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1 hour warning in manual for Plasma burn-in? For real?

amdhunter

amdhunter

Lifer
I just bought an LG Plasma TV. Not the greatest specs (50", 720p) but I am totally in love with it. (I like it more than my 1080p LG.)

I am concerned about burning in the plasma -- the first page of the manual states that watching a letterboxed film for longer than an hour can cause issues...lol wtf?

I am around 3 plasmas from time to time. 2 of them seem unharmed after years of use, the 3rd (a 6 year old model) doesn't have burn in, but shows green splotches whenever the set encounters very bright scenes.

Should I even be worried? I want to calibrate my set later tonight -- so far I am using the "maximum" power-saving setting, which produces a dark, but still very pleasant, picture. (The other modes seem too bright for me.) The brightness is probably at only 40% of what the set can do -- so I am wondering if that is enough.

lol, anyone here with Plasma problems? I'd like to use it with my 360 and PS3 from time to time also.
 
You might want to look at avsforums. I've got my fingers crossed on getting a plasma after taxes and have been lurking over there doing some reading.
 
I consider break-in period to be one of those possibly superstitious things people do that may or may not be needed. But I did it anyway cause it can't hurt, and can only make things better. I did 150 hour break-in on my Kuro. I mean on something that expensive, why not?
 
What's the model number? If you're really concerned about it, the best thing you can do is to break it in using the break-in DVD on avsforum. The main risk is for the phosphors to unevenly age, and that risk greatly reduces after the set is used for a while. Turning up the brightness and contrast while running the break-in DVD for 100-200 hours evenly ages the phosphors.

However, with any modern-day plasma you should be fine as long as the pixel-shifting is turned on and you don't watch 80+% of your content with black bars. I have a 2yo plasma that I broke in, and I've had zero problems with it. My sister has a 6yo plasma that she didn't break in and her kids have abused (pausing games for hours), and it shows no signs of burn-in or uneven phosphor wear.

In other words, break it in if you want to calm your fears, but the TV will have no issues with burn-in or uneven wear as long as the pixel-shifting is on and you at least somewhat vary your content (i.e. don't leave it on CNN 24/7).

Edit: I'm with Riverhound on this one. I knew I probably didn't need to break it in. However, it only took a few days, and I would be kicking myself if I didn't break it in and then experienced burn-in.
 
I bought the LG 50pq10. I am also thinking that break-in is unnecessary, and like I said, the 3 plasma's I encounter from time to time have been in service for years and no real problems.

I am *really* happy with my set. After turning down the brightness (waaaay down) and setting the contrast, with no real calibration routine (yet) it destroys my LG 1080p set. I don't know why I was so against buying a plasma before. 🙂

I might do the burn-in during the weekend after I set all my settings properly. I have also set the "orbital" setting on the LG, although I think I saw it move once...lolol
 
That's a brand new set. I just wouldn't even worry about it. Plasmas these days are so resistant to burn-in that you'll be fine. Even on my plasma that was released almost 2 1/2 years ago, it's debatable whether a break-in period was necessary.

Oh, and I wouldn't sit around and lament the fact that it's only 720p. Unless you're closer than 8 feet to it, you'd probably never notice the difference. With a good source like BD I can view my 50" 720p TV from 6 feet away with no noticeable image degradation. Also, resolution is the least important aspect of PQ out of the big four (contrast ratio, color saturation, color accuracy, resolution). If you were to compare your TV to a 1080p TV with worse contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy, your TV is simply going to look better. People get so caught up on resolution, while very few sit close enough to take advantage of the higher resolution. In fact many don't even sit close enough to take advantage of 720p.
 
My parents have a Samsung plasma and I find you do get after images if something is on the screen for a long time. However, these disappear when you turn the TV off or refresh it with another image. It's certainly not a big issue anymore.
 
mmntech said:
My parents have a Samsung plasma and I find you do get after images if something is on the screen for a long time. However, these disappear when you turn the TV off or refresh it with another image. It's certainly not a big issue anymore.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's called IR or image retention and is not permanent or damaging to the TV in any way. This was more common on older sets and most common when the set was new. I've never noticed IR on my TV even after gaming for hours.
 
