Panasonic ST50 image retention, please help! - Page 19

That looks like the same kind of pattern on the Disney WOW DVD. You can "play" it to remove IR.

nothing works better than full screen content with fast motion at removing IR, plain and simple. there is no "magic" formula, slide, scrolling bar or otherwise which will work better plain and simple

Well time for another update...see my past posts for the original story.

After waiting a full 3 weeks between sending my 55ST50 into the Panasonic service center for "testing" to see if they could remove my burn-in problem and the service center having sent in their report after just 3 days of testing to say it wasn't going away I finally got fed up and blasted some poor guy on the front line of the Panasonic customer suppport desk. He of course could not do anything directly but put me on hold twicce no doubt to speak to someone with some clout and I was told to expect a call from a Panasonic "representative" (which is code for someone who can actually help you).

I waited and 2 days later got a call from someone informing me that while they did not feel there was anything wrong with the TV they were giving me a dealer authorization to return the TV in exchange for a new one as a "one time only good will gesture". I asked her what she expected me to do differently next time to not have this happen again and she said to use the wiper feature after every viewing, which I said seemed like awfully high maintenance for just normal TV viewing (recall my burn-in was just from the TV guide logo that is only up for maybe 30 seconds at a time). She said all TVs have their drawbacks.

So time to cast your vote...was Panaonic's decision to give me an exchange
a) A clear indication that there was something wrong with the TV but they won't admit it
b) Because they took 3 weeks
c) **** luck

I vote "a". These plasmas all vary from each other, and I guess you made enough stink to make them figure that it was time to throw in the towel. They probably figured if you put up such a fight that it probably wasn't "your fault". They have to know there's varience with these tvs.

Just my guess.

like i said earlier, i got i/r that would not go away (Fox2 logo). glad i was in my30 day return period, so i got a new one. waited 7 days as the only one left was in indiana (im in the metro detroit area). im currently on day 3 of my 200 hr burn in wiht the color slides. this better fix this i/r issue. or ill jump the plasma ship and go LED. ill suffer with a lesser quality picture vs image burn/retention.

If you go lcd, try the lg lm7600. Just got this set and for the money ($1499) I think its the closest you'll get to the panny plasma.

Hate to burst your bubble but running slides does nothing to mitigate IR its an urban legend.

Is there somewhere I can download a Pixar movie loop folks are talking about here that I can try that might help remove some stubborn IR? I wanted to try the whitewash mp4 mentioned by Zoyd, but for some reason my ST50 will not play a .mp4 file, says it's not readable. It will play a .mov though.

I initially had no indication of IR problems until now. Now I have some serious IR from playing Halo 4 since mid-December on my 60" ST50 and I'm worried it might be permanent. It's mainly the HUD shield bar indicator at the top of the screen. I thought I was being careful enough, playing maybe 2-3 hour sessions, which isn't unrealistic, then letting the TV run on normal content after gaming until it auto shuts off after 3 hours. But just last week, I noticed that the shield bar was not dissipating and I can see the ghost image on anything now, except an all blue screen. (The HUD bar is light blue with a white border).

I'd been playing maybe 5 days per week, for the past 4-5 weeks, so the IR has happened as a result of repeatedness apparently, not just one or two long sessions of something.

I've tried many of the things mentioned here the past week to try and cure it, nothing works. I've now been letting the TV run on normal HD content continuously to see if it might go away, but I'm not too hopeful. I bought the set in June, 2012, ran D-nice's slides for 100 hours exactly, and then put in his recommended ST50 2012 custom settings, and those are the settings I gamed on, I never use game mode. The TV had roughly 400 hours on it before I started Halo gaming.

Anyway, I'd like to try 72 hours of a pixar movie loop if I could find one. Bottome line though, is the 2012 ST50 does seem very prone to IR from gaming HUDs, which is a bummer because I really like the TV otherwise, and it's fantastic to game on. But alas, it's not mean to handle it for any lenght of time apparently.
Edited by Argster - 3/1/13 at 6:02am

Hey Newbie01, this is one thing I haven't tried. But when I load just the slide from the prep set that looks to be the black one, it appears dark grey on the TV screen, not completely black. Is that how it looked on your screen?

im hoping by me running the slides for 200 hrs might be better for helping i/r b/i not being as prone to happen as just takinf the tv out of the box and turning on a channel w/o and break in other than just watching tv.

Like I wrote I got new panel under warranty because of burn-in.
After 200h break-in slides, calibration and few hours (1-2 hour at once) FOX channel (where logo is bright white and almost opaque) there´s again burn-in, at least heavily IR.

Asked seller what we going to do, will they take that set back and give moneys back or will they give me totally new set. They asked thing from Panasonic and answer was:

The user manual does state that the panel can be damaged due to leaving static images on the screen for prolonged times.

