not necessary but does it help(do anything) at all?

here here!

The only reason I am running 1080p slides is so when I am not with the TV I don't have to worry about non full screen content.Slides just a way to get the initial ~100 hours over with fast and safely.

So you are doing a slide break-in but not sure why?
If you read through the many threads in this forum and others you will quickly see that there is a lot of false info getting thrown around unnecessarily. But get through it all you should eventually see why it is useful

Why worry? You aren't going to hurt your tv by watching non-full screen content...

I have read that it helps age it evenly is why I did it,is this a true statement or bs?

Watching TV (full screen) also helps it age evenly!

I think thanks to this thread we might finally stop this silly activity!

+1 The only advantage I see to it is getting the PDP to have enough hours more quickly than just watching the display normally (so that a professional calibration can be done more quickly after purchasing the display). Other than that we should all just watch our damn TV and stop worrying about it!!