Master Burn-In/IR/Break In Thread Part II: All Posts Here Only - Page 5

I don't think people on the fence should let this thread scare them away. I'm sure everyone posting here would admit they were being overly cautious. I purchased a 42" Panasonic plasma for my parents about a year ago. They watch lots of SD programs with bars, my brother plays a lot of 360 on it, etc. and there's no IR.

My feeling is that this one known issue with plasmas can easily be avoided with a little care. LCD issues like banding can depend more on luck. You're better off buying a plasma and being careful with it then buying an LCD and hoping for the best.

I just got a Panasonic TH42PZ700U myslef and I couldn't be happier. I'm currently running Starz HD all day and night for the first few days. I also played some MLB 08 The Show on PS3 for a few hours in between and didn't get any IR.

While I will not let this thread scare me about my new 700U, I want to let everyone know that I appreciate all the info on here and the time everyone took to answer other people's posts.
This is a great site.

I'll add my two cents. (There must be at least $1,000,000 in this account by now.)

I have two Panasonic plasmas. My tenth generation unit was bought almost a year ago and put through a 100 hour burn-in using the downloaded disk file. It now has about 2,500 hours on it -- yes, there is a physically disabled person living here. This year's eleventh generation TV was bought, sight unseen, a month ago. It was not burned-in other than lowering the default setting to my liking.

Neither TV has exhibited any IR. This is a fact. And no, I am not prone to seeing UFOs and little green men.

Larry

I went through a lot of IR threads and I am wondering whether anyone has previous experience on this:

My PZ85U is coming this Fri and I plan to run Discovery HD on it for about 10 hours on Fri night.

I want to watch a couple of soccer matches on Saturday afternoon - where they have the static score card & Fox logo on screen for consecutive 45 mins with no commercial break.

My qn is:
- Should I worry about IR / burn-in in this case?
- Does it help if I switch to Discovery HD channel for about 1 min every 15 mins?

Thanks for any replies!

Before my 85u reached 100 hours, we watched the NCAA Tourny in HD for several hours (maybe 4-5) and I didn't notice any IR (they have frequent commercial breaks, though). The only bad IR I've had so far was after watching a Women's BB Game on ESPN in standard definition Saturday night where the ESPN logo was up for about 2 1/2 hours straight. I could see a faint ESPN after the game with the screen black. It took it around 2 hours to completely go away after watching full screen material. So, if you don't want any IR, you might follow William's advice, but I'm pretty confident any IR you receive will go away. Also, make sure your picture controls are set at 50 or below.

Doesn't the Panny PX80 have an orbiter too? Or is the Pio one different/better in some way?

I really do want to go plasma but I sometimes game for hours at a time...I feel like if I go LCD I'll be wishing I had gone for better picture, but if I go plasma I feel like I'll be living in fear if I want to play COD4 or Rock Band for several hours....

William,

Most beliefs are wrong. The Panasonic px8xu series HAS an orbiter. AND it is user controllable.

Larry

I thought so, but people have been posting things like 'No IR yet, and I just played a full 15 minutes on my PS3'....sorry, but most gamers play for a bit more than that.....

I don't understand your post or why you are so angry at me. I said nothing about IR. I was only commenting on the Panasonic pixel orbiter.

Larry

This is the truth. While arguing this topic in another post, somebody said "do a search and look at all the burn in threads, it must be a problem." Well I did do a search and it turns out that almost every single thread that came up was just a bunch of worrying and hand wringing about it, but no actual burn in, just a boat load of plasma owners chiming in to report that they haven't had any problems.

I broke my 50PX77U in by putting it in standard mode with the contrast at 0 for the first week. I gamed on it starting day 1, and watched movies and TV shows in all possible format. No break in DVDs. After a week I turned the settings up to those recommended by CNET and have continued to use the TV like a TV. Probably 2/3 of it's time is spent gaming, the remaining time mostly watching sports with the occasional movie thrown in. No IR, no burn in, no nothing. Just a sweet TV.

Call me a plasma fanboy if you want, but that's my real experience and it makes me think all this stuff is silly.

jeff

I posted this in another thread on March 19. I have yet to receive a response.

William, thanks for the helpful reply!

Each soccer match is 90 mins divided into two 45-min sessions with NO commercial break, which means the annoying scorecard & Fox Soccer logo will continuously display for 45 mins. I might watch two matches, so there will be four 45-min sessions with only 10-15 hours on the machine.

I just thought of another idea and wanna share with you guys: I am gonna watch the match in normal 4:3 mode with gray side bars / "Just" mode every 15 mins alternatively. =)

No no Larry, I didn't intend hostility and it was definitely not directed towards you, I was just agreeing with your comment about the orbiter, then was making a segue comment saying that some posters tend to say they've had no issue with a particular make/model but their 'testing' isn't all that indepth.

I've just seen a lot of people posting things about not having any IR 'yet', but then go on to say they've tested a paused screen for 5 minutes, or have played a video game for 15 minutes....that's not much of a litmus test IMO, since the average gamer can play for several hours, that's all.

Do most manufacturers regard a case of IR (however rare) as something that is covered by warranty?

I understand.

