MASTER BURN-IN/BREAK-IN THREAD: ALL POSTS HERE ONLY! - Page 6  

As far as I know, being able to select the panasonic auto mode does not depend on the source material but rather on the input. It works via composite and s-video but not on component.

As for back bars and auto zoom , I can tell u the following, I watch my cable box analog channels via s-video (bit based on rich suggestion, so I have a diff picture adjustment) and when it is pure 4:3 material (no black bars) it will stretch automaitcally to JUST mode, however is there is a commercial in still basic 4:3 mode but with black bars, the panny recognizes that and does some sort of zoom. Like on E! channel it will flip back and forth between just and a zoom mode depending on the transmission. Check it out on E!

Clever panny !!!!


Erick

Voila. I am using a single output from my receiver going to the Panny's input 2 using S Video. Therefore auto mode works for either source DVD or SAT TV on my set up. I may later use a component hookup to one of the other inputs to try out the DVD on this but right now the picture looks pretty damn good via S video and for me, the less wires the better as far as clutter.


Thanks for your awesome posts with respect to finetuning the brightness and picture controls. I kind of wish you had come up with some less disgusting descriptions of your fine posts than "Polishing The Turd" and "Steaming a Rat". Though I guess in some cultures Rat might be considered a delicacy.

I can't find a control for contrast on the basic menu. I just assumed that "PICTURE" in my menu is the same as what you are describing as contrast. I did not really look in the advanced menu yet as I wanted to take it all in as much as I can before monkeying further with the picture controls.

Your advice above with respect to watching the DVD in FULL mode and leaving the black bars top and bottom sort of assumes that you have turned down the brightness, picture and contrast, etc. settings.

I tried out your polishing the turd settings for my standard broadcast watching last night and found the picture results to be awesome. But for DVD watching, I am still preferring the factory settings on AUTO that are relatively torch like and potentially damaging to the display. For DVD I find the "turd" setting too dark (missing detail in dark scenes) and even the factory CINEMA settings a touch on the dark side for DVD night, indoor and cave scenes.

So for now I am watching DVD's in relative brightness and high contrast and am therefore leary of having black bars displayed for 2+ hours. In Panny auto, the distortion is very, very slight. I am not fooling arond with the V and H picture size and position controls except to eliminate the 3-4 pixel black bar that sometimes occurs at the bottom of the screen.

Thanks again.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,


On my plasma it's called "contrast," however on many displays I've seen the contrast control inscrutably labelled "PICTURE" so I'm sure you're right.


Not necessarily. The threat of burn-in is mitigated not only by turning contrast/brightness down, but simply by mixing up the material you view on the plasma. For instance, my family watches normal TV channels stretched (using "JUST" mode) to fill the screen. Since movies come in a variety of aspect ratios, some filling the 16X9 screen, others being letter-boxed, there's really no worry about 2:35:1 letter-boxed movies burning in. Plasmas don't burn in that easily and you'd have to watch a truly abnormal number of letter-boxed movies in a row to actually end up with detectable burn-in.

My picture settings for watching movies, while down from factory blaring mode, are still fairly vivid. And as I wrote, after two years of watching every 2:35:1 movie with black bars, there is no burn-in at all. Don't worry about watching 2:35:1 letter-boxed movies in regards to burn-in.


Yes, what works for NTSC typically doesn't work for DVD. There is no perfect picture setting that works for all of NTSC or DVD/Hi-Def. What I've done is simply create different picture settings. I have one for NTSC, one for DVD etc. (For instance, I've created personalized image settings in the "Cinema," "Dynamic" and "Normal" picture setting modes).

Cheers,

That's reassuring to hear but I will probably continue to be cautious until my display matures a bit.

That is a good idea to use the unwatchable NORMAL and DYNAMIC modes for your custom settings and I already have your turd settings dialed in for NORMAL.

As DYNAMIC mode is almost useless, I will tweak that down for my DVD settings or maybe tweak CINEMA slightly for DVD. RIght now AUTO (which is relatively bright) is working really well for my DVDs. Do you know if AUTO adjusts the brightness or other picture adjustments automatically depending on the ambient lighting? And are these automatic ambient lighting adjustments are disabled in the other modes?

I think I read this somewhere in the manual.

On another note, does any manufacturer make a 2.35:1 (21:9) plasma display? It seems to me there might be a market for a dedicated movie use plasma. I suppose with a projection system this would handle all of these super wide aspect ratios making the market need for a ultra wide plasma unit superfluous. It would still look pretty cool hung on a wall though.

