Master Burn-In/IR/Break In Thread Part II: All Posts Here Only - Page 138

The reason is simple, the stubborn IR that a lot of people are experiencing was from over time use. I am talking about days and weeks and not hours like what you experienced. You are lucky that you realized it in two hours. Some of us noticed it way too late. I found out about my IR after two weeks of everyday use.

I suppose that's true enough, but I literally had a full screen of dark lines and images. It looked really bad, I would be surprised if you had IR that looked worse, even after prolonged use. I guess it's possible it only "looked" bad though, but I'm not sure if that makes sense. I mean, it wasn't the faint IR that I would get from 2-3 hours of watching a show with a logo, it was 10x worse than that.

I wished I had taken a before and after picture of my IR. It was really a dark grey IR and it was there for 2 months. Anyways, it's not visible to me any more if I put up the color slides. But I have a feeling it will come back if I start Navi-X in XBMC in fullscreen again.

I see, if it looked like that it was probably pretty serious. Mine was also dark gray.

This stuff is starting to scare me off from my purchase. I have a small window under the return policy and really confused. So what I am reading. If I keep this beauty. And I want to watch 80% faux news. The other 20% of the time I have to run a hbo movie just to get rid of the burn in marks. And probably a movie I could care less about. If this is so. I will just return it. Please help. The more I read. The worse it gets

I agree that reading the IR posts on this site can definitely make you nervous with plasma panels. However, considering what JSpectre88 went through, I think you are probably fine. Just use your TV as a you would any other TV. I am really just trying to enjoy my set without the IR worry. Thanks to JSpectre88 recent posts, I feel more confident about my ST50. Getting my panel ISF calibrated on Saturday and can’t wait to see the pq improvements.

I think its a learning process.


Now that I know what gives me IR I can take precautions against it relatively easily. Although it is a bit annoying. My tv is till new, so we will see how it goes in future.

I don't game though.

What does watching 80% news mean, specifically?

And someone actually watched Fox "News?"

This post isn't addressed to anyone in particular and I haven't generally looked in this forum for a while, but I have an 11 year old plasma display that I purchased new at the time (Panasonic TH-42PWD4UY, manufacture date February 2002). This is my own experience. With regards to care and feeding I have both:

1) Beyond the first couple of hundred hours of running it a bit dimmer than I normally would, continued to consciously take care of it by not running it in torch mode, periodically touched it up with a calibration disc and generally mixed up my viewing content.

and

2) Not taken care of it by falling asleep to dvd menus, accidentally leaving it paused on a still movie frame for a couple of hours or more (less of a problem now that I've switched to xbmc, it has good screensaver options) and had marathon cable news viewings when something big was going on (like hurricanes), left screen guides and OSDs up by doing things like answering the phone and forgetting about it.

After something like (2) would happen- I didn't go inspecting for specific IR, but I would run varied content or plain static for a while, then just not stress over it.

But since it was overdue for a screen cleaning and video touch-up anyway, for my own curiosity I got and loaded up the D-Nice solid gray and color slides just to look.

What I found was that it looks fine. Of course it doesn't look exactly the same as it would out of the box, but it still looks really good.

Now if back in 2002 I'd worried so much about IR or burn-in that I hadn't saved up and purchased this very nice display device, I would have missed out on about 11 years and 10,583 hours (at my last check) of enjoying it. Your mileage may vary.

I will answer this question only if u r being serious. I want to watch 80% news channel. I am of loss for words. All news channels have nasty logo and tickers. Espn is pretty bad also.

You must not pay attention to ratings .

Can I use winamp's Milkdrop Plugin to burn in my new GT50? what brightness settings should I use?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4OXiZkm3Y is a basic idea of milkdrop is like

Just don't run out of music. MilkDrop becomes a static image if that happens.

Well as promised I'm checking in with my 55GT50 that I've had since early January, it now has near 600 hours of use on it.

