Plasma TVs, video games and burn-in
May 1st, 2008 by Chad G
So I have owned a Panasonic TH42PX600 for about 2 years now and love it. I bought it because it was a great deal and I knew that Panasonic Plasma was top notch. I did not consider that I was going to be playing a lot of XBOX360 on it and my son even more than I.
So, after the first weekend of hours of playing the same game I came to work and was so excited about the experience that I had to tell my colleagues how awesome it was compared to the smaller non-HD TV I had been playing on. Then, my killjoy supervisor said “Do you have any burn-in?”
My excitement suddenly turned to dread as I thought about all the fun I had that may have permanently damaged my brand new TV. I had not even thought about it until he said that and had not watched anything except the video game. So, I rushed home that night after work to see how much damage I had done and sure enough on regular TV stations if I looked close I could see the energy meter at the top right of screen from my video game.
It was not painfully visible but it was still painful to me because I could see it and was afraid it would be there forever. So, as you can imagine I decided right then that I was not going to play video games ever again which sucked because they looked so good. I decided to leave it on that night with regular TV and see if I could “wash” it away. The next day it was still there and I thought I would cry so I left it on all day.
After awhile it did go away and I started playing video games on it again, of course, but would try to limit the amount of time and would make sure to leave it on some regular programming for awhile. I also read some articles online about the first thirty or so days are a very sensitive time for Plasma. Well, a couple years have gone by and we have played a lot of video games on it and on a completely black screen you can see the “image retention” from the last game we had been playing but on normal TV I cannot see any of the video game effects unless we just got done playing hours and hours and I really look for it, but after a little while it goes away.
In conclusion, my advice for customers worried about “burn-in” is don’t. You have to be careful for the first thirty days. You may see some image retention on a black screen, but it should not effect normal TV viewing. It is my experience that while it might be possible to damage a Plasma with a static image, it is very difficult. I certainly would not recommend a Plasma as a display device for static information.
November 4th, 2010 at 2:11 am
Plasma TVs still have much better contrast ratio compared to even the best LCD television ”
December 3rd, 2010 at 12:08 am
i think that plasma tvs are more expensive than LCD tvs and they are a bit heavier too :*’