Rich, just out of curiosity, what is the % of picture/contrast, brightness, and sharpness values do have yours set to, compared to the max possible settings on your tv? Though the range of these values varies from model to model, I'm assuming the % values would be somewhat in the same range.

I HATE stretch modes (even the non-linear Just), so I watch all 4:3 material with gray side bars. I like black bars better, but I've read that gray helps to prevent uneven "wear". My question is this: can burn-in result over time even if you mix up your viewing? Say my family watches SD 2/3 of the time and widescreen 1/3 of the time. Will the times that I watch widescreen "wipe" the screen enough, or may I still get burn-in eventually? I have a Panasonic PT-42PD3-P plasma.

Chris

I couldn't get my Panny to switch aspect ratio at all. Someone told me it was because my source is feeding the Panny 1080i, which Panny will lock up the aspect control.

So now I have horizontal bars while watching DVD, and vertical bars while watching 4:3 OTA broadcasts (CBS/NBC). If I have any burnins, it would be the rectangular box on 4 corner of the screen.

Related question: What is the resolution that resembles closest to 42PWD6UY's resolution? 1080i/720p/420p?

I'm sorry, we're going to have to merge this thread with the master. Please take all other conversations to another thread.

Well I have had the exact same plasma as you for the past (jeez, has it been that long) 15 months. We watch a slew of programming. From DVD's that are 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 (which BTW I really don't like), 4:3 SD "Just"ified, Digital OTA left at OAR and HD via Dish left OAR.

No burn-in as of yet...and I really don't feel it is an issue. As has been stated previously I feel that I will upgrade/downgrade (depends on how you look at it) before the plasma burn(s)-in....the gas needs refilling....the panel dying...etc.

RE: Stretching on one source..it is true that the "Just"ified mode will be locked on HD sources (ie 720p or 1080i). FWIW why would you want to justify a signal that fills up the screen to begin with.

To be perfectly honest, I had an easier time picking out which plasma than picking out speaker/receiver/amp upgrades. Can't seem to make up my mind...and the wife isn't helping either. In fact, I showed her the "Rockets" in "Rosewood" to which she just shrugged and said "They're okay but we don't have any rosewood furniture in that area".

RichH, nice to see you back, enjoy your vaca?

Juice, WTF, did you send my baby back to me via carrier pigeon or pony express? Maybe you should have used the "tortoise" as I hear he is much faster than the "hare".

With any 1080i or 720p widescreen source, you should always run at Full. Just is only for 480p or 480i. With HD sources, it usually locks into Full, but with anamorphic DVDs, you still COULD set it to Just on a widescreen film, but it distorts the image. It's a pain when you have to keep switching. With my HD DirecTV/Tivo receiver, you can set resolution (1080i, 480i, etc.), Ratio correction (Full or Pannel added to source). The plasma can change format as well (Full, Just, Normal, etc.).

With all that to worry about, I just decided to go what looks best, and do my best to reduce burn in by keeping the contrast lower and use gray bars insted of black. My wife would tell me that if I get burn in, it would give me an excuse to upgrade. She knows me too well.

Chris

Very nice of you Mike.

As far as being and LCD fanboy....I was wrong. Helping someone get a new display like that makes you an LCD enthusiast in my book. Again, nice job and a VERY nice contribution to the forum. You're an asset to this forum, and I hope you stick around. Sorry again for having given you a hard time.

Sorry for the late response.

I've checked with my suppliers of LCD screens, and the response from sales is that burn in or retention "cannot happen" with LCDs. We know this to be untrue of course, but salespeople(sadly) arent always the most technical bunch.

So I chatted with a few engineers, and they mostly agreed that an all white screen should probably alleviate any retention issues, but they couldnt answer if this was harmful to the screen or not. I mostly got an answer like "it does stress the screen a bit with all white, but I'm not sure if it will shorten the lifespan in a big way"

I never had this problem myself, so I dont know how long such a prosess will take. You say its blurred now, is that only because you moved the taskbar, or is it blurred after the all white treatment?

I dont have a close relationship with HP, but I will try to get some straight answers about what actually happens when an LCD "burns in". Maybe that could help to find a solution.

-Yahoo

Super thanks YahooSerious!

I originally set the taskbar to autohide, but after a day felt that I'd just move it to help out. I gave it an all white background, and did my best to keep any windows out of the area of the "burn-in/image retention". Not seeing a difference after a couple of days, I tried the 6 hour white screen.

