MASTER BURN-IN/BREAK-IN THREAD: ALL POSTS HERE ONLY! - Page 4  

Dude, calm down. If I magically ruin my plasma with a less than 1% difference in brightness along the side edges, it's my problem, not yours.

I have a question that hasn't been addressed in this thread yet... I am planning on ordering a 50PHD6UY either this week or next week. I had asked in the main plasma forum about a "break-in period" but I thought I'd ask here as well. Is there a time in the begininning when no 4:3 images should be viewed at all? I've heard 100 hours is a good time to break in the plasma. Am I asking for trouble if I view 4:3 right away? I am planning on watching a mix of of different aspect ratios and want to avoid stretching if possible.

Calibrate your display for brightness and contrast (important) with Avia. Watch you're varied content for a hundred hours or so then recalibrate. IMHO, a problem would arise if you were to watch only 4:3 material. You state that isn't the case, so.....
good to go.


Just my .02

Can u post more than once...like say I have a family of seventeen can I vote for each one?

Mark, I know that you have a large familia. Right?

This petition is right on the mark. As of now, 434 people (including me) have signed it. If you have not, please do so.

I agree with the others that 2 movies per week shouldn't have you worried.

However, if you still want to stretch the movie out you should be able to do it on your set by using the "zoom" on the TV and not the DVD player unless they've changed things. On my TH-PWD5UY if I put the Plasma Display in "zoom" mode while watching widescreen movies (like LOTR) in progressive mode (480p) it doesn't really zoom the picture in the normal sense, it stretches the picture on the horizontal axis to fill the screen and only removes a few pixels from the vertical axis.

Hope that makes sense and like I said, I can only speak to the TH-PWD5UY model, not the newer ones. FYI - I'm feeding a signal from a Denon DVD-1600, which is set to progressive mode and 16:9 output, to the plasma display via component video.

I'm Sorry but it seems to me that Plasma Technology is not worth it's current price. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm Spending over $5000 dollars on a television and I have to baby sit it's usage: THATS RIDICULOUS!!! It's like buying a Ferarri and being told that you can only drive over 50MPH 20% of the time. It is completely unacceptable that companies have not fixed burn-in issues on current generation plasma displays as the technology has been around since the early 90's. Message from above: SAVE YOUR MONEY!! Plasmas may have excellent BRIGHT PICTURE performance, but most have extreme difficutly in dark scenes: Case in point: Last night watched Mystic River on a Pioneer PDP-434HD. Spent most of my time trying to make out which character was speaking in the dark scenes because you couldn't see faces!! If I pay 5 grand for something, it sure better work. I can tell you that I am returning my plasma and may wait several years for something better. I was told by an industry expert that Plasma technology is a stepping stone for the future, and that current generation plasmas will outdate themselves within 3-5 years. As LCD technology catches up, (Currently as good a picture but much more $$) Plasma will fall by the wayside.

TO FUTURE OWNERS:
Beware, that $5000 you spent on a TV will probably the worst investment you will ever make. Let's face it, What is the point of owning something so expensive that you are afraid to use because it may ruin the screen rendering it useless!! If only 1% of plasma owners experienced burn in, then manufacturers would not be so quick to void warranties of burned in units. My opinion is that burn-in, ghosting, etc is totaly unacceptable when spending this much money on a television.

I Forgot to mention. I called pioneer and asked about burn in and the Tech I talked to said that he gets 20-30 calls a day from people who either have logo burn in or black bar burn in from "anamorphic" wide screen. His reply to me about burn in was to RETURN THE TELEVISION!! He admitted to me that Burn-in is a serious issue and it happens much more frequently than companies admit. As for stretching the sreen on ZOOM mode. What the hell did I pay 5 grand for a televison set to watched oblong characters in a movie because I have to avoid burn in!! GET REAL PEOPLE!

Jugdish, you just put a big smile on my face.

On an another note, it looks like the petition is picking up the pace and getting more votes! Excellent!

-JR

Let's keep this in perspective.

Even the beloved CRT RPTV's will get burn-in. Go over to that forum and do a search, you'll find alot of threads concerning burn-in.

