MASTER BURN-IN/BREAK-IN THREAD: ALL POSTS HERE ONLY! - Page 2  

Slarsky, good idea about the HTPC.

I'm more concerned about day-to-day unsupervised plasma viewing by non-technical guests (wife, kids, girlfriend, mother, etc), during your/my absence. There's a number of things they can do that will permanently damage the TV. Heres some examples:

1) Leave it on a single channel for 8 hours straight with a non-transparent colored TV logo in the bottom right. This would happen with DiscoveryHD or InHD channel for example.

2) Non-technical person (most people I know), presses the wrong button on the remote, and leaves a menu on the display, and do not know how to get rid of it, so they walk away, go shopping, or whatever, w.out turning off the TV. This has happened to me before on my old tube tv.

These are all scenarios where I would leave my house to go to work in the morning with my Plasma perfect, and then I come back at 7:00pm at night, to find permanent damage. Ugh. I see three options.

1) Sell it and buy a DLP, LCD.
2) Unplug it M-F 7:00am until 7:00pm, and not allow TV viewing. This is kind of dumb.
3) Print out instructions, or guidelines for using the Plasma, and hope for the best. This would make me look anal.

Just trying to protect my $7500 investment,

Jason

This is one of the reasons I bought a Roku. It has a screensaver built in with the pass-through component inputs. If the Roku senses a static image on the screen for a set length of time, it will turn on and go into screensaver mode.

Works for me since all inputs to the plasma run via a component switching receiver.

I was under the impression that DiscoveryHD had one of the best, least damaging policy regarding their logo: it comes on periodically but never stays on more than 20-30 seconds at a time. At least it's been my (limited) experience. In fact, I feel I could watch this channel for 8 hours straight without needing to worry about their logo causing burn-in. Am I wrong?

Chris I do like the idea of the Roku. Was there any way to get it working through DVI/HDMI or are you stuck with component?

Just a few questions here, if I go HDTV will I have to suffer with black bars? Although quality looks better with the blackbars I really don't want burnin and I REALLY hate stretching. Isn't there a "real" version of widescreen for dvd or hdtv that fits the screen without black bars and doesn't look stretched or distorted without having to use zoom as well? I can't seem to find dvd's with 16:9 anywhere. I think I had one or two dvd's that had 16:9 as it said widescreen and fit the whole screen but the back of the dvd's never tell the ratios anymore.

My plasma is the poster child for abused plasmas.

I bought it used from a company I was working at, where it spent its first few years as a computer monitor in a network center showing basically the same web site 24x7.

No one knows exactly how many hours were on it when I got it, but it was probably north of 10,000 hours. It has some mild burn-in.

You can see some pictures of the burn-in in this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0&pagenumber=2

It often is completely unnoticeable. Which is good news; the fact that a set as abused as mine has such a small issue with burn-in is remarkable.

A worse problem is bloom do to (I think) heat build up. See the attached picture. If the set has been on for a while (particularly if showing really bright images like cartoons or sports) large areas sometimes wind up almost completely white. If you touch these areas of the screen it is hot enough to scald your hand, while the rest of the screen is only slightly warm.

Sometimes everything magically cools off on its own, and the bloom fades while you watch. Fortunately it is almost never a problem for DVDs, it usually shows up when watching TV. I don't know if this is related to burn-in, or if it is a defect in the set design. It's a Pioneer PDP-505HD.

The fans are all turning, although they don't seem to move a lot of air. I'm wondering if I can rig up small fans to force more air through the set.

I am shopping EDTV Plasmas and leaning towards the Panny pwd6uy but I have concerns about burnin from 4:3 viewing and playing xbox on this display. Has anyone had any problems with burnin? Also, I will watch a fair amount of SD content on this display...how does it look? Thanks

please try the master burn in thread at the top of the forum.

Also, a very large % of xbox games are 480p widescreen, and fill your display completely. (and look fantastic)

- pink

Burn-in update

I planned to post once every 3 or 4 months about any burn-in problem with my plasma. It has been over 6 months since posting so thought it was about time.

I purchased a 503cmx 20 months ago. It was for my 6 kids, will be 7 next week, to play video games exclusively. Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, etc. My kids do know to turn off when leaving the room and on occasion they will forget.

We have had NO burn in at all! I believe that the burn in fear is over hyped. The plasma will have memory from time to time but always erased once a different game is played.

Absoutely love the plasma!