I wish I could take a better picture of it, but for some reason the digital camera I'm using doesn't like to focus on it.

I wouldn't have thought it was burn-in if it didn't match the icons on the taskbar that was there. If it hadn't, I would have simply thought that perhaps there was a part of the screen that was a bit dirty, or it just wasn't as bright in that area. But, since I can literally see the icons of specific applications in the area, it has to be some sort of burn-in or image retention.

I've put my screen to a black background now, and the burn-in/image retention area is pretty much invisible.

-JR

just curious im about a month away from ordering my panny pwd6uy from V/A, been doing tons of research here at AVS, my question is basically will transparent network logos burn in or not? since they are transparent, the original image is moving behind it so im guessing that wouldnt cause burn in, but there is still concern on my part, any info on this?

Master Burn In Thread

This thread has several discussions about logo burn-in. I would suggest you post in that thread (if you have not done so yet).

Good Luck!

Personally, I don't give any thought to the transparent logos. I leave the PBSHD logo on the screen for hours on end with no fear. You can see the transparent logo get "scrubbed" by color and contrast behind it. No reason to worry IMO.

edit...spelling.

I found this on an industry newsletter:


But what does he know?

The hospital that I worked just bought a few dozen NEC industrial plasma for displaying static images of schedules and directions etc . The images are changed at most once a day. The plasma will go black every 15 minutes and a bright white narrow band the entire height of the screen will wipe across the screen from left to right. The whole process last only a few seconds and seem to be doing the job. It reminds me of car windshield wiper!

CR*P. I waited a good 100 hours before watching 4:3 for any extended period of time on my p50 (got in Jan '04). However, I just recently noticed some burn in, i.e., the edges ares slightly brighter. ARRRRGH.

Has anyone else had this happen with their p50 and had it reverse itself after watching alot of 16:9 material? I hope so or I'm gonna be spitting mad.

Edit: Just read rogo's suggestion about hooking up a PC and doing a white/black reversal. If the screen doesn't even out after a few hours of 16:9 viewing I'll give it a shot.

However, this begs a question. If the reason there is burn in is because the center pixels have "aged" more than the side pixels, then I'm a bit concerned about the longevity of my p50. If after only 8 months there is a difference (however slight) in aging between center and side, that's not good no matter how you slice it.

Goombawa,

As you know, I'm as anal as the next person, well, actually, more than the next person, but honestly, I see no signs whatsoever of burn-in on my P50 after 19 months. None. And I've repeatedly looked very carefully.

I have noticed that slight "pinking" along some edges as others have mentioned, but can only notice it on a bright white screen.

When can you see the burn-in? How much of the time do you spend in 4:3?

I know your contrast and brightness are down, but which gamma are you using? I really think the gamma settings drive burn-in. Although I have not tested my conclusion here, I do believe that any of the torch modes, Dynamic, Real1, and Real2 will hasten burn-in. Static unfortunately can not hold black, so I only use Fine except on a really bright day when I am watching a sporting event that is really important to me since you do lose some "pop" with Fine in significant ambiant light.

David.

I've had my 50" 6UY for a couple months. I have not stretched 4:3 material and I have not shied away from it. In fact I probably watch more 4:3 at the moment than anything else. I haven't seen any signs of burn-in. I do run the white bar screensaver overnight every once in a while. No problem.

I spend a fair amount of time in 4:3 but did not expect there to be an issue after waiting out the 100+ hours initially. I can see the burn in when watching HD 16:9 material, i.e., the area where the black sidebars from 4:3 viewing are slightly brighter.

Now, here's my concern:

The reason I see this difference is because the center area pixels/phosphors have been firing more than the black sidebars, right? Well, that also means that if I had been watching 16:9 HD exclusively, the amount of brightness lost would still be the same, only it would be distributed uniformly across the entire screen.

That SUCKS.

The fact that I can already see a decrease in brightness after only 8 months leads me to the conclusion that either the p50 sucks or plasma techology is lame. Again, I am not talking about the fact that 4:3 viewing causes the differential in brightness. I am talking about the fact that 8 months of viewing causes a noticeable decrease in brightness period.

I would have accepted this at ~ 2 years, but 8 months????? I am completely regretting my $8K+ purchase. Should have gone with a cheaper model at half the price (so it wouldn't be as big a hit replacing it later on) or gone with a 40" LCD which is less susceptible to brightness fade.

