Panasonic ST50 image retention, please help! - Page 15

I ordered a 55" ST50 from Amazon last night, and I have to say this thread isn't exactly helping my fear of plasma TV's and IR issues. My PC is going to be my main "source" of input on this TV, as I have a cablecard tuner that I use to watch TV on my PC. Plus I play games, but most definitely not heavily. I play an hour, MAYBE 2 hours a day. At most.

But....I'm staying the course. I mean I knew what I was getting into when I was interested in a plasma....IR is just something you manage/deal with. From all the reviews I've read on this TV the PQ is second to none, and the $1,200 I paid for it is pretty much the max I'd be willing to spend on a TV anyway. I've also been around these message boards long enough to know that many of us are the "extreme" user in that a lot of this stuff, I bet many people wouldn't even notice. And I tend to be someone that even if I do notice this, as long as it goes away after a relatively short time of watching another image, I really won't care. Especially if the PQ is what it's advertised to be. That's the trade-off. I currently have a 52" Samsung LN52a550p3f and I tend to think that even with IR, this should be a pretty big upgrade.

I'll run the slides, and go from there. Barring any kind of severe issues I can't imagine I'm going to regret my purchase.

I do nothing to manage it. And I never experience it. I'm an "extreme user".

Clearly, some small portion of people are getting problem sets, I'm not going to argue that point, but clearly that's not the norm.

To me, using the set in a high brightness mode all the time for all content with static images and never getting any IR is not normal. I think you are at the other end of the bell curve

I do believe that with the big jump in screen brightness that came with the new 2012 models there does seem to be more reports of persistent or stubborn IR, but of all the hundreds of participants in the various 2012 model threads the percentage of those people reporting IR is overall pretty small. I don't think persistent IR is normal, it does seem to be in the vast minority.

I run all four of my Plasmas with the screen brightness about as high as it will go without looking unnatural and the IR i've gotten from my incessant daily news watching (4-5 hours a day) is temporary and goes away within minutes after switching to other channels and content. My GT50 has over 900 hours on it and i have Contrast set to 85% in Custom or THX Bright Room and so far the IR is a little more persistent than it is on my older units but like the other TVs, it goes away.

without trying to sound rude, im gonna say, any one that says really stubborn IR is a thing of the past is just not being genuine. ive had really light IR on my g20 and then ive had some pretty heavy IR. the IR that REALLY likes to stick around is the cartoon network logo or any logo that has really contrasting colors. havent really noticed any IR lately on the g20, until last night when i watched some adventure time and regular show on cartoon network. that sucker was obvious as day as soon as some commercials came on that had what would be equal to watching slides and was still obvious for hours afterwards. i just looked now and its very vaguely still there. go stick on cartoon network for 2+ hours and then throw on a slide, if you dont get some stubborn IR then id say your doin pretty good...

ive been looking for IR lately simply because im ready to make an upgrade in size and ive been reading the '12 models are more prone to it seems like. if i could guarantee i would have the same IR experience with the '12 models as i have with my g20, then id go for the panny as i think what i have is "decently acceptable". some of these threads make me think i should go sammy yet i dont want to deal with the so called brightness pops or the screen shutting off under dark scenes, thats just as bad as dealing with very obvious IR. where do i turn to, maybe ill just wait for the '13's...

i will say this though, according to my battlefield in game stats, ive played over 250 hours of battlefield 3 on my g20 with no burn in or IR or at least i cant see it when looking for it and i just rechecked it now after a session. i really appreciate channels and games that dont have obnoxious logos or counters.

I am getting a bit confused right now. If I understand correctly, the first batch of St50 tv's is prone to quick IR, while new ones are not. I have the first one.
Should we assume, that my and other IR prone televisons are in fact faulty and shuld be rapaired/replaced by Panasonic? I mean, we pay the same price for a product with performance fault.

That's hearsay. Unless someone can test properly, I'd say there's more of a chance that there is absolutely NO difference between models this year TBH. It's certainly possible, but I'd say very very unlikely.

i think ignoreme hit it right on the money. it's the contrasting colors, white on black or white on a dark background that will eventually set in if kept there too long. I don't care what plasma you have, keep that cartoon network logo or whatever on for 15 minutes, you'll have IR for an hour. keep it on for 5 hours, i think it's getting dangerous depending on settings and age of set. i don't think IR/burn comes from any 1 thing or viewing habit, its a combination of things all at once with the user not paying attention that will eventually "damage" the phosphors.

Those channel logos are just an annoyance, why these networks feel they need to tells us (constantly) which freaken channel were looking at is beyond me. Anyway I have a VT50 on the way I plan to just watch in THX mode reduced contrast and brightness for a couple weeks, no special run in for me. Never did anything special other than not watching it with jaked up contrast brightness with my G20 and only noticed miner IR at times but only when using it as computer monitor.

