OLED Burn In Risk

The thing is this has been an issue before now, ever since Plasma burn in was apparent. Plenty of people have used Plasma TVs for PC use without issue, me included. In fact with more options now with OLEDs to clear up image retention the risk imposed now is far less than it was with Plasma displays.

And also not forgetting that LCDs aren't immune to burn in either, if you keep stationary images on them for long enough.

The fact is most people who are buying an OLED TV who also use it as a PC will be using it either for HTPC use or gaming, both have stationary images and they may also do some web browsing/general use from time to time. Most people with this use will and do never have a problem, even with the first gen OLED TVs.

The thread points out its not just about what you do, but also how often you do it. Because frankly a lot of info out there is scaring people away from purchasing an OLED just because they read about this information (where they usually neglect to add details of repetitive usage) and they think its going to be a major problem to them because they have read it is to someone else.


But this is a test looping content each day for 5 hours on 1 off, 4 times a day, every day, showing only a particular news channel..this is as far from a real world test you can be for 99% of people and the most extreme on their test. I am certain those with this usage pattern that read the OP will know that OLED is not for them.
Rtings real life test is not real life at all,this kind of usage u have in tv store on demo units....hours of same content in loop.
 
I guess it depends on whether viewing such content on an intermittent basis has any cumulative effect. In their video report (at 4 weeks), they note that there is a degree of memory effect to the burn-in, suggesting that 'nominal viewing patterns' may not entirely solve the problem.


I have had a B6 for over a year and I personally think the image still looks great and I watch a variety of different channels and game and have experienced no burn in issues with the television.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'nominal viewing patterns' or if the test being carried out can even be considered as nominal. This is because I think the real world test they are conducting is still flawed as they are leaving the television tuned to just one channel when they should be rotating the content being shown on the televisions.
 
It's designed to be more real life than their first test, but yes, even with mixed content you have to argue if 4x a day for 5 hours with 1 hour off is real life...the test isn't even mixed content. Maybe NBC but even then I think they have a channel logo in the same spot in programmes don't they?
 
I have added info regarding screensavers also reducing the risk of burn in, including an official link from LG: OLED TV Reliability: Burn-In, & More | LG USA who mention their screensaver appears after 2 mins of a stationary image.
 
If you've got a XB1 you can set up the auto dim feature, it protects the same way after 2 mins, I've got mine setup this way.
 
I think LG for 2018 have added in some logo dimming feature to reduce IR/Burn in.

I like the step they're making. If only they'd clearly admit its an issue and one which will be covered under some form of warranty with no questions asked!
 
I don't think there are many people who doubt OLED is the best tech out there but as everyone knows, being the best tech, doesn't mean anything. Plasma being the best example of this.

Its also telling that still, theres only one manufacturer who makes the panels and while that remains the case, they will not be affordable (£1500 for a 55" TV is far from the average Joe's idea of affordable). Competition drives prices down and while LG make all the OLED panels, theres little incentive for anyone to undercut them. In fact all the other manufacturers charge more than LG.

Its possible in the next decade, we will see this change of course. Unless a new tech comes along... like MicroLED.
 
Excellent article. I've seen so many pictures of burn in and the TV's are totally ruined and worthless.
I am after a new 65 inch panel and its obvious from this article that I'm at significant risk from burn in.
My TV is also a pc monitor. It's on for much of the day as I use it for work and play.
I dictate and use office every day. I work on my pc for long continuous stretches and I also play games like fifa for up to four hours at a stretch.
The static images create a significant risk of burn in, especially as my screen will be set to 2160p and I game at high resolution with all options maxed out.
I can't take a chance on such an investment getting wasted. I would definitely buy oled if the panel came with a burn in warranty such as Samsung give for their high end panels.
If companies such as Sony and oled were so confident about their oled technology they would provide such a warranty. The absence of such coupled with companies such as John Lewis specifically excluding burn in front their warranty illustrates their lack of confidence in oled technology.
Why should the consumer carry all the risk for a technology with incipient design faults?
Under UK current consumer laws its entirely possible that in law you are covered and entitled to a refund such you suffer from burn in. Consumer rights act specifically covers provable design faults.
However, I'm not going take on such a risk as undoubtedly the big companies would strenuously fight any legal case. A victory by a claimant would create a precedent and open the floodgates for similar cases to brought.
I'm not doubting the superior picture quality of oled but was it stands with its design faults, I can't take a risk on one. Given the way I use my panels then I'd say that there's a significant possibility my panel would have burn in.
As it stands I believe that shops such as John Lewis should warn of burn in. I asked in Fenwicks recently about it and didn't get an answer.
 