Sigh.

P.S. I also heard from a reliable source that Fujitsu does not recommend viewing 4:3 material for more than 15-20% of total viewing time. Just great. Shouldn't that be in the manual or some warning sticker? Not happy about that at all.

I get your point (actually got it the first time), but again, what gamma setting are you using for most of your viewing?

If you are always in one of the torch modes, then the phosphers will fade faster. I can not draw a good conclusion here since I can only rely on my memory form 19 months ago as to the unit's brightness, but I don't detect a significant change in brightness.

Which brings to a more important question. With all the hoopla over burn-in and useful life, why aren't the reviewers for the major rags doing long term testing? Given their common viewing rooms, etc. they could have thousands of real time hours on a couple of units and report every 6 months inlcuding measurements at a specific setting, or have I missed something?

Sorry David, wasn't sure if my first post was clear. And when I rant, it is not directed at you or your comments in any way.

I am using Fine mode 100% of the time, with 85 lum, black level 0, contrast +2, brightness +5 and exhibition mode off. So definitely not "torch mode". If I switch to effective or conventional mode, it definitely gets alot brighter.

I agree, there needs to be more data available. I cannot believe that I'm a special case and that I'm the only one who has this decrease in brightness. However, to be fair, I probably would not have noticed it if not for the 4:3 burn in. But that's besides the point. The fact that it *did* lose brightness in 8 months (albeit slight) is totally *unacceptable*.

I think the reason the hard data is not out there is because it would hurt sales, although you'd think the LCD/DLP camp would be plastering the net with it. Maybe they were and I just didnt pay attention because I never considered LCD/DLP (can't stand the PQ).

I'm not sure that these settings would make a difference but I also run predominantly with...

Gamma (Picture Mode): Fine
Contrast: -5
Brightness: 0
Color: -14
Tint: 0
Sharpness: -16 (off)
"User" RGB: R: 210 G: 220 B: 217
Luminance: 70
Black Level: 0

So my luminance (white level), contrast and brightness are a bit lower, but I doubt those subtle differences would matter. I also switch to Real2 mode sometimes if I'm watching a good game in the middle of the day with lots of ambient light.

How many hours on your P50? I've got 2800 total use hours on mine (which shockingly works out to be about 4.8 hours per day).

I looked again just a few mintutes ago and saw no burn-in at all after 2800 hours.

Now, I'm no physicist (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night ), but is there any possibilty that external environmental conditions could affect phosphor burn-in? Anyone out there that can answer that speculation? It just seems that we have no rhyme or reason why some folks experience burn-in and others do not when we can rule out settings and watching habits.

David

My TH42PWD4UY is still ok after 4500 hours. I use it everyday as my normal PC monitor.

David - I have 2176 hours on my panel so far (averaging about 9 hours/day...yes, I am a teleholic). I don't think the settings will make much of a difference since the relative difference will still be there. Still, I can't believe there is a decrease with just 2176 hours.

Esben - the thing is, unless there is an area on your panel that has been used less than the rest, e.g., like the sidebars in a 4:3 image, it would probably be difficult to know if there has been any brightness decrease.

1) You say black side bars. Isn't the recommendation to use 50% gray sidebars. Is this a typo?

2) Perhaps the loss of brightness is not linear over time. And projecting your 8months of brightness loss over the life of the unit is not valid. Perhaps that is the reason for the 100hours break in period. (I don't know I'm just speculating. So maybe the situation is not as dire as you might think. Once evened out, brightness loss may slow down)

3) Even it out / reversal: Can you not que up a dead source / image in 4:3 & watch with white side bars, or gray side bars?

I only have the extra 2 pixels black border on each side of the screen.

1. Yep, it is the recommendation, but the p50 has no option to generate grey sidebars. They are black unless you are viewing an HD channel that is broadcasting 4:3 images, e.g., Letterman.

2. I would love to believe that, however I have no reason to see why it would "slow down" over time.

3. Good idea, and rogo has been kind enough to give me a few suggestions on that note. Currently I don't know of any 4:3 black sources though.....but I now have a PC in the room and will ask him how to line up the images correctly (don't want to make the situation worse by creating more un-even burn in.)

I have to be honest here and say that I'm extremely disappointed/bummed out. All that money down the tubes, because I can't stop looking at the brightness difference. I'm almost at the point where I want to try and sell it, take the loss (which will be thousands), and get something else. What that would be however I have no idea, but I'm soured on plasma right now.