-Jym-

Hello all

Another infrequent visit to AVS - never seem to have enough time these days/nights.

Those petrified soles who still haven't dipped their toes into the waters of Plasma ownership for fear of 'Burn-In' may be interested to know that Panasonic are saying the 7 Series displays (due in the UK in September 04) will have near CRT levels of tolerance to burn-in and the NEW Pioneer MXE1 Displays (April 04 for the 43" and June 04 for the 50") have a new mode that averages out peak white to minimise the risk of burn-in.

As others have posted I find with Panasonic and Pioneer Displays you have to try very hard to cause permanent damage and with Pioneer in particular I've now seen two displays that looked goosed but sorted themselves out after a few weeks of TLC.

Best regards

Joe

I want to thank everyone for all the useful information in this thread. Unfortunately, it confirmed what I suspected - that my Sony KE-32TS2 has burn-in. I got the TV last September. A few months after that, I got a high definition cable box. For the last few months I have been home recovering from an illness so the TV has been on a lot but I was still surprised to find that burn-in could happen so quickly. The problem is only noticeable when the TV is in widescreen. The edges of the screen are a little lighter. I need to learn not to look at the edges of the screen because it just upsets me. The worst part is that it's all my fault.

I hope the prices will fall quickly. Eventually I will probably buy another plasma, but I will be much more careful with the new one! I would urge everyone who has this model to be very careful not to watch the TV in HD when the program being shown is not in widescreen. The picture was so beautiful that sometimes I could not resist doing that and now I am paying the price. A painful and expensive lesson.

Susan -- You have the most reversible kind of burn in. Do you have the ability to hook up a PC? If so, you can make white sidebars with a black center and run that pattern for several hours unti the burn in has been evened out.

You might well be able to achieve that without a PC if you can get a black source that is 4:3 and switch the sideabars to the brightest grey the Sony will allow.

Also, if you haven't already calibrated with Avia or Video Essentials, you should do so as soon as you've reversed out the burn in.

OK, I've got two questions: (1) I tried to find the messages mentioned above that say why an orbiter won't help with burn-in, but I couldn't find them. Can someone explain why the orbiter/wobbler isn't sufficient? (2) What does one do about those shows that the networks put on the HD channels in 4:3 with sidebars? For some reason, if you zoom these, the sidebars don't go away (at least on my Panasonic) and so you're stuck with the sidebars unless you switch over to the SD channels. At lease the NBC bars are black and the CBS bars are white, so you can mix and match. Is there any other solution?

As for side bars (which grey is supposed to be better than black as to wear the sides more evenly), many newer HD boxes will stretch the HD image to fill the screen. Most older HD boxes and most all televisions (which lock in full with HD) do not have the appropriate stretch function to remove the bars.

One of the reasons I ditched my old Samsung HD box and moved on to DirecTV and the LG3200A. It does a great job stretching the HD broadcast of 4:3 material.

I watched the Derby on NBC (channel 704 in HD here in New York) two days ago. I noticed that the channel logo (rings) seemed transparent, and so I felt it was perfectly safe to go on watching.

1) Was I right?
2) Is it true that transparent logos cannot cause burn-in?

Logo issues aren't going to be a problem over a 1 day period. If you have a really bright logo you may see some ghosting where it was if you leave it there for several hours. However, it will go away with normal use within another hour or so of watching something different. Also, during commercials the logo goes away.

The problem is for someone who leaves their plasma on a certain channel hour after hour, day after day. Like if you kept your TV on CNN all day long and it had a static logo. One of the worst offendors for me is the history channel.

rogo, thanks for your suggestion about the PC. I had seen the suggestion at the top of this thread about using white bars on the side, but since I am not sure I would be able to do this correctly, I am afraid to play around with it. I might just make the situation worse.

As for the calibration, since it is clear that I do not know what I am doing I think it would be a good idea for me to hire a professional. If anyone can recommend someone in NYC (Manhattan), I would appreciate having the information.

I did find that by turning off the cable box and turning on the TV in HD, I get gray bars at the side and black in the middle of the screen. Maybe it is worth trying this for a while. (If this is a bad idea, someone please tell me before I cause more problems.)

Susan, if the grey bars line up with where the burn in is, then you can use that for awhile to even out the burned in areas... That will work -- but only if the borders are aligned... Otherwise, you'll help matters somewhat, but worsen them somewhat.

