Master Burn-In/IR/Break In Thread Part II: All Posts Here Only - Page 125

I bought a 65" Panasonic VT30 last fall, did the slides for 150 hours or so, varied my content, have the orbiter on, and I still have burn-in from Mass Effect. It's ********, as I said, I played max two hours at a time and the game is varied with the windows only composing less than half the play time.

The key to avoiding IR is to not use a high contrast/brightness setting when you have your TV doing grunt work. When watching a movie or enjoying certain games, sure go all out, but when you plan on having a marathon online gaming session try turning down the intensity. You don't need the topmost of visuals when you are having your latest Call of Duty kill session if the thought of IR really bothers you.

Not only will it take much longer for IR to happen, watching a movie with your normal and more intense settings will wipe it faster.

How bad is your burn-in? Visible on all content, or only on light color slides?

Light color slides (green predominantly) and when shows or movies transition to a light gray (think the cubicles walls on The Office).

I see. What have you done to the set to get rid of the IR? I too have a 65VT30 and IR was rampant when I first got it, even had the menu screen at the top left for a month, but as it has aged IR dissapers within minutes and all former traces are gone. I did not do a continuous break-in, but ran the slides in the afternoon for a few hours at a time and had my contrast for normal viewing below 50% for the first 500 hours. I'm over 1000 hours now and have no issues at regualar settings. For persistent IR I put the set on a loop on torch mode with a fullscreen movie playing. Works every time.

My attempts to get rid of it have been running the slides continuously in Vivid, running the snow pattern from Disney's WOW Blu-ray, running a seizure inducing looping video on Vivid that flashes slides rapidly (posted here in the forum somewhere), and then our regular viewing on HBO, which doesn't have logos, along with regular movies.

My understanding of the pixel orbiters is that you can't enable it unless you use 16:9 mode,which applies some overscan to give the pixel orbiter enough room to shift the image around a bit.

I wouldn't want to apply overscan to my blu-rays, as it crops the image a tad bit. How is it with games? Wouldn't the 16:9 mode crop into scores/HUD elements a bit?

This is a real pisser. Custom mode with Contrast initially set to 75, then after 2 weeks reduced to 50.

I've had my Panny 65GT30 since the first of February. The IR (I'm hoping that is all this is and not burn-in) that you see (bar just below the top of the screen and above the bottom) is from Morning Joe on MSNBC. I watch from 6-7:15 M-F, and the longest time before a commercial break is 20 minutes. That I would get IR so easily when there are lots of commercial breaks is really puzzling. Hours on end of continual bars I can see, but not when the image is often changed. And this is an off-white bar, not a bright, bleached white bar. I have an '03 Panny plasma that has never given me an IR problem and I did everything, except play games, to that thing from the very beginning. So far I've run the Disney WOW for 4 consecutive hours and no change. I'll run it all day tomorrow to see if I can get rid of it. From what I've read I understand it can take some time to remove this. I hope.

I know on Samsung's if you have overscan disabled, it also disables the orbiter, but on my UT50, the orbiter is not greyed out in the menu's, which leads me to believe it's still on.

I have a touch of IR from playing CoD on the bottom right of my screen. It's slowly fading away by just watching a lot of 1.78:1 BD's and running full screen movies on Vivid when I'm at home not watching it, but it's my own fault. I should have known better having owned a PX80U that got IR pretty easily at the beginning of its lifespan, but now I would have to try really hard to get IR on that thing. It just takes time for the panel to age so that IR becomes less and less of a problem. The PQ/Size/Cost tradeoff is worth every penny though.

This is my biggest fear - from what you described, it doesn't sound like what I would consider abuse by any stretch, and the contrast is set far lower than CNET usually has you set it. I'm really starting to think that these newer generation plasmas are very prone to image retention. Granted, it may be temporary, but it still seems far too easy to get IR when all it takes is 1 hour a day with bars visible, and commercial breaks in-between as well.

It's a shame we have to choose from lousy over-priced LCDs but then we can do whatever we want with them or get a plasma with far better picture for far less money but have to treat it like a baby and always worry what we're watching. Not a great choice. I went with plasma but I"m always worried.

I never had those worries with CRT.

