Plasma Burn in....

[Denchi]

So I bought a TV about 1.5 months ago. maybe less. I got the 46" Panasonic ST30. 3D etc, is supposed to be a better panel than the non-3d model right below it. I've been told that burn in is no longer a problem, or very minimal....but I think I'm already seeing it.

I watch normal TV on it, but then I also bought a video game, Dark Souls, that I've been playing on it. I've logged about 50-60 hours in the game and it looks like the health bar and some of the equipment stuff on the lower left has burned in.

I'm a little miffed, because everything I read told me not to worry about it, yet here I am. Is there a way to fix it? Will it go away? etc etc.

[Isiolia]

Usually there's a distinction made between image retention and actual burn-in, which is more permanent.

From what I've seen, IR isn't usually a big issue unless you have static images, and even then shouldn't stick around too long. Sets are supposedly more susceptible to it early in the panel life. Some people run slides n' such to wear the panel evenly before use (though it's mostly for calibration reasons).

Your TV has some options to combat it. In the Setup menu there's an Anti Image Retention section. There's a Pixel Orbiter feature, one to make sidebars brighter if using 4:3, and a scrolling bar to run in an attempt to reduce/remove IR. Otherwise, just leave something on that fills the entire screen and has no still images.

[Katlan]

same thing happened to me w/ my plasma a while ago. Just get in the habit of turning the screen off when you have something paused and don't plan to watch it for like 10m+. Also, just something to keep in mind are those TV stations that have non-transparent logo's. I'm mainly thinking of Cartoon Network... their logo is dark black and thick white and it burned in two of my old TV's even from just watching a 30 minutes show. I had to stop watching the network (nothing big lost there). While burn in's are less frequent, i can almost guarantee you didn't get the burn in from playing Dark Souls, but more from leaving the game paused for extended periods of time.

Most Plasma's should come w/ a anti-burn in retention thing under the options. Just run in a few times and let it go for its duration. If that doesn't work, you should still be covered by the store extended warranty depending on where you bought it. BestBuy's extended plan for example covers burn in's

[octopus]

If it's a new TV, it's most likely image retention and not burn-in, like the other posters have said.

[Slott]

same thing happened to me w/ my plasma a while ago. Just get in the habit of turning the screen off when you have something paused and don't plan to watch it for like 10m+. Also, just something to keep in mind are those TV stations that have non-transparent logo's. I'm mainly thinking of Cartoon Network... their logo is dark black and thick white and it burned in two of my old TV's even from just watching a 30 minutes show. I had to stop watching the network (nothing big lost there). While burn in's are less frequent, i can almost guarantee you didn't get the burn in from playing Dark Souls, but more from leaving the game paused for extended periods of time.

Most Plasma's should come w/ a anti-burn in retention thing under the options. Just run in a few times and let it go for its duration. If that doesn't work, you should still be covered by the store extended warranty depending on where you bought it. BestBuy's extended plan for example covers burn in's

To what Katlan said: turning the monitor off if you don't plan on using it for 10m+ doesn't help. Imagine loading an image in a spot, turn the monitor off, turn it back on to the same image. This will not clear the "gas" out of that pixel. What you need is something that will shift that color to something else to prevent this from happening. Playing dark souls and have an hp bar there for a while and walking away for 15m? Turn it to TV and have it watch something different, or even better yet there are programs/cds that you can connect to the monitor that flash like 10000 colors per second in every pixel. That helps clear it out.

[Denchi]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am aware of the dangers of leaving images sitting on Plasmas, so I have been very careful to shut the TV off if I'm leaving, or just watch regular TV for a while. Which is why I was so worried when I saw the HP bars and stuff. It does looke like it was just IR and I'm freaking out for no reason. I'll continue to be careful though....

I also did find the IR correction setting on my TV and plan to run it every once in a while from now on. Although I'm still a bit nervous to fire up Dark Souls anytime soon.....I'll get over it

[Varusodin]

I had this problem recently too with the [adult swim] logo. I have a 42ST30 to put me in pretty much the same boat. What I do is use the auto-on/auto-off feature on the tv and put it on a snow channel (no signal) for an hour everyday. I recently played through the Uncharted series and having the weapon and ammo in the upper corner almost all the time worried me. After putting in ~40hours and didn't see any retention at all.

[Dngnhack]

I had this issue playing certain MMO's and even once playing split screen the bar in the middle "burnt in" ... what i did is run a scrolling option my tv had, or the all white screen it had. Also now that my TV is a bit older it doesn't happen anymore. When it happened to me i read you should get some kind of program and let it run either scrolling or solid colors for 1,000 hours (lol long time) mine went away from normal use and if it gets seriously bad just run the program while you sleep or go to work should be clear when your done.

[Necronus]

Gotta love static screen info on plasmas. I remmeber when I would play GTAIV for hours every day. I was almost convinced that the minimap would become a permanent feature of my televsion for a while there.

[Katlan]

games and TV stations really need to start taking into account plasma TV's. granted the issue is only pertinent while the plasma is relatively new, but it still blows my mind when company's don't take them into account... especially TV stations (looking at your cartoon Network / Adult Swim logo that never leaves the screen outside of commercials).

My current plasma has that auto "pixel orbiter" built in feature that [i guess] constantly fluctuates pixels around to reduce chances of burn ins, but I have no idea how well it works

[niwaar]

The worse thing now is the ESPN/CNN/Financial News Tickers at the bottom of the screen. They wont burn in the stuff ticking by but they tend to burn in the top and sides of the ticker bar. Especially ESPN's horrible one that has one third the bar with their logo on it.

[Necronus]

The worse thing now is the ESPN/CNN/Financial News Tickers at the bottom of the screen. They wont burn in the stuff ticking by but they tend to burn in the top and sides of the ticker bar. Especially ESPN's horrible one that has one third the bar with their logo on it.

The TV at my local Bally's has the news ticker permanently burnt in. Even when they swap to other stations, its there in all its glory.

[Denchi]

So after further inspection my initial impression was right, it's burn in. After about 2 weeks of not playing any dark souls and watching just regular TV you can still see the HP bar and the bottom left equipment HUD. It's not SUPER noticeable, but I was just watching hockey and against the white ice you can see some orange discoloration. And if the set is on but just on a black screen you can see it too.

Pretty disappointed....not sure why people are so adamant that Burn In doesn't really exist anymore, as it very obviously does. I didn't get the extended plan through Target that would cover burn in, think I should go get it (it's within the 90 day period)?

My work is having a raffle to give away a 46" Samsung LED TV this week so maybe I can just cross my fingers for that one.

[octopus]

I did a quick search of your plasma model and found immediately:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1360853

I guess there's an initial break-in period where you're not supposed to play games at first...