Larry

IR is not covered, and is NOT permanent. I would guess all plasma's get IR to some extent at one time or another depending on the circumstance, but it usually goes away quickly. BURN-IN is permanent and appears to be rare w/o abuse.

This is going to be the noobiest of all question but is it bad break in the TV and use it to watch movies. Of course full screen and such.

All of these points are false. Contrast doesn't need to be below 50% as long as the brightness isn't jacked up.

1000-hour break-in periods are for weak plasmas that have horrible IR prevention capabilities.

10% video games in the first 1000 hours??? That's bunk.


All you need to do is run full-screen material for the first 100 hours with subdued but not dull settings. Top-of-the-line plasmas are less of a worry than the 2nd tier Plasmas.

I always thought lowering contrast was the most important thing to do. In the CRT RPTV world, contrast refers to how hard you were driving the guns. Higher contrast shortened the lifespan of your set and also made it more susceptible to burn-in. Brightness just referred to the black level. Higher brightness settings would just make the picture appear washed out but not brighter. I'm pretty sure this still applies to plasma sets.

I tried many different LCD's before getting my Panny PZ85U due to my PS3 and long gaming sessions. What nailed it for me was looking at the 58" Panasonic PZ700U that we have at work (Futureshop) that is in our speaker room playing Blu-Ray movies 12 hours a day everyday for almost a year! That things plays things with black bars top and bottom, and at the end of movies often gets left on the menu screen for HOURS until an associate notices or is not busy and starts up another movie. Shut the lights off and take a close look at the panel.... not a hint of IR or Burn-In whatsoever.

I'm using the break-in DVD for 100 hours with my 11th gen set just to be safe, but I'm pretty confident that as soon as I'm done that time, that all the HD movies and games I throw at it will not effect the television in any way. And all of that and much better PQ over LCD to boot. Don't worry, just enjoy your set.

Can somebody please explain how the pixel orbiter on the 80U works. What is the difference between forced and automatic and what are the differences between times 1-4??

Just wanna report back that my 42PZ85U arrived on Fri. I watched 2 soccer matches, that are four 45-min sessions continuous displaying the Fox soccer logo & score card.

I set the Picture & Contrast low at 25 and 35. No IR, no burn-in at all.

Don't let the burn-in horror stories scare you (at least for Panasonic)! Plasma TV looks so much better than comparatively-priced LCDs.

the whitepaper was very enlighting. I guess I have some work cut out with my new plasma.

I bought a 4280 Kuro a little more than a month ago. Best picture ever IMO. I have a PS2,PS3, and a 360 hooked up to it. I work 3rd shift and on the weekends I game all night. This last weekend I was playing Socom for more than 8hrs straight, I have not seen any sign of even IR as of yet except for one circumstance. I left a pause screen up for 45min one day that had a box with a bright white border about 1/8th of an inch thick. I had the Orbitor on(which I never turn off) and the oly thing it did was leave a inch thick box that you could see in a black screen( the orbitor moved the thin white border around and created a thicker border). The only thing I could really see was that it wasnt as black as the rest of the screen, sort of grey, and you had to look for it. The white border was exremely bright. This disapeared within minutes of watching regular programming. Under normal 8hr game sessions nothing has shown up yet. Now if that doesnt prove Im a dork and you dont have to worry about IR on a pioneer....well nothing else can. Good day.

I agree with this. I have a Samsung plasma which I am still in the 100 hrs break-in period. After 2 hrs non-stop viewing of a letterbox movie ( bar top and bottom ), I can see faintly 2 IR lines across the screen which go away completely when I run the signal swipe for 5-10 mins. Now, 50 hrs into my breakin period, no IR at all. So I agree plasma burn-in is nothing to worry, esp you get a recent model and break-in properly. However, there seems to be selected cases of users experiencing burn-in in this forum, usually when playing games.

The white paper is over 3 years old now, and I know that at least the longevity of the screens has increased as well as improvement in the anti-IR technology. There is some good info in it, though.

I saw a Phillips display at a hotel this weekend that was either a plasma or LCD (it had no markings on the front and I couldn't get to the back of it) with uneven wear. You could see lines where the 4:3 bars where. There was a sign on the TV that said not to turn it off, so I'm assuming it had been running 24/7 for a while (looked to be an older plasma). To me, uneven wear is the biggest threat to our displays if no material is run in the black area that isn't used on 4:3 material. I would assume, though, that it would take a lot of time running nothing but 4:3 material to do this.

This is all very interesting, Im not too worried I was going to go LCD but my wife just loves the picture on the Samsung PN50A450 we saw the other day. I watch everythign in wide mode as I cant stand black bars but will heed the advice of everyone. Im also a stickler for turn off the TV's so leaving it on accidently never seems to be an issue. Also our HD DVR has a burn in feature that can be set as low as 2min essentially killing the feed to the TV until you want to resume play, awesome for this type of Display I can onyl imagine.
I will grab the break in DVD and possibly run it a few hours each night for the first few weeks also to help with the uneven wear if any that may be present

. Although we are liking the Toshiba 37" LCD we put in the bedroom lol...

Yet Panasonic suggest doing during the first 100 hours exactly what the break-in DVD accomplishes.