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orange66
Guest
Plasma Image retention.
There are various opinions on the forum regarding image retention. Some of these opinions do need to be addressed.
Comment; Modern plasmas are no more likely to suffer image burn-in than CRTs.
In my experience, this is simply not true. I own a Sony Wega Trinitron CRT, a 23 inch Apple Cinema Display, a 20 inch iMac G5 LCD (typing on now) and a Panasonic TH-42PV500B HD plasma.
The Sony CRT has never once shown the slightest trace of image retention. However, I would not discount the idea that other CRTs might.
The Apple displays are both susceptible to image retention. In particular, along the top, where the OSX menu banner is always on. In terms of permanency, it is fairly easy to remove. Months of static image retention can be removed with hours of bright screen saver use in my experience. I have yet to see any permanent retention.
The Plasma display when brand new, was very susceptible to image retention. After I had run the set in for 100 hours, over 3 days it was exposed to around 10 hours of the Cbeebies logo. This resulted in an image retention that I was told by Panasonic was probably permanent, but they offered to send an engineer out to attempt to remove it, which they would charge me for. I decided to decline this, as the ballpark figure for this was hundreds. It took me over two months of use to finally shift this image. You may ask, how on earth can 10 hours of logo take so long to shift? The answer is, the screen was not run in enough, and the logo was in colour.
How does near permanent image retention manifest itself? Well, to start with, the logo fades quite a bit. Things seem to go quite well. However, once about 80% of it is gone, the rest is very, very difficult to remove. You see it depending on what you are looking at. In my case, it was most noticeable whenever blue sky was on display, or bright white.
I tried exposing the screen to many hours of non logo TV, but all it seemed to do was raise the brightness of the remaining retention along with the rest of the screen. Then I tried analogue noise, in dynamic mode. This had some effect, but not enough. Cracking the problem, was selective use of colour. I looped a video tape of a soccer match, placed the set in zoom one, to remove the score, and left it for several days (but not 24 hours a day) This really ate into the retention. Oddly, exposing it to red images was not quite as effective. The real key to dealing with it was blue/purple images. Looping blue purple imagery finally shifted just about all of it. As a side note, it just came back from a repair, and when I turned it on first time, the logo was faintly still there, but regular use has banished it again
Comment, Image retention is not the same as burn in
Um, yes it is. The only difference between image retention and burn-in, is time. By the way, set manufacturers refer to burn-in as permanent after image
Comment People who say they have burn in are exaggerating or spreading myths
Ok, now this one is hard to deal with if you have lived with the nightmare of image retention.
Lets consider the advice given in the manuals for the two most talked about plasmas on these forums, the Panasonic PV500, and the Pioneer 436 XDE.
The Panasonic first;
Do not allow a still picture to be displayed for an extended period, as this can cause a permanent after-image to remain on the Plasma TV.
Examples of still pictures include logos, video games, computer images, teletext and images displayed in 4:3 mode.
And Panasonics warning if you ignore this;
The permanent after-image on the Plasma TV resulting from fixed image use is not an operating defect and as such is not covered by the warranty. This product is not designed to display fixed images for extended periods of time
Now Pioneer;
Whenever possible, avoid frequently displaying the same image or virtually still moving pictures (e.g. closed-captioned images or video game images which have static portions).
And Pioneers warning if you ignore this;
The following are typical effects of a phosphor-based matrix display and as such, are not covered by the manufacturers limited warranties:
Permanent residual images upon the phosphors of the panel.
Off the record, dealers and makers of these sets talk of running them in to toughen them up so that you can display such images. But please note it is OFF THE RECORD, for a good reason. It is not an exact science, and while a 100 hours maybe be enough to toughen up one display, an identical one may need 200 hours.
In my experience, 200 hours is minimum. The running in setings for various sets are elsewhere in the forum.
Please take the advice in the manual over and above any found on the net. The people who make your Plasma know better than anyone whether the set is liable to suffer image retention, and if you take the advice of a post on the net, over the advice in the manual, you are taking a huge risk with a very expensive television.
Finally, if you do have a plasma that has suffered no image retention, please do not cast any doubt on people who have.