I find a lot of 1080p sources aren't really that great anyway. Certainly with movies I download, the 720p rips seem to have a better relative bitrate. I'll take a good 720p source over a mediocre 1080p source anyday.
 
kalrith said:
That's a brand new set. I just wouldn't even worry about it. Plasmas these days are so resistant to burn-in that you'll be fine. Even on my plasma that was released almost 2 1/2 years ago, it's debatable whether a break-in period was necessary.

Oh, and I wouldn't sit around and lament the fact that it's only 720p. Unless you're closer than 8 feet to it, you'd probably never notice the difference. With a good source like BD I can view my 50" 720p TV from 6 feet away with no noticeable image degradation. Also, resolution is the least important aspect of PQ out of the big four (contrast ratio, color saturation, color accuracy, resolution). If you were to compare your TV to a 1080p TV with worse contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy, your TV is simply going to look better. People get so caught up on resolution, while very few sit close enough to take advantage of the higher resolution. In fact many don't even sit close enough to take advantage of 720p.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I am one of those 1080p "snobs." Mostly because the 1080 set I have is used on an HTPC, and I really can see the difference when using the desktop. Funnily enough, I kind of miss 1366x768, since it produced a pleasant"er" desktop size.

Still though, I am extremely happy with my set. I am going to download some test patterns today to set things like sharpness, brightness and so on. A friend has a calibration CD with a blue filter, so I hope to do that tonight.

I can't wait. This thing has the weirdest options to adjust everything (like light cyan, dark cyan, light magenta...and so on. 🙂
 
RaiderJ said:
I find a lot of 1080p sources aren't really that great anyway. Certainly with movies I download, the 720p rips seem to have a better relative bitrate. I'll take a good 720p source over a mediocre 1080p source anyday.
Click to expand...

They compress the crap out of 1080p/i content, especially on cable & satellite services. Blu-ray looks spectacular though, as well as OTA ASTC HD signals.
 
amdhunter said:
Yeah, I am one of those 1080p "snobs." Mostly because the 1080 set I have is used on an HTPC, and I really can see the difference when using the desktop. Funnily enough, I kind of miss 1366x768, since it produced a pleasant"er" desktop size.
Click to expand...

Yeah, using my HTPC is the only time I somewhat regret not going with 1080p. However, I mostly use the HTPC for video, and as soon as that starts, I don't notice any problems with the resolution. The 1080p version of my TV was $1500 more at the time, and a comparably priced 50" 1080p plasma was of a far lower PQ.

mmntech said:
They compress the crap out of 1080p/i content, especially on cable & satellite services. Blu-ray looks spectacular though, as well as OTA ASTC HD signals.
Click to expand...

I agree that BD and OTA HD are excellent sources. Someone can do a 1080p rip, compress the crap out of it, and post it on a torrent site, and it won't be anything special just because of the resolution. Then again, some BDs are crappy as well. A good source will make all the difference in the world when displayed on a good HDTV. I'm floored by how many people I know who spend $2k on an HDTV and then watch their SD programming stretched to fill the screen. What's sad is that they don't even seem to notice any problems with that. That's probably because they're usually 15 feet away from a 42" TV D:.
 
I think that is just a CYA* warning. It is in there in case some morons don't set up the TV right, get burn in and try to blame LG.

Be sure to get a calibration disc and properly adjust brightness, contrast and color and you will probably be fine. Use the burn-in disc from the AVS forum for a little extra piece of mind.

I have a 50" Kuro that is 720P and it works fine. 720P makes web surfing a little easier from the couch as well. Games look great.

Enjoy your new TV!

-KeithP

*CYA = cover your ass
 
Where do you guys recommend getting a good calibration file at? I have a 40" Samsung 1080p LCD, about a year old, don't remember the model #.
 
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