Plasma Break-In Philosphy.

Because it is not necessary.

I tend to agree, break-in outside of varying content does not mitigate IR imo,

The point of break in is for the panel to age evenly

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That would be accomplished with the all white screen the OP suggested.

I would be concerned about running 100% all white, as that would be pushing the panel to the fullest. This may not apply to plasma panels, but for most devices, you want to go easy and build up.

Michael

Aging evenly for calibration and preventing IR are two different things imo

I just bought my 1st plasma and like you (OP) I read through tons of stuff on here and other sites about IR and calibration... Here's what I did knowing that I wasn’t going to pay for a professional calibration nor did I want to wait 100-200 hours running break-in slides to watch my new TV – that I bought to replace a broken one.

No one is home during the day so we only watched TV at night and on weekends. I kept 16:9 source at all times for the 1st few weeks and ran the break-in slides every night for the 1st week. I got lazy and didn't run the slides after that. Now I watch movies and light gaming with HUDs, and have noticed no IR so far.

I think you’ll be fine if you do everything in moderation like I did for the first 100-200 hours. It just depends on what your main goal is and how long you want to wait.

to be honest, early days of plasma required, yes, required breakin to avoid
Burn in.
Early days supported this idea with charts and graphs about the life of the plasma cell.
Then came the inevitable PR to state that those days were over. Seems it is to hard to sell something that consumers need to use their brains about.

Yes, new cells are subject to spatter and permanent damage from overly high
voltages running them.

While the chemicals that make up the phosphors that glow have improved, they still
have the same tech driving them.

I support proper aging of plasma panels to get a more uniformed tube.

Now, the guys that will say "prove it", have an opening.

I also like the colored slides. Some just content.

Neither one has an exact hour of use that guaranties no IR or burn in.

Slides to me age the panel the fastest and with complete uniformly.
Content is anything but even across the panel.

It is your panel and you need to decide.

Be aware that there is no magic number of hours to having an IR resistant panel.
I would imagine that slides will get it there faster than just content.

Also, slides are good to run before getting a calibration.
1 reason, the meter is guarantied to hit a group of pixels that are representative of the whole panel.
2 there are measurable shifts in one or more of the RGB pixels during the first 100 or so
hours.
Number 2 is what adds to my opinion that slides and the need to break in a plasma
is the better course of action.

For all the naysayers, here is some recent proof that IR/burn/uneven phosphor wear is still possible. I didn't use slides but had good mix of content for 4 months... and what looks like too much 4:3 content.

Using the D-Nice recommended "slides" (consist of red, green, blue and shades of white in a 1920 x 1020 format) will break in each pixel as uniformly as possible. A "white" screen will not do the same. BTW, the settings are NOT 100% for contrast and brightness.
Using the slides still doesn't guarantee that you might not get IR or BI. If you run the "Vivid" mode, for example, you will MOST LIKELY, get one or both!
If Panny includes a "scrolling white bar" to remove IR, then it MUST do something wouldn't you say?

However, your SETTINGS . . . . I say again, your SETTINGS are the main cause of IR and/or BI . . . . even if you age the pixels. High level of CONTRAST, 90 and above, will almost guarantee some IR and maybe BI.

Great pics . . . my 10+ year old Pio had similar ends . . . except much worse. Watching a hockey game showed both endsof the screen as a blue-green tint to a white screen. But 10+yrs is a lot of viewing time. It was noticeable a long time before the 10yr mark.

As you said . . . from watching 4:3 content with "black" borders! If you HAVE to watch a 4:3, make sure that you have the remote handy and punch the "ASPECT" button quickly!
Edited by JForge - 10/4/12 at 11:58pm

Is it true that you should keep the contrast lowered for the first 100-200 hrs? Something like THX Cinema default setting?

After I noticed the discoloration, I just set my FiOS STB to stretch all 4:3 content; HD content is still displayed as 16:9 with those settings. Manually setting the aspect ratio each time was unrealistic to ask my family to do. Since input from STB is 1080 regardless of content, I was unable to change the black bars to gray bars on the TV. FiOS has no such settings I could find.

On my Panasonic TC-P60GT50 I used THX Cinema for all Blu-Ray content, which was 25% of usage. THX Bright Room was used for TV, which was mostly daytime viewing, and well, it's a plasma in a bright room. 25% of usage HD TV; the last 50% was realistically 4:3 due to kid's programming.

I normally watched content with darker screens, so it wasn't noticeable until recently. Also, you really don't notice it unless the background is a solid color. If there are patterns or movement, it's tough to point out. And of course in a bright room the issues are less noticeable than a dark room.

white will cause abl to limit the energy to the cells.
primary colors will allow a brighter/higher energy to the cells.

"randomly dispersed across the screen", not sure what you mean by that?

no
white is all three pixels on. R G B.
Key word, ALL on.
When red slide is used 1/3 of pixels are on but those 1/3 are ALL the red ones.
Then ALL the Green ones and All the Blue.