Thankyou.
There are various opinions on the forum regarding image retention. Some of these opinions do need to be addressed.
Comment; Modern plasmas are no more likely to suffer image burn-in than CRTs.
In my experience, this is simply not true. I own a Sony Wega Trinitron CRT, a 23 inch Apple Cinema Display, a 20 inch iMac G5 LCD (typing on now) and a Panasonic TH-42PV500B HD plasma.
The Sony CRT has never once shown the slightest trace of image retention. However, I would not discount the idea that other CRTs might.
The Apple displays are both susceptible to image retention. In particular, along the top, where the OSX menu banner is always on. In terms of permanency, it is fairly easy to remove. Months of static image retention can be removed with hours of bright screen saver use in my experience. I have yet to see any permanent retention.
The Plasma display when brand new, was very susceptible to image retention. After I had run the set in for 100 hours, over 3 days it was exposed to around 10 hours of the Cbeebies logo. This resulted in an image retention that I was told by Panasonic was probably permanent, but they offered to send an engineer out to attempt to remove it, which they would charge me for. I decided to decline this, as the ballpark figure for this was hundreds. It took me over two months of use to finally shift this image. You may ask, how on earth can 10 hours of logo take so long to shift? The answer is, the screen was not run in enough, and the logo was in colour.
How does near permanent image retention manifest itself? Well, to start with, the logo fades quite a bit. Things seem to go quite well. However, once about 80% of it is gone, the rest is very, very difficult to remove. You see it depending on what you are looking at. In my case, it was most noticeable whenever blue sky was on display, or bright white.
I tried exposing the screen to many hours of non logo TV, but all it seemed to do was raise the brightness of the remaining retention along with the rest of the screen. Then I tried analogue noise, in dynamic mode. This had some effect, but not enough. Cracking the problem, was selective use of colour. I looped a video tape of a soccer match, placed the set in zoom one, to remove the score, and left it for several days (but not 24 hours a day) This really ate into the retention. Oddly, exposing it to red images was not quite as effective. The real key to dealing with it was blue/purple images. Looping blue purple imagery finally shifted just about all of it. As a side note, it just came back from a repair, and when I turned it on first time, the logo was faintly still there, but regular use has banished it again
Comment, Image retention is not the same as burn in
Um, yes it is. The only difference between image retention and burn-in, is time. By the way, set manufacturers refer to burn-in as permanent after image
Comment People who say they have burn in are exaggerating or spreading myths
Ok, now this one is hard to deal with if you have lived with the nightmare of image retention.
Lets consider the advice given in the manuals for the two most talked about plasmas on these forums, the Panasonic PV500, and the Pioneer 436 XDE.
The Panasonic first;
Do not allow a still picture to be displayed for an extended period, as this can cause a permanent after-image to remain on the Plasma TV.
Examples of still pictures include logos, video games, computer images, teletext and images displayed in 4:3 mode.
And Panasonics warning if you ignore this;
The permanent after-image on the Plasma TV resulting from fixed image use is not an operating defect and as such is not covered by the warranty. This product is not designed to display fixed images for extended periods of time
Now Pioneer;
Whenever possible, avoid frequently displaying the same image or virtually still moving pictures (e.g. closed-captioned images or video game images which have static portions).
And Pioneers warning if you ignore this;
The following are typical effects of a phosphor-based matrix display and as such, are not covered by the manufacturers limited warranties:
Permanent residual images upon the phosphors of the panel.
Off the record, dealers and makers of these sets talk of running them in to toughen them up so that you can display such images. But please note it is OFF THE RECORD, for a good reason. It is not an exact science, and while a 100 hours maybe be enough to toughen up one display, an identical one may need 200 hours.
In my experience, 200 hours is minimum. The running in setings for various sets are elsewhere in the forum.
Please take the advice in the manual over and above any found on the net. The people who make your Plasma know better than anyone whether the set is liable to suffer image retention, and if you take the advice of a post on the net, over the advice in the manual, you are taking a huge risk with a very expensive television.
Finally, if you do have a plasma that has suffered no image retention, please do not cast any doubt on people who have.
Thankyou.