As it stands I believe that shops such as John Lewis should warn of burn in. I asked in Fenwicks recently about it and didn't get an answer.

They won't just like they did with Plasma, otherwise it's classed as scaremongering.
 
It's the nature of the tech. There is no way they can include that under warranty just because there are no limits to the kind of damage people would cause by abusing their displays. No different to Plasma really.

Its no different in terms of warranty for LCDs either, if you read store or manufacturer warranties before the days of OLEDs burn in isn't covered even if its on an LCD. It's also miraculous that Samsung only start offering their burn in warranty when they know they are competing with OLED.

I have nothing against Samsung, but its clear they are fighting against OLED and that warranty is just part of the battle.
 
Just catched this update from rtings.com via Youtube:

****04/10/2018: We contacted LG regarding the strange results in week 4. LG engineers visited our lab a few days ago and were able to confirm the 25% window on the Live CNN and FIFA 18 TVs are a result of a factory issue (see our video here). OLED TVs are produced in a hot process, and after cooling a 25% window is shown on each panel. Some TVs which haven't cooled completely can produce invalid results for the lookup table used by the 'Pixel Refresh' function, causing this 25% window to become visible. Only some 55" OLED TVs were affected during part of 2017.
As this is not an issue with the panel itself, it is possible to apply a fix to the lookup table. LG will apply this fix to anyone who presents this issue to their support, for free, even after the warranty period has long expired. They have fixed our two affected TVs (see the uniformity photos below). Note that this doesn't fix other uniformity issues as the result of static content, only the 25% window caused by a factory defect. LG has also confirmed that there is variation between panels, which is why some OLED appear more prone to developing uniformity issues (as in the case with our Live CNN (200 nits) vs Live CNN (Max).)****
 
Who the hell would think it would be a good idea to install OLEDs as professional displays in an airport :facepalm:

Indeed Samsung miraculously developed their "10 year screen burn warranty" when they knew they were in trouble competing with OLEDs.
 
How do you run these screen tests on the LGs? Will mine have it even?
 
What tests? You mean the solid colours and grayscale slides? They can be found in various calibration suites/dvds and sometimes also on youtube. Have a search for 5% grey, 10%grey etc or 100% red/green/blue etc
 
Ta I thought it was built in.
 
It's the nature of the tech. There is no way they can include that under warranty just because there are no limits to the kind of damage people would cause by abusing their displays. No different to Plasma really.

Its no different in terms of warranty for LCDs either, if you read store or manufacturer warranties before the days of OLEDs burn in isn't covered even if its on an LCD. It's also miraculous that Samsung only start offering their burn in warranty when they know they are competing with OLED.

I have nothing against Samsung, but its clear they are fighting against OLED and that warranty is just part of the battle.

Yes they are. Anyone been to Curry's/John Lewis lately? Samsung are spending an awful lot on fancy premium retail displays with QLED plastered all over the place, having their own reps in store. I also observe that in all locations where such premium displays are placed, the OLEDs are not on the same wall/aisle so you can't compare a QLED to an OLED side by side.

Warranties: It's marketing that says or rather implies to, Joe 'pop into Curry's' Bloggs; Look a warranty, our QLEDs don't get IR. When of course a warranty doesn't say that at all.

Of course these warranties are new, so claims will be minimal to non existent at the moment. This means no one really knows whether the warranties will be honoured true to spirit or, how much small print allows any manufacturer offering IR guarantees to wriggle out of paying out. We will have to see if they are worth the paper they are written on.

I recall all this a decade ago, with the scaremongering about plasmas; fading, IR all the blurb targeted currently at OLED. Turned out the majority of the 'Don't buy a plasma, it will be a washed out faded, image retention mess within 2 years info', was the result of deliberately biased test conditions and outright propaganda by, drum roll please, LCD manufacturers.

Had my plasma for almost 9 years- when it was watched by two teenagers who had MTV on for hours at a time back when it had a fixed logo. never had any image retention, and it only show slight colour fading in it's last months with us. This plasma didn't have screen cleaning programes or even the timed turn off protection- it often got left on BBC news or MTv for 8 hours because someone dozed off in front of the telly!

I have an OLED now-bothered more by DSE, haloing, limited viewing angles (VA panels) and the lack of picture depth in LCDs than IR but then, I don't game, nor use my OLED as a PC monitor so.
 