If a static image such as a channel LOGO or Games machine is left on display for a short time such as 5 to 10 mins it would be expected to see temporally image retention which will refresh when a moving image is displayed on the unit after a short while. This is not a fault, but the user can take steps to limit a future issues with the screen becoming damaged by reducing Brightness and contrast levels such as Game Mode if using a games machine on the unit or if prolonged viewing of static images such as Channel LOGO's or Banners.

Best Regards Shane

Technical Support Team-Consumer Products


So now they think that it´s not faulty at all

Next step is reclamation to consumer protection which takes about 12 months to process. That´s not court of law but if they think that Panasonic´s ST50 plasma TV is faulty I can take it to district court and have good chances to win.

confirming what you say, there is absolutely no doubt about it on my 60st50, if you leave a white logo (burns hotter) on the screen for 1-2 hours, it will leave an after image (image retention). I had the white MSNBC bar image stuck there for weeks, until i started using zoom and varying the content a lot more. I think you have every right to be upset . the 60st50 was my first plasma set, and I would never have bought it if I hadn't heard countless stores on the web about "image retention and burn in are no longer major issues with modern plasmas" rather, I think the consensus is, that the ST50 is quite prone to image rentention.

I can also find that there is a Chupacabra roaming Northern Kentucky doesn't make it reality. For every one negative story there are at least 20 folks that have never had IR

I hope it works for you but I've never used slides and have never had IR issues.

are you talking about an ST50? your sig says ST30

if this happens again, im jumping ship to an LED set. no more worries about I/R B/I ever again. if i knew i had to walk on egg shels to watch a plasma set w/o any i/r, i would not have bought another plasma. my 42" panny plasma i had for 3 yrs never had any brun in or i/r. i never ran any slides. just opened the box and watched tv as normal.

That's what I did. I've tried plasma twice--a Vizio 6 or so years ago, and a 55" Panny UT50 last month.

Both times I had issues with IR. I ran slides for 100 hours first both times as well.

I think it's just my uses are bad about IR--lots of ESPN (literally on all day sometimes--though I didn't do that with the UT50 and still got IR) and lots of gaming, with some movies mixed in. So lots of static stuff to get IR, and things like sports, games etc. tend to have a lot of bright images (hockey ice, light wood on basketball courts etc.) where logos and HUDS are really noticeable. So for me it wasn't something I just noticed on white slides or when running the screen wiper.

On top of that, with both the Vizio and the UT50 I was driven nuts by buzzing on bright scenes that was clear audible over dialogue in quieter scenes. I either have **** luck with getting extra loud buzzers (had techs out both times who couldn't fix it and said they thought it was normal though), or just have hearing that is very sensitive to noticing it.

So plasma's just aren't for me. I'm not a videophile anyway so I don't really care about the black levels, getting closer to reference picture etc. anyway. So I'll gladly give up that PQ stuff to be able to use the TV as I like without worries about IR, and to not be annoyed by buzzing.

So now Panasonic isn't sure if they have any 55ST50 units left...waiting again for them to make up their mind. Not going to take a lesser TV so they better step me up to the GT50 for the aggravation factor they've caused. Today marks 4 weeks since this whole mess started.

The warranty requires them to replace with same or better TV, sot hey would step you up if they can't find another ST50 for you. I've seen others post where that happened, so hopefully you don't get any run around on it.

I just wonder if ST60 will have same panel as VT50, if so then IR/burn-in is issue also with that new upcoming model.

In my case repairing set took one day over two months and now I have exactly same burn-in´s.
Got e-mail from Panasonic that now they think what to do...I hope they don´t think many months
Personally I don´t wanna GT50 for replacement because Pro1 and Pro2 is more limited luminance and THX can´t be properly calibrated even with service menu.
TX-P55ST50Y True Cinema can be calibrate by user menu because there is white balance and CMS controls.

Make73, are you saying that Panasonic is now in the process of thinking what they want to do next (and you're waiting for their resolution), or are you saying they now know what to do next already? If it's "they now know", what did they say, they have a possible fix or a replacement/refund?

Sorry my bad english
I wrote to them that if I don´t get any answer soon I will going to do that reclamation to cosumer protection which I wrote earlier.
Got answer that "case is under process", so I believe they are thinking what is best solution to this case, give another brand new set (because I don´t agree repairing that again, it took over two months and issue is still there), offer discount, refund or just say that there´s nothing wrong with set because IR and burn-in is feature of Panasonic plasmas´s. They know that I´m writing about this at many AV-forums.

So let´s wait for answer.