After my initial 100 hour break-in using the D-Nice slides, I decided to continue the process, because I kept reading that you really needed at least 200 hours, or 300, or 500, or 2000... Besides, I still got IR. The logo and score box from one baseball game was taking days to wipe away, and it WAS visible on other content.

So I made a slide set consisting of full brightness red, green, blue and white slides, and decided to run them at 100% brightness, just as the OP suggests, mainly to get rid of the IR. (I also raised the panel brightness from mid to high.) After a couple of cycles (less than an hour) I viewed the white slide and saw bright, white plumes spreading upward from the bottom of the screen as if it was being bleached. I stopped the process and ran the scrolling bar for hours. It removed most of it, but I still notice a lighter vertical band that remains. I've run the original D-Nice slide set, and my modified set, and a set of only white slides, all at 50% brightness, (panel brightness back at mid), in addition to the pixel flipper from the Disney WoW disc, and the scrolling bar. I can't seem to get rid of this residual bar. (Suggestions welcome.) The panel has over 200 hours on it, and I still get IR that takes days to remove. So I would advise against the OP's plan.
Edited by larrygeary - 9/26/12 at 4:33pm

White can and will be limited by ABL.
So none of the RGB pixels are being taxed, stressed, aged, push to there limits.
The slides have equal amount of Red, Green , and Blue for a reason.
New plasma cells lose intensity more than at any other time in their life.
Testing and charts show this in the 100-200hrs. This loss of intensity is why
there is a color shift of the panels white point. From this point on the loss is more gradual and
at say 1000hrs they stay pretty stable.
then the 100,000 hrs to half life comes in.
Blue loses the fastest
Red next
Finally green.
Just the nature of the chemicals.
Please realize that aging for consistency and preventing IR are not necessarily the same thing.
It is possible to get it at 1000hrs, the only difference is at 1000hrs the IR will fade faster than if they were new cell IR.
quit worrying.

The service menu has both a full brightness white screen (same brightness as the white part of the scrolling bar) and a scrolling bar that does not time out. Here's what you do:

1. Press Volume DOWN on the TV while pressing Info on the remote 3 times within 2-3 seconds. The set will enter Service Mode.
2. The 2 and 3 buttons navigate the main menu. Press the 2 button until the screen turns full white. (I think it's two presses.)
3. The 3 and 4 buttons select sub-menus. Once on the white screen, you can press 3 several times to cycle through various screens until you reach the scrolling bar. Pressing 4 once may get you there directly.
4. When finished, turn off the set using the power button on the TV.

DO NOT touch any other buttons on the remote, because you can accidentally change a value in service mode, and there is no "reset to defaults" option if you didn't notice what the value was before you changed it. (Dumb design decision IMO.)

I have the full white screen on now to see if it will eliminate that lighter bar I mentioned above. I don't know if the white screen or the scrolling bar would be better, but I'll let the white screen run until the weekend.

Is it OK to leave the TV on at night on something like HDNet that is 16:9 with no logo. Just trying to quickly age a new panel before watching any 2.4:1 or 4:3. Also, should I use a lower brightness THX Cinema or higher Bright room?

I never "broke in" my 2006 58" Panasonic Plasma and I am STILL fanatically happy with my 720p Panasonic (actually 768p!!!)

Very happy with the colors, and never had it professionally calibrated. Great TV.

I have it on 2-4 hours on the weekdays, and 4-10 hours on my days off.

Just my two cents

I always found that by keeping the contrast low during my TC-P65VT50 break in period that it seems to help the IR from not being a factor. I agree with others as well, I got my first 37 inch Panny Plasma in 2005 and never did the break in period and the TV rocks. However, I feel the larger the screen the more careful you need to be in terms of the break in period.

I believe this is why I sold my first plasma.

There is no specific rule, as every display is different. Do this, don't do that, it should just be a TV that you buy and bring home. So much work to avoid such a distracting and possibly permanent issue.

Said, I just jumped back onto the bandwagon with a 65GT50, thinking about returning it before I even get it.

I guess since I already have a TV, I can just connect this one on the side and run it for a few weeks with the slides. Although, that is a huge pain to both my time and patience ... not to mention it doesn't guarantee a damn thing.

Keep the new 65 GT50, its an awesome set. I just got one last week - my very first plasma. Prior to pulling the trigger I looked up multiple threads on IR and break in. Everybody has an opinion. The OP here Andy seems self convinced about the all white break in despite a few different people disagreeing; he should just go ahead with what he believes. I've only had my new GT50 on for <1hour, performing initial setup, OTA channel program, and playing around with the menu features. Just before I left Panasonic Canada with my TV I asked our colleague who got us the set if he recommended a "break in"... he said just avoid any non 16:9 format and/or adjust any images to full 16:9. After I tweak the picture settings I'm just going to enjoy the damn thing and watch it in low light. I think somebody said it best here that IR has more to do with what you watch vs. how you break in your set. I bought this plasma for a basement theater room. I'm not too worried.