If you lowered both your Contrast and Brightness down to 50 and watch full screen mode regularly, that thing will be gone in about 2-3 months. I know, it sounds absurd for being that long but it has worked for me. When I received my set (TC-P42G25) the brightness settings were pretty high too and not knowing that a very bright white brand logo from my Denon receiver had embedded on my screen (during 35 min. speaker setup) where I can easily see it on light or white backgrounds.

What I also did during the process:
1. I ran the break-in images for 24 hours
2. Ran static snow for 24 hours
3. Tuned in to The Cartoon Network for 12 hours
4. All 4:3 contents are now zoomed to full screen.
5. Watch TV regularly at full screen

During those times I had forgotten all about this supposedly burn-in (or Heavy Image-Retention). Two months later I decided to put on a bright white screen by pausing one of the break-in images to see if that mark was still there, but the logo was gone, I mean completely disappeared!

I'm glad I don't watch cable with all of their station logos and news crawls and such.

I'm starting to wonder if people who watch cable tv should just forget about owning a plasma and suffer with LCD quality instead. 2 months seems absurd just to clear the screen and get it back to new condition (when it's only 3 months old anyways). I can easily see image retention being a dealbreaker for the vast majority of people. I love plasma's image quality but I'm really starting to have my doubts.

There's no question what looks better. But Aliens doesn't seem too happy right now with his set.

The first 200 hours has always been fragile for plasma panels, but once it goes pass that mark you'll be fine. I've had my 42G25 since February 2011 and been watching Netflix movies in both letter-boxed and full-screen formats everyday -- how can I not with the awesome picture quality? So far it's been flawless! I still get image-retentions normally on my plasma to this day but this the nature of plasma panels, and they are only temporary and usually washes off during commercial breaks or if I switch to different channels.

I don’t know how long those bars have been there. Last week I had ChadB calibrate my set, so before he came I took pictures to show a before and after difference. You can see those here and here It was then that I noticed the bars. Once you notice them its like a magnet; you are drawn to them. The bottom one I seldom notice because of all the color in that area of the screen. The top one is more obvious when you have a light background, such as a sky shot. What really irritates me is the minimum amount of time it took for those suckers to imbed themselves: 20 minutes tops. From the beginning I’ve watched 4:3 content, watched other stations with garbage on the screen for longer periods of time, and had the black bars top and bottom showing for 2 hours while watching many BDs without any problems. I suppose I could call Panasonic and register a complaint and ask for a replacement (not that they would), but I just spent over $300 to have it calibrated and I’m fairly certain they will go away over time. Having said all of that, I love this TV. After calibration the set looks awesome. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another. But damn, 20 minutes?

Alien,I too had to babysit my 55GT30 when I first got it.I had the stubborn IR from the word menu from the tv and it was a pain to get rid of.I ran snow,pixelwashdvd but I think running the color slides at default custom settings works best.It is all but gone now.

I strongly recommend that if you watch news(FOX,CNN,MSNBC) or sportscenter to watch in the tv standard mode at default setting with color 36-40 and c.a.t.s on.It keeps the light output and contrast at minimum.Then for normal programming and BR just switch to your custom or THX settings.

I just think its funny how the entire reason we buy these plasmas is because of their picture quality over LCD, then we're advised to set the contrast and light output so low that the screen looks muddy and dim. So what's the point of the plasma then? Just because I'm watching Seinfeld or Dancing with the Stars and not Tron Legacy doesn't mean I want the tv to look like garbage. I think it's pretty silly to expect people to adjust their set to look dim or muddy for regular tv viewing. I would not want to watch Fringe with the contrast and brightness turned down to 50. At that point an LCD would end up looking better (maybe not but my point is right now I've been breaking in my E8000 for about a week with Cinemax and the brightness and contrast are at 50 - I can't imagine being happy watching regular tv with it set this low).

Plasmas are already somewhat at a disadvantage due to their somewhat limited light output. To ask people to set the brightness and contrast at a minimum for daily viewing and only brighten it up for movie events is kind of puzzling. I want my plasma to look good regardless of what I'm watching, not just the few hours a week I watch DVD/blu-ray. Otherwise what's the point?

