Home audio & video forum: Is plasma TV "burn in" anything to worry about?

..the name brand HDTVs emply technologies to help combat this. It's still prudent to be wary of static images during the break in period just to be on the safe side. Although some of the BB house brand panels may be manufactured by Samsung/LG, etc., they may not all have the same technologies to prevent burn in or IR (image retention). There are some helpful threads on burn in, as well as links to break in DVDs you can make to speed up the phosphor wear process per se. Check out the plasma sub-forum @ AVS forums.

-Pedro

It may still be effective to keep contrast modest and avoid static images for extended periods of time. I'd also look into the break in DVD. FWIW, I set up a friend's HDTV to run the DVD while he was at work.

WildClay hit the nail on the head when he mentioned seeing image retention on an older set but not on recent models. If you buy a cheap no name Chinese knock off that uses old technology I would play it safe and take the precautions mentioned here by WildClay but the circuitry employed on today's name brand plasma sets has eliminated any chance of burn in or image retention. Simply put, you'd be more likely to get image retention on your tube set than you would on plasma sets using the today's technology. There are still so many misconceptions about plasma TV. This is just another example of misinformation being passed along. That being said, it's always good to see consumers get educated and you can't do that without asking a few questions. Contrary to what some may may tell you, there are no dumb questions. The only dumb questions are the ones you don't ask so keep on asking!

You don't need to worry about burn-in if you've bought an actual brand-name plasma TV. These days, burn-in is as much as myth as "regassing" or "cancer-causing radiation".

You shouldn't buy any non-brand-name consumer electronics, full-stop, but even with third-rate brands I've never seen burn-in. Never. I knew someone who'd been in the industry longer than I had, and they had seen burn-in on a rear-projection TV but that's as close as I've ever been to the problem.

So, plasmas don't need to have the gas replenished, they don't use as much power as a fridge, they don't give you cancer and they don't get burn-in.

My newest Panasonic 50 inch plasma (TC-P50S1) has a slight image retention problem. I also own another 50 inch plasma by Panasonic (TH-50PX75U) and have not had an image retention problem with this older model. I followed the break in recommendations (full screen moving images for the first 100 hours) for both TVs. I also never use the Vivid setting.

The image retention for the new plasma are slight ring images which can be seen pretty easily when the screen goes black or when there is a single pale color. How did this happen? The new TV had over 200 hours of use and so I thought that it was safe to play games. My son is a huge fan of Dragon Age Origins and during the recent holiday break he probably played that game on this TV for over a hundred hours.

Yesterday I noticed the slight ring images on the TV when he turned off the game and there was a black screen. I noticed that these matched circular maps and other displays in the Dragon Age game. I immediately have been playing hours of full-screen moving images on the TV hoping to wash away the static images. So far, the images remain. I'll continue doing my full screen moving image treatment.

Anyway, slight image retention can happen with a new plasma TV if a person plays the same computer game almost exclusively on the TV for couple of weeks.

From Pepe7 "IR is not the same as permanent burn in". 1. I did not use the term "burn in". Why? Because the term image retention/persistence is used by many manufacturers. From the Plasma Display Coalition website which includes Panasonic as a sponsor. "The issue of image retention, otherwise popularly known as burn-in, is of concern to any potential buyer of a plasma TV." http://www.plasmadisplaycoalition.org/results/image.php From wikipedia; "Image persistence is the LCD and plasma display equivalent of screen burn." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_persistence The OP and others are not using the more technical term, image persistence/retention. 2. From Pepe7 "Do the research." I have done some. There was a study on the Plasma Display Coalition site which I already referenced, and here is more research from the following article; http://www.audioholics.com/education/display-formats-technology/plasma-tv-performance/plasma-tv-performance-page-3 "Test Results - After the 48-hour test, all LCD and microdisplay rear projection televisions scored a "1", as there was no indication of any image retention after the test period. Plasma, on the other hand, did show clear signs of image retention, with all displays scoring a "5" after 48-hours of displaying the video game menu. However, after running a movie loop on each plasma display for 24 hours, ISF testers could not perceive the previously retained images while watching video on the plasmas after the 24 hour "fix". As such, plasma's image retention score went back down to a "1"." What this tells us imo; - A. That plasma TVs are more prone to image retention than LCD TVs. - B. If a plasma TV is used exclusively for hardcore gaming (one game, 48 hours straght), this plasma TV must have (sometimes several hours) moving full screen images displayed (for several hours) to remove the image retention. This IR will not go away while the TV is off or while the same computer game is played.