Still no confirmation...how hard should it be for Panasonic to look within their own inventory to see if they do or do not have a 55ST50 available? They are just trying to save themselves a few $$$ by not having me go through the store where I bought it but in the meantime I am once again watching a wall mounting bracket for entertainment tonight. I tried rattling the chain again with someone at the front desk and they have "escalated" my case so we'll see if something happens on Monday. Worst part is that the service center is also getting no answers but they are just caught in the middle. They said if this drags on any longer they are bringing me a loner.

I had two ST50s with pretty bad IR problems (ended up returning them). Two days ago I was tempted to buy the VT50 now that it is $1499.99 with a coupon at Pauls TV but had flashbacks from the IR on the St50 and that made me reconsider if I should try for a third time a panny. I mostly watch blu-rays, play sport games and watch sports (ESPN), so IR is going to be a problem.

Now I'm seriously considering the 60" Samsung e7000 plasma ($1597 + a free Samsung Galaxy tablet) since they seem to be a lot more resistant to image retention and their picture quality is very close to the ST50 and apparently has a sharper picture.

Has anyone here had any experience with the e7000 sammy? Do you think it might be better to wait for the ST60 reviews or should I just pull the trigger? Something tells me that the ST60s will still suffer from IR...

Thanks in advance!

I'm on the same page as you man, E7000 now or ST60, but worried ST60 will still have IR.

Don't give into the hysteria, ST60, if you go E7000 you have to worry about buzzing and lots of firmware update issues.

I have the 60UT50. It replaced a 50 inch panny plasma from 2007. My older panny plasma never had/has issues with IR. It's used for games, espn, news, etc....never have to worry about it. My UT50 has ESPN logo and bar either burned in or it's been really stubborn IR. I did a break in period and mix up the content all the time. Contrast always below 80, brightness below 60....and no abuse what so ever. In my opinion it is an issue, because it's an issue for myself and many others. I'm running various animated movies overnight in an effort to get rid of it. Tried the wipe, pure black screen, pure white screen, pixel flipper, etc....with no real improvement. The full screen content is helping the most in my case as it's faded just a bit, but I'm not convinced the logo will ever completely go away. I'm glad I did catch it before it got any worse. For those of us that have seen this, it's a real problem and a step back from my previous panny in this area. On the only positive side, the PQ is amazing, and my screen otherwise is great. Just posting my experience in this thread as it seems to be relevant in several of the 2012 models. I can only guess that in my case a little too much ESPN, not all in one sitting, but just a high percentage of it in total use caused this....though it is still disappointing to me that my old plasma never had this, and this one does....

my 200hr color slide break-in was finished on friday. the tv was the put into action. i have about 15 hrs max on it from watching tv. i already have a sligh i/r in the lower right corner. i havent been watching any one particular hannel form any lenght of time. thats it, i think im callin it quits on this plasma ****. i want my older 42" panny plasma back. in 2 years of watching tv, NEVER did i have an i/r issues PERIOD!!! granted my 55st50 has a fantastic picture, but the i/r is NOT worth it. now i know its there on the screen, every white pic on the screen im always fixated on the i/r. plasma (lol), about to jump ship and go LED. even thoi i dont like the pq of LED. it looks too cartoonish for my liking

panasonic, you guys better get your **** together about this i/r or burn in issue. countless panny plamsa owners are having the same issue. if 1to 5 people had some i/r issues only, then i could see blaming it on user error. but when owner after owner after owner after owner is having the same issue, maby..just maby is NOT the operators fault and its the plasma. maby im wrong, but i didnt spend 1300.00 on a TV to have any sort of i/r or b/i issue. thats unaccecptable in my book!!!!!

Our 60ST50 suffered from Quick Onset, Medium- to Long-Duration IR until some point past 400+ hours.

The worst cases - UVerse "GUIDE" heading (upper left of panel), & a mash-up of ESPN & ENCORE HD logos (lower right) - were visible during (some) normal programs for at least a couple of weeks (of normal viewing), but DID eventually fade.

Beyond 400+ hours, IR Onset time began to lengthen, and Duration to Shorten.

Could still "Demonstrate" IR - and, yes, it does pop up, Briefly, of its own accord on occasion - but Visibility is reduced to the point that most viewers would not notice it at all, and Duration is now usually a matter of Minutes (both with normal program material running).

We currently have 3 plasma sets in the house, and do not consider IR to be a Trouble Area with any of them, even though all 3 have exhibited IR at one time or another.

Disclaimer: We do not Game on any of these panels, nor use them as Super Large Computer Monitors.....

Just a quick update my friend decided to go with a Samsung PN64E533D2F (Link) and so far everyone is very happy with it.

Also not a hint of IR has been noted after a week of normal Cable TV usage along with some Xbox 360 / PS3 time included.