Should I Swap My New Hitachi 9700 ?

[Archmage]

Hi Guys,
Please go easy on me, I'm a plasma virgin.
I took delivery just over a week ago of a new Hitachi 9700 from JL.
I'm a complete anorak and read the manual cover to cover before plugging in.
Nowhere does it say you need to run the set in or that there are any problems with the factory setting for the picture settings. Each mode, Natural and Dynamic, set contrast at maximum. Initially I didn't fiddle with the factory presets.
Anyway, we have a Xbox360, PS3 and a Wii connected up to it. My 6y.old and me generally have 1 hour on Zelda before he goes to bed in the evening which amounts to about 4 hours total playing time atm. Other than that, I've had a couple of hours watching TV and a couple on the PS3.
To my horror, I switched the TV on last night and I could see the Zelda energy bar, number of hearts etc, superimposed in grey on the background, with no signal present. I ran Bluray Casino through last night and there wasn't much improvement so gave it a 2 hour blast of screen wipe. This seems to have got rid of most of it so I guess a bit more should see it gone completely.
I have to admit to not researching this purchase as much as I would normally.
No reviews I've read mentioned the Image Ret problem. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed though. I'm still within my 28 day return period and I'm toying with returning it and plumping for an LCD instead. I'm pretty annoyed that I have a PC and three games machines that we can't use without being extremely careful. How do you ask a 6y.o. to be careful with static images?
I wish I'd found this site before purchasing but I thought I was buying a tele, not a space shuttle
So, any advice would be gratefully accepted. Will it get less prone to this problem and I should stick with it or should it go back for a Sony LCD?
Thanks in advance.
Andy

 

[SATM]

The perceived wisdom seems to be that one should "run in" a plasma tv on reduced settings for the first 200 hours.
If you intend to watch standard definition broadcasts,then an LCD set may prove to be unsatisfactory.

 

[CHFels]

Hi Guys,
Please go easy on me, I'm a plasma virgin.
I took delivery just over a week ago of a new Hitachi 9700 from JL.
I'm a complete anorak and read the manual cover to cover before plugging in.
Nowhere does it say you need to run the set in or that there are any problems with the factory setting for the picture settings. Each mode, Natural and Dynamic, set contrast at maximum. Initially I didn't fiddle with the factory presets.
Anyway, we have a Xbox360, PS3 and a Wii connected up to it. My 6y.old and me generally have 1 hour on Zelda before he goes to bed in the evening which amounts to about 4 hours total playing time atm. Other than that, I've had a couple of hours watching TV and a couple on the PS3.
To my horror, I switched the TV on last night and I could see the Zelda energy bar, number of hearts etc, superimposed in grey on the background, with no signal present. I ran Bluray Casino through last night and there wasn't much improvement so gave it a 2 hour blast of screen wipe. This seems to have got rid of most of it so I guess a bit more should see it gone completely.
I have to admit to not researching this purchase as much as I would normally.
No reviews I've read mentioned the Image Ret problem. I'm at a loss as to how to proceed though. I'm still within my 28 day return period and I'm toying with returning it and plumping for an LCD instead. I'm pretty annoyed that I have a PC and three games machines that we can't use without being extremely careful. How do you ask a 6y.o. to be careful with static images?
I wish I'd found this site before purchasing but I thought I was buying a tele, not a space shuttle
So, any advice would be gratefully accepted. Will it get less prone to this problem and I should stick with it or should it go back for a Sony LCD?
Thanks in advance.
Andy

Andy,
if you have left the screen on factory default settings, it's no wonder you got a significant retention after just an hour of Zelda. You'll want to put the Hitachi in "normal" or "cinema" mode (assuming it has the latter) and back way off on the brightness and contrast. How much? Search to find the 9700 owners thread, and once you find the thread, search for "run-in" and "settings". I am confident that with more sensible settings, you will not see retention nearly as easily - and on TV or DVD, the pic quality should look better too.

All that said, if gaming is the main thing for the TV, an LCD might be right for you after all - then you can turn the kid loose on the TV and not worry about retention or screen burn. But if he plays only the kind of hours a kid *should* play, there's no need to worry anyway.

CHFels

 

[Archmage]

Andy,
if you have left the screen on factory default settings, it's no wonder you got a significant retention after just an hour of Zelda. You'll want to put the Hitachi in "normal" or "cinema" mode (assuming it has the latter) and back way off on the brightness and contrast. How much? Search to find the 9700 owners thread, and once you find the thread, search for "run-in" and "settings". I am confident that with more sensible settings, you will not see retention nearly as easily - and on TV or DVD, the pic quality should look better too.

All that said, if gaming is the main thing for the TV, an LCD might be right for you after all - then you can turn the kid loose on the TV and not worry about retention or screen burn. But if he plays only the kind of hours a kid *should* play, there's no need to worry anyway.

CHFels

Thanks for the advice CHFels.
I have an overhead DLP proj for films but we also watch most of Sky on it too. The 9700 was bought to replace an old rear proj sony TV, but I wanted something to do the 360 and PS3 justice, while retaining flexibility for viewing Bluray and Sky HD.
My son is limited to 1/2-1 hour in the evening, assuming homework is done (He's only six). If you ask my missus, it's me that doesn't know when to stop playing games.
I did look at the Sony ????2000 1080P lcd but JL have put the price back up to 1795. That's nearly double the 9700 price.
Do we think that the retention problem reduces once the screen has some hours on the clock?
Cheers,
Andy

 

[CHFels]

Thanks for the advice CHFels.
I have an overhead DLP proj for films but we also watch most of Sky on it too. The 9700 was bought to replace an old rear proj sony TV, but I wanted something to do the 360 and PS3 justice, while retaining flexibility for viewing Bluray and Sky HD.
My son is limited to 1/2-1 hour in the evening, assuming homework is done (He's only six). If you ask my missus, it's me that doesn't know when to stop playing games.
I did look at the Sony ????2000 1080P lcd but JL have put the price back up to 1795. That's nearly double the 9700 price.
Do we think that the retention problem reduces once the screen has some hours on the clock?
Cheers,
Andy

Yes, image retention is supposed to get better (less) after 200 hours or so, but will always happen to some minor extent if you have a fixed image on for hours.
Good luck!

 

[Archmage]

I'm gutted
I checked out the settings in the owners thread yesterday, and I now have them lower than recommended. Even at those settings, flicking from Component to HDMI1, you can still see a ghosted image of the OSD, minutes later (I'm sorry, that's rubbish). Plus, even tho playing Zelda is now like playing in the dark, 1/2 an hour on it last night and we can still see where we finished, this morning! I am not impressed.
I wish I'd put the money toward a sim projector now.