IMHO, if anyone is to be using a display device and most of their viewing is 4:3 content then I would suggest not even considering a 16:9 display, unless of course it is a FP. Phosphors are phosphors and as long as display devices have phosphors they will age differently if they all aren't being used for the same duration. Ergo, you get burn-in.

For our habits a plasma is perfect as it is unobtrusive and we watch alot of varied programming.

FWIW, Jugdish I do not agree with many of your statements and as usual, it all depends on the end user. Further, burn-in will not "ruin" the screen, it may ruin the viewing pleasure though.

Pssst, I don't think LCD has "as good a picture" as plasma, and so far my absolute worse investment was in a little company called "Mack Trucks". That cost me a fair amount of $$$. FYI, I am about as "real" as a person can get.

Just my .02

He he he... That's a knee slapper. You know though, some folks won't catch your sense of humor here and may take you seriously. You might want to do an edit and add "" just to be sure.

I thought the posts were hilarious though. You are off to a good start! Welcome to AVS!

I am officially freaked out about plasma burn in . I had been planning on purchasing a pio 5040 this weekend but now i'm not sure. How much more susceptable are plasmas to burn in over standard direct view crt tv's. Why can't they do something to minimize this (burn in) rather than changing the end users viewing habits. Should I settle for a rear projection dlp or lcd and live with the lesser quality? Any advice would help.

Oh dear! I guess the last two years I've been enjoying my display was a mistake! I never should have turned the darn thing on! Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.

LITTLEpeter, welcome to the forum! It's really up to you to decide, but if you just follow the instructions near the beginning of this thread and use common sense (no torch mode, use a calibration disc and mix up your viewing (aspect ratio wise) and the other advice you'll find here) you're in a much better position to prevent any problems than those who buy plasmas without doing their research first.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

I currently use a Zenith 15" LCD as a television/computer monitor. I have had it for about 6 months. I use it mostly as a computer monitor but do watch tv here and there on it. I have managed to PERMANENTLY burn the windows start logo in the lower left hand corner as well as a faint burn of the lower blue line of windows XP. It doesn't bother me, but use this as an FYI: ANYTHING, including LCD, which people seem to rave about, CAN burn in. I have a friend who owns a bar and has a sony GWIII 50", the one with the previous bulb issues. He mostly has it on CNBC and now has a faint burn in of the stock ticker at the bottom!! Nothing is immune from burn in. DON'T be mislead about DLP or LCD, if abused, you will get BURNED.

I just got a "refurbished" Sharper Image Personal Entertainment Center (DVD/TV/etc.) with a 7" LCD screen. I was surprised to see the following in the user manual:

-----
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING USE OF VIDEO GAMES, COMPUTERS,
DSS OR OTHER FIXED IMAGE DISPLAYS.
The extended use of fixed image program material can cause a permanent shadow image on the screen. This background image is viewable on normal programs in the form of a stationary fixed image. This type of irreversible TFT LCD panel deterioration can be limited by observing the following:
Reduce the brightness/contrast setting to a minimum viewing level.
Do not display the fixed image for extended periods of time.
Turn the power off when not in use.
Note: The marking or retained image on the TFT LCD panel resulting from fixed image use is not an operating defect and as such is not covered by Warranty. This product is not designed to display fixed image patterns for extended periods of time.
-----

Then later in the same manual, when describing TV screen modes:

-----
IMPORTANT: Do not allow 4:3 mode to be displayed for an extended period.
This can cause a permanent after-image on the LCD Screen.
-----

I was under the impression that LCD screens are not subject to any permanent burn-in problems, though it is difficult but possible to get a temporary burn-in effect.

Is there any truth to this warning? Is someone at Sharper Image just being overly cautious?

I know this mini-portable system isn't exactly the home theater type stuff generally discussed here, but I don't know why this 7" screen should be any different from a burn-in perspective than other LCD screens.

Mark

Does anyone have any additional information about this or perhaps a source for this information? If this is true, it's a feature in the 7 series worth waiting for - at least for me personally as I am a gamer.

