Comments on: Plasma TV “Burn-In”: Fact or Myth?

By: Jamey Stubblefield

Jamey Stubblefield — Sat, 12 May 2012 02:33:48 +0000

I have a 2007 Panasonic 42PZ700u that had fantastic PQ before the screen showed signs of burn in. News logo still visible on the bottom left corner. I alo have other areas of the screen that is clearly damaged as the result of burn in. No fix for it except toss he whole set.

By: John

John — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:54:45 +0000

Stroud, curious, have you tried running the “white wipe mode that can even out the wear and eliminate the “burn-in” mentioned in the article? I have a PN64D7000 since December 2012 and did not run any burn-in procedure and have not noticed any burn in on mine so far.

By: Str0ud

Str0ud — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:04:04 +0000

I totally disagree. I own a Samsung PN64D8000 and have been very delicate with it. I was obsessive about break in to the point that it drove my family crazy. After a 200 hour break in period my kids watched about 2 hours worth of Cartoon Network. The TV had been calibrated at this point as was in movie mode with reasonable cell light and contrast settings. Within 2 hours the CN logo was clearly visible while viewing other channels. As a matter of fact that was 2 months ago and the logo is still visible. If you think IR / Burn-in is BS you’re mistaken.

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:36:25 +0000

Question: is there a technical solution for burn in? Can one have such a problem repaired professionally?

By: John

John — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:40:50 +0000

I do agree with the HD Guru on this burn-in topic. I own a Panasonic 42ST30 and have had NO IR at all, NONE! Which of course means, that burn-in is also not a problem.

Like the HD Guru said, just put the plasma in the “Home” mode and then put the HDTV in either cinema, custom and NOT in VIVID mode!

In the last 4 months of owning my Panasonic 42ST30 I have watch a lot of MSNBC, CNN, USA Network, Discovery Channel and the History Channel with some sports thrown in there too. NOT ONE ONCE of IR whatsoever!

I also watch plenty of HBO, FX, TBS, Travel Network, etc., so there is balance too in my watching habits.

Keep your plasma out of Vivid mode, keep the contrast under 90%(even with some light in the room, most plasma will look bright enough at 75%Ã¢â‚¬â€œ85% contrast) and change the channel every now and then and you will be fine!

By: vinnie

vinnie — Wed, 25 May 2011 00:07:27 +0000

I disagree with this – I have a Samsung PN42C450 and have played CNN on Dynamic mode for a day (less than 6 hours) and am dealing with a lightly faded area where the CNN logo is normally on the screen – it is more evident when I have a bright background against, but unnoticeable when I have a movie with a lot of movement in that area – I have heard different verdicts from different people – one guy says it should go away within a month and another says it will be there forever, so far its been a solid week that the CNN logo has been there – slowly going away, but still there regardless – It remains to be seen if it is image retention or burn-in, but not being able to watch CNN out of fear really bites!

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:10:28 +0000

I have a 5 1/2 month old VT25. I am not a gamer. I use the THX settings and I have been careful with my VT25. I am not a plasma novice- I have a 2 1/2 year old Pioneer, which BTW, shows no signs of wear. I have ghost images from the ESPN show PTI permanently burnt into my panel. Naturally, Panasonic won’t help me although I escalated my case. My situation is proof that one can be careful with a modern plasma but still be victimized by burn in. Unfortunately, manufacturers won’t cover even if there is no evidence of negligence on the part of the user.

By: crimson

crimson — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:43:50 +0000

This article is just plain wrong and should be changed because it lulls people into a false sense of security. My new Panasonic vt25 has burn in after playing the PS3 Game fallout for the last month or so. It’s pretty bad, even though we did display other content, Fallout was on probably 80% of the time. Now the HUD is on the bottom of the screen and clearly visible when the tv displays lighter colors.

By: alex

alex — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:40:15 +0000

I disagree. Athough I didn’t see bur-in yet on my tv, most of what I read here about image retention is not true, at least not for my samsung pl50c7000.
Image retention can happen after a few seconds of a static image being displayed. Depending on the intensity, it can be noticed while displaying images that are not fully black or fully white. And even if most of the image retention is washed away after some minutes, some can be retained for many days.
I played “black ops” for about 3 hours on my ps3. A VERY nitid image of the numbers of ammo counter was visible after that. After about one hour of displaying the screensaver, the retained image was not nitid anymore, but it was still there. It took more than one week of viewing for the ghost to completely disappear.

We stand behind out statements. As we mention in this and other articles, sets are sensitive to IR when first unpacked on initial use (we call that up to 200 hours) and in the showroom type settings (vivid, sports, or “game” mode on some brands).

Our tests indicated that abusing the screen by leaving on static test patterns left no permanent damage. Please check your settings on your Samsung. Regardless, image retention (as opposed to burn-in) causes no permanent damage and we continue to test plasma sets. With optimum home settings, image retention gets time continues to decrease as the set ages beyond initial break in.

HD Guru

By: Drewdove

Drewdove — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:03:25 +0000

I’ve seen the CNN burn-in at two workplace plasma screens and know the issue was big enough to get manufacturers to work on it. IMHO the real problem is passed, but I’ll still keep it in mind when it’s plasma vs LCD.