Here are some details for the record:

- TV manufacture date is December 2012

- I have it hooked up to an HTPC through which I watch TV and movies with Windows Media Center and Blu-rays (both discs and downloaded rips using Plex)

- I also play PC games through Steam and have an Xbox 360 that I play FPS games on like Halo and BF3 so there are static HUDs

- I ran NO break-in slides whatsoever nor did I zoom the picture on channels with logos or vertical bars for any period

- Contrast has never been above 80 and brightness has never been above 50

- I have wavered a few times between HD Master's and D-Nice's settings



Channels/shows that I usually watch a lot of:
- Comedy Central
- TBS
- Pac 12 Network
- AMC
- ESPN
- Fox Soccer
- CNN

All of these channels have logos

These are my highly unscientific findings should anyone care.

For the first 2 months, IR with certain logos was flat out NASTY.

I would watch one basketball game on ESPN or one soccer game on Fox Soccer and those respective logos were sticking in the corner of the screen for OVER A WEEK without me going back to that channel. Granted, with moving images on the screen you couldn't really see them but anytime there was a scene with a solid color background (a lot of commercials have these), those logos were plain as day and my eyes were drawn right to them.

They were also easy to see if I was navigating around in XBOX menus since there are a lot of white or light green solid backgrounds.

Those two channels have been the worst offenders BY FAR. I don't what it is about them but nothing else sticks as bad.

I didn't bother running the screen-wipe or any other utilities because I wanted to see how quickly just normal use on other channels/games would clear it up.

I would periodically fire up D-nice's panel prep slides just to get a solid background to examine and saw almost no sign of IR from those two logos fading for nearly 2 weeks after only a couple of hours viewing. Needless to say I was fairly pissed and scared that Panasonic had royally screwed up this generation of plasmas since this was a similar experience to many people who have complained on these forums.

At this point, however, I was already outside of amazon's return window and figured we might as well see how long this set takes to REALLY settle down.

I continued normal viewing habits with the exception of very limited ESPN or Fox Soccer viewing for the sake of my own experimentation.

It took nearly a full month for those logos to be almost invisible on certain colored slides (again, this is with no screen-wipe tool or pixel flipper or any kind of utility).
If I look at the screen from certain angles and really strain I can see hints of those logos still but certainly not enough to bother me.

At this point, I still notice significant IR with channel logos or items from my computer desktop on very light backgrounds shortly after having them on screen for at least 20 minutes but they fade away just as quickly through normal viewing. I will only notice logos on solid backgrounds in commercials or slides (which I hardly bother with anymore)

To date I have notice virtually ZERO IR as a result of gaming or web browsing with this TV which is simply baffling given how bad the logos have stuck at times. It makes me wonder if certain areas of the screen are more susceptible to it although that would be very strange.

That all being said, I would have to agree with people who say that IR is most likely a worse problem with these model TV's over slightly older models in the sense that they appear to be more sensitive to it early in their lives. It definitely appears to be getting better (read, less sensitive) as it racks up more hours but the general "first 100 hours" rule quoted by a lot around here certainly turned out to be closer to 500 hours for me....and still counting.


There have definitely been times where I wondered if I should have just gone LCD for this round. Maybe I was spoiled by a previously perfect TV but the picture quality on this GT50 doesn't look leaps and bounds better than my 7 year old PX900U plasma. It's pretty and all but I'd be lying if I said the IR doesn't bug me even if it is only in the corners and only over solid backgrounds. I feel like in 2013 it's something that we shouldn't have to deal with and Panasonic certainly seemed to be less than genuine in their responses to those people who have dealt with it over the past year.

Overall I enjoy the TV and nobody else but me seems to have noticed the IR issues, I am hopeful that over the next month the issue will continue be less and less of an issue.

It will most likely be my last plasma TV judging from the news recently so this is all likely moot anyway but I figured I should share my experience.

The Fox Soccer logo is crazy....they should be shot for that piece of engineering.

I use the different zooms after 10 minutes or so on a channel a lot at the moment. Its retarded I have to resort to that, but I have not had any serious IR since I have taken up that method.....stupid.