Hi, I currently have xe9005, but due to the frame repeat error I am looking into LG B7. I am bit worried we watch some news channels 1-2 hours a day. I found this source of a lot of burn in problems from Sky: LG OLED screen burn in issues - Sky Community. If I get it and I keep the back-light low and crop the image to remove the logos would that help?
 
Hi, I currently have xe9005, but due to the frame repeat error I am looking into LG B7. I am bit worried we watch some news channels 1-2 hours a day. I found this source of a lot of burn in problems from Sky: LG OLED screen burn in issues - Sky Community. If I get it and I keep the back-light low and crop the image to remove the logos would that help?
I wouldn't really if you watch it so regularly, if not for the corner logos, for the tickers. Regular usage of those over and over again would be a problem I think. You may get away with it, but it's a risk I probably wouldn't want to take. You fall really in to category two in the OP, having repeated viewing, albeit for less time is probably worse than one larger session watching the news once a week.

There is a large variation, particularly with those affected fitting in to repeated usage but also certain panels were more susceptible than the next. Overall, I know its not what you want to hear but I wouldn't do it.
 
I wouldn't really if you watch it so regularly, if not for the corner logos, for the tickers. Regular usage of those over and over again would be a problem I think. You may get away with it, but it's a risk I probably wouldn't want to take. You fall really in to category two in the OP, having repeated viewing, albeit for less time is probably worse than one larger session watching the news once a week.

There is a large variation, particularly with those affected fitting in to repeated usage but also certain panels were more susceptible than the next. Overall, I know its not what you want to hear but I wouldn't do it.
Thank you for your advice. We watch some breakfast shows which mostly have the tickers and banners. Do you think none of the software tricks like pixel shift or the luminance logo would help with that? I forgot to mention that we also watch a lot of movies and tv shows with subtitles. In apps like Plex, Netflix and Prime Video the subtitles change to maximum exposure in HDR mode. Just to clarify our habbit is around 1 hour breakfast show or news channel in the morning. Some random TV in the background in the evening for 1-1.5 hours and either TV show or a movie after that. Where I watch everything none HDR with the extended dynamic range on low on the Sony.
 
Thank you for your advice. We watch some breakfast shows which mostly have the tickers and banners. Do you think none of the software tricks like pixel shift or the luminance logo would help with that? I forgot to mention that we also watch a lot of movies and tv shows with subtitles. In apps like Plex, Netflix and Prime Video the subtitles change to maximum exposure in HDR mode. Just to clarify our habbit is around 1 hour breakfast show or news channel in the morning. Some random TV in the background in the evening for 1-1.5 hours and either TV show or a movie after that. Where I watch everything none HDR with the extended dynamic range on low on the Sony.
There's no sure answer to this, i wouldn't worry so much about subtitles though, it's more the repeated boxes and tickers and logos which will be most threatening. If the TV is turned off after usage it will wipe any temporary image retention and the pixel shift and having the oled light low will help but it still comes down to how repetitive you view. If you watch each morning the same news or breakfast show for 1 or 2 hours for every day for weeks then i can see you have a problem. If there's more variation to it than that and you switch the TV off in-between and use it for other stuff too then perhaps you won't have an issue.

Still though i wouldn't want to risk it if i was a regular viewer of channels i know have those tickers and logos, as it mentions in the sky forum link the manufacturers will view regular viewing of news channels as abuse to the panel. It's hard to believe really but it is the regularity that causes it more than long sessions and sadly the news channels or breakfast shows are amongst the worse when it comes to keeping static images on the TV.
 
There's no sure answer to this, i wouldn't worry so much about subtitles though, it's more the repeated boxes and tickers and logos which will be most threatening. If the TV is turned off after usage it will wipe any temporary image retention and the pixel shift and having the oled light low will help but it still comes down to how repetitive you view. If you watch each morning the same news or breakfast show for 1 or 2 hours for every day for weeks then i can see you have a problem. If there's more variation to it than that and you switch the TV off in-between and use it for other stuff too then perhaps you won't have an issue.

Still though i wouldn't want to risk it if i was a regular viewer of channels i know have those tickers and logos, as it mentions in the sky forum link the manufacturers will view regular viewing of news channels as abuse to the panel. It's hard to believe really but it is the regularity that causes it more than long sessions and sadly the news channels or breakfast shows are amongst the worse when it comes to keeping static images on the TV.
Thanks a lot. What would be the next best alternative for replacement in this case?
 
Thanks a lot. What would be the next best alternative for replacement in this case?
Are you getting a refund or like for like replacement on your XE9005 or are you buying the TV yourself?
 

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