I have the VT50. I had burn in on the first one, exchanged it, and after a few thoughtful changes I am now IR free since august. Here are my suggestions:

1) DON'T use THX mode or bright room UNLESS the picture fills the whole screen and there are ZERO static images, at least for the first 200 hours minimum.
2) use standard mode during widescreen, letterbox or while watching cable. i have probably close to 500 hours on my set and still keep it in standard mode for these occasions, or use the zoom mode.
3) turn the pixel orbiter on immediately! this is off by default in the THX mode. it can be turned on by using "size 1" in the aspect menu. you'll notice the pixel orbiter being greyed out and this is because it needs a little extra screen outside of the viewable area to work. you can also use zoom mode, but the "size 1" thing is convenient.

my apologies if you already know this stuff, but i hope this helps you to avoid exchanging or damaging your set.

If you are suffering thru standard mode for watching cable you have my sympathies. You must watch alot of 4:3 content ?

I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone, but I'm just really confused by the level of babying I see some people putting into their plasma sets. I've got a P50GT50 on the way (wrong thread, I know) and it's my first plasma, but threads like this have almost make me preemptively regret my purchase. Watching cable and movies in either Normal mode, or zoomed in? What's the point of owning a a TV touted for its PQ then? Aren't most movies shot in 1.85:1 aspect ratio (i.e. letterboxed on a 16:9 TV)?...so there are people out there zooming in on movies to remove the bars, and are OK with the softened picture and losing part of the image? Didn't you buy a plasma because you're into having the best possible picture quality? I don't get it.

I saw another thread where someone suggested not playing video games with any static images AT ALL during the first 500-750 hours of owning a new plasma. If I'm not leaving my TV on for 2 months straight (which I won't be), that could take a year! Some say burn-in is a thing of the past, so why this level of care? For IR? Isn't it worth chancing a little IR (that will go away) to view a movie or show at ideal settings (to your eye)? Don't get me wrong, persistent IR sounds terrible, but not worse than never really utilizing the full potential of your TV except on the (rare?) occasions you're feeding it a full 1080p image with no static images in sight.

...maybe I'm overreacting a bit, I know. Or maybe I'm just irritable since the shipping on my new GT50 (which was supposed to arrive today) has been delayed. Ugh!

Wanted to post my positive experience with my ST50. I was worried about IR after reading this forum but went ahead and bought the TV. I haven’t run slides haven’t babied it I took it out of the box found the D-nice settings for people who aren’t going to run prep slides and that’s it. Haven’t seen any IR and I'm not looking for it. I'm sure if I ran slides and looked hard enough I could possibly find something, But I have no intentions to. My plan is to break it in slowly by just watching normal TV and Blue Ray and Video games and then look at a professional calibration when I can afford it. If I can’t see anything with normal viewing then it’s not a problem in my eyes. Hope this helps anyone that’s worries about getting this TV. There is a reason it has so much praise cause it’s a great TV!

+1!

meh standard mode really isn't that bad. cable is very compressed anyway so it's not like good settings will make much difference in PQ. maybe what i did was "extreme" to some people but i would rather not flush $2K down the drain. for the record i've played games on my set since the 100-150 hour mark without problems, but also used standard mode and pixel orbiter as indicated. take it as you will, but if you expect to use this tv like an LCD and you're even slightly picky about PQ you will notice IR eventually.

Standard mode is notorious for bad dithering and noise but maybe its different in 2012s.

I don't really notice any increased noise, just dimmer picture, and that's key.

Different strokes for different folks its a shame you aren't utilizing the full potential of your tv.

only when it matters.

Just posting my expeirience with a 55" GT50. I ran slides on and off for the first 100+ hours with occasional 1-2 hour blocks of full screen content and have used it since with a variety of content including shows with static images and using my browser on my HTPC and have had no problems with image retention. New out of the box it seemed to have a tendency to hold an image momentarily but that has disapeared. I do however have noticable buzzing from the top right rear that I can hear from ten+ feet away from the tv only when displaying light/bright images, like when I'm using my HTPC browsing, but has not been noticable when watching conventional content. I really dont want to return this set just because of the buzzing as otherwise the pictue is gorgeus once setup right, btw I was using thx cinema out of the box and after the slides I've been using CNET's David K's settings which are a noticable improvement to my eyes on my particular panel. Thinking I may contact Panasonic to see if I can get that fixed from what I've read its not typical. One question I do have is that on some content like when I open tmt5 (my pc's movie player) there is a near solid blue screen with an icon in the middle and eminating out from the icon there are noticable rings like the color is a darker shade in ring like shapes. Its hard to explain, I've tried searching on the topic but can't find any info on it. I've seen it on OTA tv as well. Could possibly be my HTPC as I dont think I've seen it on my ps3.