SusanNY -

I own the slightly earlier commercial model, the Sony PFM-32C1, with 4317 hours on it. I have always watched 4:3 as 4:3 with black sidebars and many 2.35 movies. I checked this morning with an Avia Pro 30% IRE gray screen and I see no evidence of burn-in either visually or with instruments in the 4:3 area or the 2.35 area. The center of the screen measures 11.41 cd/m^2 while the upper left corner measures 10.79 cd/m^2. If there were burn-in the corner measurements would be higher.

My set has picture inversion and I think yours does also. On my set it is located under screen saver. I have never had to use this feature for burn-in prevention. I have on several occasions used it for 2 to five minutes to dissipate image retention.

Having your set calibrated is unlikely to do anything about burn-in. I have had my set ISF calibrated and have done innumerable calibrations on it using the Color Facts 6000. If you want to be super cautious then keep contrast set toward the middle. After adjusting the A/D converter on my set I have actually increased contrast to about 160.

I suspect what you are experiencing is image retention. After excitation the phosphors do not immediately go back to their original level. This means that if I switch from a 4:3 program to a DVD I may for a briefly see the 4:3 outline. Using image inversion reverses this in that all pixels are now the same - that is not returning to their original levels. I have seen image retention last up to 8 hours.

I think the gray bars do line up with the burn-in. Doing this seems to be my best bet. (Maybe one day someone will sell a DVD with white on the edges and black in the center - those of us with burn-in can just play the DVD every night until the picture evens out.)

The reason I suspect it is burn-in and not image retention is that the problem is still there after several days. I have stopped watching non-widescreen programs in HD so now the black bars don't appear on the edge of the screen when I watch TV. The problem is only noticeable when there are light colors on the edges. For example, a white background shows up as one color at the edge (where the black bars appear in non-widescreen pictures) and another in the center of the screen.

If I ever get this evened out, I'll try adjusting the contrast, etc. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I appreciate the help.

Well, I just got my Pioneer 5040 up and installed last Friday... as I had just mentioned in a previous thread.

I wanted to check out the Xbox on the thing, and so I popped in HALO... since I havent yet beat it. Well, I probably put in about 8 hours since Monday. Every so often, i would hit pause, or flash over to TV, just to be sure there wouldnt be burn in where the stagnant life meter was, and weapon meter was.

Well, as I shut off the XBOX and the screen went blank this afternoon, I noticed that there is BURN IN at the top left corner of the screen where the weapon bar was!

I cant BELIEVE it!

Is it actually THAT easy to burn a plasma?

I even had the settings cranked down!

I mean, its faint... not noticable except for dark scenes, but I know its there!

Im still in shock.

It might just be some retention. Watch TV on it for a while and see what happens.

I second jrock65, it's likely just image retention.

Watch some TV or other material for awhile and it should go away fairly quickly.

Possibly image retention, but still a warning sign.

Halo thread merged here. Sounds like image retention to me.

Random thought: Is it time for the plasma mfrs. to put a 200-hour warning in the manual? Is it necessary?

There's an "Important User Guidance Information" section in the front of my manual. I don't think it would have hurt had they added the 200 hour info there.

I too would think that it is image retention. I have xbox and have played for greater than 3 hours (that's about as much as I can handle without burning out). Any way, I have never experienced burn-in or image retention although this is on a panasonic and not a pioneer. Not really sure if that has anything to do with it and my settings are really down there on the scale of the panasonic. Well below the "0" that marks the mid way point on brightness and picture settings.

What would I do other than drinking myself into a coma? Vary the material you watch, stretch everything (hope you're not an OAR fanatic, not that there's anything wrong with that). I'll betcha that it's taken care of pretty quickly.

If your unit has a "screensaver" you may want to delve into that to see if a swipe of the screen with a white scroll bar may help.

Keep in touch to let us know how you made out. I would be very curious to see if maybe it was just the age of the unit/phosphors and if it relieves itself after a while of viewing different content.

You should have died more often.

PS I wouldn't play any one game for 8 hours straight on these units, although they do look awful good, it is just a game. If I was going to be into an all night thing on gaming I would vary the gaming material.

OFF TOPIC:

Rich, I bumped that thread in the local reception area in which you posted a question. Sorry about that...I let it slip my mind to watch it. Hopefully foxeng will see it and answer your local FOX affiliate question.

Back to Burn-In......

Thanks woodrow, and yes I did see that Foxeng replied but had no definite answer.

Back to burn-in topic.