I run my contrast and brightness in the 20-30's...
Edited by ser_renely - 3/19/13 at 4:11pm

EDIT: never mind, after more reading Ive decided its just a toss up and best to be smart with the TV. no right answer.
Edited by Heywould - 3/21/13 at 7:15pm

I'm considering buying a plasma screen, but my "normal usage" is apparently pretty far from the norm, so I'm honestly unsure if plasma is a good idea due to potential IR. I'll be using the TV nearly 100% for gaming. However, it's unlikely to ever be on for more than 1-2 hours a day. How does power-on time affect IR and burn-in? Obviously gaming isn't ideal use, but I won't have it on at all all that often.

The reason I'm considering plasma in the first place is that they have low input lag and slightly better (effective) refresh rates, which is important for gaming, and they obviously have a better picture quality. So basically as far as the actual display type goes, they're ideal for gaming, but they have the issue of IR that makes them horrible for gaming, so it's hard to tell which side I should base my choice on.

I wouldn't recommend plasma as a full time gaming set

Is it always going to be the same game? That could be a slight problem, but only if the game has really bright HUD elements. As far as anti-gaming goes in terms of IR, it's not any different than if you watched bright logos on a TV show. Some sets are more susceptible to IR than others, but the general consensus is that IR shouldn't be all that problematic unless you have a defective set. Considering your usage I would give one of the new 60 models a shot, but buy it somewhere with a solid return policy just in case. I would consider my set (GT50) to be border line defective in terms of IR, but there was never anything I could do about it.

Why would you consider your set to be border line IR defective? I've read through some of your post and your panel seems to be doing better against IR as it ages. Is this not correct?

A valid question. I say borderline because I still get pretty bad IR from minimal/moderate usage, but it always goes away. Of course it's not exactly instant, it can take several hours up until a day or so, but it doesn't take weeks. The only case of IR that hasn't gone away is the "M" in "Menu", which I have had since I purchased the set about a month or so ago. It's extremely faint and doesn't bother me, but I'm just confused why it won't go away when more serious cases of IR have resolved themselves. It might be getting slightly more resistant or I might just be getting used to it, I'm not really sure. I probably have around 1000 hours on the set by this point.

Thanks for your post. My ST50 has around 500 hours and I've only noticed IR when checking via slides. During calibration, the calibrator had the "Menu" off and on for nearly 3 hours. After calibration the word "Menu" was clearly visible on a couple slides but not during normal TV viewing. Since it wasn’t visible during my normal TV usage it didn’t bother me. I checked via slides a few days later and it was gone. Most of my heavy TV usage comes during football season and this fall will be my true long-term test. So far, for me, the ST50 has been fairly IR resistant. That said, I do use the Disney WOW Pixel Flipper every once in a while as a precaution.

No, it's not always going to be the same game. I play pretty much everything, and not all of it even has a HUD. I'm basically concerned if even just a few hours of something with a HUD is going to leave me with a weeks worth of IR. If that's the norm, then plasma is obviously not the way to go for me. From what I've heard it's generally only an issue over extended continuous periods of time, and not so much if the TV isn't ever on for long periods at a time, but I don't know that for a fact, which is why I'm asking.

I'd honestly prefer the 42'' s60, but right now you can't buy that retail, and the 50'' costs a measly $40 more and is sold retail, so if I go for plasma I'd probably be buying locally so returns wouldn't be that difficult, minus fitting a 50'' TV into a 2 door hatchback.

IR that lasts for weeks is definitely not the norm. I would say go for it.

With any plasma though I still think you need to be cautious within the first 100 hours.

I agree and would even run slides anytime you are not using the set to expedite the aging process during the first couple hundred hours. Especially so if this is going to be your main gaming TV.

Lots of people actually watch Fox NEWS, yes. I believe they have the largest audience of cable news viewers. Twice the size of their nearest competitor (CNN) according to Nelson.

And yes, the only reason I'm avoiding watching them is my GT50 still has less then 400 hours on it and their logo is brutal.

Has anyone who watches Fox news on their plasma actually e-mail Fox about their logo? I know that the T+E channel recently changed their logo from bright red to transparent. I actually emailed them about it and they were happy for the feedback they got.

But they haven't done anything about it...

Fox News is the most watched news channel in America.So yes ,my liberal friend,many people watch Fox News.