I own a 42 panny almost a year......I watch approx 4 hr per day.... This plasma has been the greatest investment I ever made..Maybe I don't fit in to the group of people who are talking about BURN-IN...but I will tell you this set has the greatest picture I have seen in a long time... I am sold on Plasma.....................Vinman:

I use an HP2025 LCD, and I have burn-in where my windows task bar is. I have two rigs hooked up to my monitor, both use different task bars, and one (from what I can see) bar is burned in. I've attached a picture, which doesn't show it all that well. What you can't see in this attached picture is how clearly the icons on my taskbar have been burned into the unit.

I'm guessing this isn't image retention, since I either turn my computer off all weekend, or at the very least turn the monitor off. My unit is on "danger mode" however, brightness is at 100% and contrast at 50%.

-JR

LCD technology should not suffer from permanent burn in at all, because of the way the panel works. If it does occur(and its extremely rare) you should easily be able to reverse it with activity in the burned in area.

Your problem is that the taskbar is pretty much static, so heres what you can do.

Create a screensaver(should be a freeware one out there somewhere) and make it so white fills the whole screen. Then turn off monitor powersave, so its displayed without the monitor turning off. You should see the burn in disappear(its going to take a little while though).

You could also move the taskbar to the top of the screen, but that changes your workflow, so I guess that isnt a valid approach.

And when it has disappeared, turn on a regular screensaver so it wont happen again :P

-Yahoo

I'll give that a shot yahoo, thanks for the tips. In regards to having a regular screensaver, I'm pretty much working on my rig all day, so there really isn't a time I would have a screensaver come on. I do have a screensaver currently set for 10 minutes inactivity (firm standard at our company). I'm guessing that the image retention/burn-in has been caused by my long 8 hour work days.

I'll give your suggestion a shot and see if it gets rid of the "burn-in".

-JR

Working at an A/V retailer, I get the advantage of seeing how all technologies fare objectively. Plasma will "self-correct"; in other words any image ghosting will disappear if you run full screen material for a few hours afterward. This always happens where some new guy will leave a DVD's menu screen up and it ghosts. Once the movie is on repeat, the image goes away, typically by the end of business that evening.

LCD can etch, but you really have to try!

I'll agree that "Burn-in" can exist given enough abuse...

I'm currently looking at 3 Fujitsu 42" SD plasmas with some pretty obvious burn. They're all displaying mostly static images, and have been doing so 24x7 for the past 4 years (except for a few hours while some stuff was moved around). One of them has now started to turn itself off randomly.

There's a few CRTs that are displaying roughly the same images & have been on for the same amount of time. Two of them have already been replaced, and the remainder are nice and toasty.

This is total and utter abuse, and I imagine it'd be very very difficult for someone with a plasma at home to "burn-in" their panel unless they're *really* stupid and accidentally leave it on a DVD menu for a few months

Mark, that's good news to hear & congrats on getting a new Sharp replacement. Kinda puts back a little faith in these mfg'ers.

A bit OT...I just read the Perfect Vision August '04 article on the Fujitsu P50 and how it might just be the best Plasma made at this time...had my mouth watering, for sure. Anyway, the article also stated that the P50 did not use gray bars for viewing 4:3, and I was wondering if you had to take EXTRA precautions to avoid burn-in on your P50 when viewing 4:3 programming? BTW, how have your experiences been w/the P50 when viewing SD? Thanks, JB

What do you do about logos -- those that stay on all the time except during commercials? Some are pretty big and dangerously so -- "Animal Planet" is an example. For this very reason I stay away from this channel. Shouldn't I?

I've already signed it. Those who haven't yet, please do so now.

I'm curious to know if the Petition has already been sent to the network stations. If not, I think it should be sent now to each one of them, and a new copy resent to them at regular intervals as more signatures are added. Only if they are repeatedly reminded that their logos are actually bad for business (unless they conform to the suggestions accompanying the Petition) because they drive people away, is there a chance that they will take action (IMHO).

The model they should all follow is Discovery HD (channel 706 on TWC in Manhattan). I can watch this channel for hours every day and never fear burn-in from the logo.

My Sony KE-37X910 will has white bars, not black bars when displaying 4:3 material.
Will this decrease my changes of burn-in?