wow thanks for this as I was going to get the panny 60ut50 but because of this thread went with the sammy 60e6500 and got it for nearly the same price as the 60ut50 was going for

I agree with this. I don't have any experience with the xx50 plasmas, but there is no way that I would be using one of these great TVs with contrast set low, the image zoomed in or stretched to eliminate black bars, etc. Hell, I don't even use the pixel orbiter on my plasma. Sorry if it's slightly OT, but this is my experience with IR on my 2.5-year-old LG plasma (notorious for IR), which I imagine would be applicable to other brands as well:

1. IR was definitely more persistent when the TV was young. I guess this is common knowledge, but people who are freaking out about IR on a new plasma should take solace in knowing that it won't always be so bad. My plasma is still pretty quick to demonstrate IR, but the IR typically goes away just as quickly. I had somewhat stubborn IR just from the scores shown during a basketball game when my TV was new, and things like that do not happen anymore.

2. I highly doubt that anyone who is worried about permanent burn-in actually has permanent burn-in. I have fallen asleep with high contrast, white-on-black images being displayed on my plasma. I'm sure lots of people have done things like that. The IR might take time to get rid of, but it shouldn't be permanent.

3. I don't know what anti-image-retention modes are found on xx50s besides pixel orbiter, but the ones on my LG aren't the most effective way to eliminate persistent IR. My plasma can display a full white screen or a color wash pattern with blocks of white, yellow, cyan and magenta. I've found that ABL seems to greatly reduce the effectiveness of patterns like those. On my plasma, a very bright white image has proven to be the best thing for eliminating IR, and of course it isn't possible to display that on the entire screen. Ideally, I'd like to have something similar to the LG color wash pattern with the three secondary colors replaced by black. My plasma is connected to a PC, so -- with contrast set high -- I have moved small, white windows to areas of my screen that had persistent IR, and that has worked pretty well to eliminate it.

And that screen used by MLB.TV during commercial breaks does suck. That gives me IR as well.

To me the line bleed is more annoying than the IR. Its better with a proper calibration but is never really gone completely

Line bleed only happens when there's bright text on the screen and that's usually from movie credits or some advertisement. It's instantly gone when the text is gone. IR takes several hours to a couple of days to get rid of it. To each his own but I don't see how line bleed could be more annoying than IR?

i notice it sometimes next to people's faces when they are on a light background. its faint but noticeable. also southpark is terrible for line bleed because of the bold colors and geometric shapes.

Yep, I get that too. I know as consumers we should be able to get a TV as rock solid as our parents did back in the day, like the old Zenith that refused to quit even if you threw it off of a cliff but I guess since technology has gone more towards the direction of larger screens, HD, flat panels so they can hang on the wall we have to take some good with the bad unless we want to pay royally for a set with Zenith quality along with the true movie theater experience.

I will say this, even with the issues that Plasma brings I've gone over to the LCD forums and I wouldn't trade my plasma issues for their LCD issues. Clouding, flashlighting, banding, poor black levels and being able to view only dead set in the middle for the best picture quality. No thanks.

good post.
Yeah that's true. even for all the complaining we do i think in general the issues are less than LCD. the only lcd i'd want to own is probably the sharp elite but not for that price. and it's not like the elite has zero problems either.

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Aren't these more limitations of LCD technology where as the issues with plasma are 'broken' tv issues?

Isn't there something we can do as far as contacting certain cable channel's about their plasma-damaging logos? Some channels have very small, transparent logos. Other channels have huge, bright white logos that make you so paranoid that you stop watching the content and just worry about the logo burning in. Why is there a need to boldly inform people what channel they are already watching? Out of the channels I watch regularly, CNN and MSNBC are the worst culprits.

yes, unfortunately it doesn't take as long as most plasma enthusiasts think to burn images in. i also think it doesn't help that there's this group of people who seem to downplay the issue as "a thing of the past" which can make the situation worse for people like me who are just jumping into the plasma market.

How did you manage to get an inverse image of the burn in to fit exactly where it once was? this was something I wanted to try before exchanging my set, and I thought for sure it would work...the main "burn" seems to actually be uneven pixel aging which dispite what a lot of the internet tells you, is effectively non-reversible.

there is something you can do: email the channel and tell them to fix the logo lol. depending on how much you watch that particular channel it may not be worth it. I was thinking about emailing the science channel and explaining the "science" as to why their logo is the biggest, brightest, ugliest thing to hit the scene since that show oddities came on the air.