[crazyamd]

Hello guys, I'm going to have my new 42" 77u plasma delivered this week. Just wondering what I need to do in the first several days of viewing. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!


p.s.: People usually worry about the vertical side bar burn-in due to the 4:3 ratio programs. Why nobody talks about the bars on the top/bottom of the screen? Any worries there and what do you do?

 

[JVries]

I own two Panasonic plasma's, the first is two years old, the second 1 month old. I did not go out of my way to break either of them in. I never stress over how much time I've watched 4:3 vs. 2.35:1 vs 16:9 material. I don't worry about static images, such as station logos or game HUDs. I fired them both up, threw in Avia, calibrated and then used the TV for whatever I wanted. Source material of whatever aspect for however long I wanted. I've never had any issues with burn-in, uneven aging, or whatever. The key is to calibrate the set so that you're not blasting at full contrast and brightness in vivid mode. Do that, and imo, you don't need to worry, just enjoy the set.


On the other hand, if you subscribe to the whole break-in thing, tune all the settings to 0, and run a full screen break-in disc or colorful animated movie for 100 hours. Then calibrate your set. After prolonged periods of source material with black bars or static images, run a full screen movie/channel for a few minutes to even things out a bit.

 

[Deathwish238]

Set it to Cinema mode and I doubt you'll have a problem. I've played games and watched TV marathons for around 8 hours straight with no image retention or burn in