@eagle,Its only when the tv is new through the first few hundred hours to use the standard mode default color 36-40.Just until the pixels mature and get broken in right.After that ride it like you stole it.

Well I'm aiming at putting in 180-200 hours for break-in with Cinemax at full 16:9 viewing only, with brightness and contrast at 50%. Hopefully that will set me up for the long run. Right now I'm at around 110 hours.

I do think that the picture on these plasmas are gorgeous. I'm just nervous when I hear all the talk of image retention. That's why I don't mind breaking in the set a bit longer - it's worth it to me if it will make a difference.

Eagle2....You ever hear the saying "That which fear shall soon come to pass"

Stop dreading it and have confidence that everything will be ok.

I have an old 06 42HDS69 Hitachi that I literally put through ringer between gaming and various sports and no kind of burn in.

Just becareful the first few hundred hours and be at peace.

Just watch regular tv for the first few hundred hours and not to worry about everything. After that you can set your Contrast/Brightness up a bit. Keep in mind though, you will still get image-retentions no matter.

+1

Well Said ! And your right...And that is a fact.

My panasonic plasma 50 inches v series did put IR for the first 200hrs or so.And as all members have advised i did not allow static images_Logos,Black bars for more than 20 to 30 minutes.And during that period itself my plasma used to get IR and also from the menu screen from BD player,DTH-HD box and from the Tv menu itself.But in just 4 to 6 minutes of viewing different content the IR used to vanish.And the IR used to happen when viewing static content after a cold start.i.e when the plasma tv is warmed up for 30 to 40 minutes then viewing contents with scoreboard,channel logos,news stickers,stock market scroll bars and even 16:9 content with black bars on top & bottom of the screen is very less prone to IR once the tv is well warmed up.And i watched all my movies with colour,brightness,contrast all set to my liking even when it was hardly 5hrs or one day old.All i took care was,to view the 16:9 content in zoom one mode which did remove black bars from top & bottom of the screen ! But now i do not pamper my tv in any way.Iam using it as regular CRT tv.And its around one year old.
And if one does not have the time & patience for their plasma to break-in for 500hrs or 6 months of usage.It would be better for them to go in for a sharp elite LED tv with local dimming and with yellow LED added for better picture quality.And i think sizes are now avaliable in 60,70,80Inches.And reviews say that the black levels on these new LED Tv's are closer to hi end plasma tv's.
By the way iam happy with my plasma,And hopping that in a couple of years, i would like to upgrade to a bigger sized tv,And iam sure that it would also be a panasonic plasma most likely from the VT line up 65inches model.

Love,
kris.

That’s an interesting observation. I’m not sure how valid it is, though, and I’m not saying it isn’t. It would seem more prone once it was fully fired rather than during the warm up period. That is why you wait for an hour, early on, to do a self calibration. From my understanding, the more hours you have on it the less amount of time it takes (30 minutes) to warm up.

Aliens, try putting up an all white screen and turn contrast all the way up. See if that gets rid of the IR. Some panels used to come with all white screen as a setting just for that. And it will age the phosphors the quickest.

larry

Hello, I ran the washer , pixel jogger, pixel image smooth slides, white screen etc. over night for a few nights now. Haven't really noticed a difference with my heavy IR. I am not calling it Burn In. I have the ghost image of the video input label that pops op when you change settings like contrast, brightness etc. the one that is in the top right hand corner of the screen. It is visible on a white background and a dark background zero ire as well. Still going to continue running a combination of all the above mentioned slides. I just set it too repeat all titles from my USB stick and run them overnight. I have had this image retention for months now. Got it while doing calibration sessions and entering in value for 2 pt and 10 pt using settings from the forums until i had my own meter to calibrate guess the image stayed on the screen for too long. My contrast is at 95 and cell at 16.

OK-I'm not the least bit savvy when it comes to this stuff-I've downloaded the break-in slides zip file from the webpage link on the first post of this thread onto my desktop and have a CD-R in my drive. Now what do I do?

Does your TV have a SD card slot or USB? If so, that would be the simple way to go. Slip it in and put it on repeat slideshow. I'm not familiar with using a CD for that procedure. Also, with the SD or USB, the TV is the only thing that needs to be on.