Are you arguing over semantics, or what's really involved in real-world terms here?

Did you abuse the relatively new PDP by letting your son play video games with extended periods of intense/static images? Yes. Was there permanent damage? Luckily, no. Can the built-in technology assist in removing transient IR? Yes. There's nothing really new involved here, just the same old discussion. Fact: the newer plasmas handle such issues much, much better than the older ones.

Wow, some of you ought to have my two sons spend time with you for a month or so and see how their "normal" TV use affects your TVs. A weekend with 5+ hours of game play per day is normal in our household. Just try telling my two sons to limit the hours they play games on our TVs because they may cause image retention or whatever you want ot call it. Yeah, right. That would go over like a fart in a submarine.

"A weekend with 5+ hours of game play per day is normal in our household." - Yup, that's my experience too. Tonight my son again started up Dragon Age Origins. * To recap what we're doing to protect our Plasma TV (with a new hint). - Break in a plasma the first 100 hours with full screen moving video. - After this, if a kid insists on hours with one game, check for ghost images. If you see them, turn the TV on, overnight if you have to, with hours full screen moving images until the ghost images are gone. - And a new idea; when a kid plays their game, use the button which changes the screen to Zoom, 4:3, Full, etc. every half hour or so to move the stationary game images to slightly different locations. * Doing all of this has allowed my son to continue to play his game for hours while removing image retention and preventing permanent damage.

I'm glad the discussion is about semantics and not about what you are seeing on your HDTV. Panasonic has unfortunately chosen unwisely to lump the two terms together synonymously. In many internet discussion forums (and sometimes even heavily consulted but incomplete sources such as CR) the terms are used and implied to mean the same thing, albeit incorrectly. Burn in is correctly used as a permanent type of damage to one's PDP. Image Retention & Image Persistence are better used as monikers to describe the transient phenomenon that is not any type of permanent damage to a PDP. Keep in mind that this mysterious '100 hour break in period' isn't always cut and dry in the sense that you will not necessarily witness a certain display behave in a particular way after that point. There aren't many arguments to suggest that even after that point the phosphors won't still continue to age and/or settle. Again, there's really nothing new in this discussion- you see it re-hashed in other places.

It can and does sometimes happen to HDTVs, as it did on old CRTs showing the news-ticker (etc.) 24/7. I just don't want folks to get any sort of notion in their heads that they should be avoiding the current plasma models that deal with it very well compared to their older cousins.

Sorry to hear that ;(. Regardless of what the manufacturer says, it's never a good idea to *not* vary the type of material being viewed on a plasma. Gaming over long periods with static images is included as potentially risky behavior unfortunately. I *still* recommend break in since it so easy to do with the DVDs you can create on your own. Running it overnight/while at work greatly speeds up this process. You can get to 100 hours plus in less than a week.

That said, I would try a few things. First, two hours may not be enough for a pixel orbiter to remove IR. Let it run at least overnight. Second, you can try utilizing one of the tools that are freely downloadable from sites such as AVS forum to see if that helps get rid of it, provided it's not permanent damage. I will try to find you a link if it's still in my bookmarks. In the meantime, also run through the following entire thread @ AVS to see if anyone else has reported similar experiences with your model-
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1322413&page=51

My gut feeling says this may be permanent damage, but I have not worked with that line of Samsung plasma personally. I will cross my fingers for you that this is indeed IR that will go away with more time.