Jnuke

Just got my first HDTV, the Samsung 46A550. The manual rather ominously warns me not to spend more than 5% of my time watching 4:3 programming with bars on the side. Now I've done enough searching and read enough posts on this forum to know I shouldn't really be concerned. And most things I own are widescreen, of course. The ONLY thing that worries me is the next time I feel like working my way through a 4:3 TV series from start to finish (all 7 seasons of Deep Space Nine, for example), which would mean a lot of black sidebars for a month or two. Would anyone caution me at all about burn-in under those circumstances??

Thanks, and sorry about the "newbie" question.

Spiky

No. Burn-in is impossible on LCD. There's no phosphor to burn. Some say there is an issue with some image retention. I haven't seen anything worrisome on modern LCD panels. Image retention should go away almost immediately.

Nick Martin

I've tried many times to watch Deep Space Nine on my 26" LCD and I just can't do it.

Being LCD, and DS9 being an older-looking show, playing the series DVDs looks horrible. It's much better on a plasma, and for that I resort to one of the cinematic zooms to approximate 1.78:1 without cropping too much, but it's honestly better that way than on the LCD.

Look at season 1, disc 1 - "Emissary" is downright awful looking in some shots! It does improve as episodes go on (naturally) but a show like that on DVD is better served by watching on an old-style CRT television, the kind the show broadcast on when in production, the kind we all had back then.

No matter how bad it may look, it's still DS9 so happy viewing.

parrotheads4

Congratulations. That's a great TV.

I've used an LCD for my computer screen, and have accidentally left a static image on it for 3 days in a row (went out of town). No burn in.

pat00139

Samsung is just covering themselves with this. They have the same warning on for their plasma tvs.

All I have to say is, enjoy your DS9!

Jnuke

Thanks! I already DID enjoy it once on my SDTV when I bought the series years ago, but I definitely want to go through them again sometime, and hopefully they won't look TOO bad on my larger LCD now.

pat00139

Sorry... Let me correct myself. Enjoy DS9 on your LCD!

GreenMonkey

Actually, LCDs can burn in. It's VERY rare and very difficult to do. A long time back one of the AVSforum mods burnt in a Windows desktop into an LCD TV of some sort, for example.

Or ask anyone that has worked in a datacenter. Leave something on it for long enough and burned-in it becomes.

It takes a lot of blatant abuse to do it on even a good plasma these days, and LCD burn in takes flagrant amounts of abuse (like the same image displayed for weeks at a time).

Spiky

I was defining technical terms. Read the next sentence. And then the 3rd.

So, no they can't.

GreenMonkey

Image retention and burn-in are the same thing. Burn in tends to imply permanent, however.

Permanent image retention = burn-in. And it is possible, although highly unlikely, on an LCD.

Spiky

You mean, like apples and oranges? Both colorful, round, grow on trees, fruit family, etc.....

GreenMonkey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_persistence
http://www.plasmadisplaycoalition.org/results/image.php

http://techrepublic-cnet.com.com/452...6844370-1.html
Here's a place where they are having the same annoying semantics discussion along with some pictures of whatever you want to call it. It's the same
http://hdguru.com/?p=151


Same thing. Different causes. But technically a plasma's burn-in is caused by a different process than a CRT, if you want to get super technical about it.

shaun3000

The only time I've ever seen "burn-in" on an LCD was on my old laptop. I had the same desktop background for several years and didn't use a screensaver, as I was under the impression I didn't need to with an LCD screen. Well a few parts of the image "burned into" the LCD. What really happened was the pixels got stuck and were slow to return to their normal state. I ended up running a screensaver and turning the computer off and it fixed itself. But it CAN happen, though it's difficult to do.

Spiky

Same observation from human eyes. IOW, "my TV is broke". People also call stuck pixels burn-in, does that make them the same, too?

Plasma and CRT have different applications of the same tech and actually "burn" throughout their life. "Burn-in" being an accellerated burning in a small area of the screen. They are only different at all mainly because of the size of the tubes and the changes that had to be made to go from 7" tubes to a couple hundredths of an inch, LCD doesn't have the same technology at all. And image retention should be correctable because of what it really is. If it isn't, perhaps you should question your choice of brand in the next purchase.

Whatever. I prefer accuracy to the vernacular. So if you're going to call me out, be accurate. Wikipedia (not that it should be used for real research) even agrees with me, did you even read your own quote?

Nick Martin

Something tells me that when it comes to issues of Home electronics, you must have the final, definitive word on the subject and no one dare question it.

Just an observation I've been making for a very long time.

mzupeman2

Spiky is always spot on though, he just needs to remember that not everyone is up on the the tech lingo. A lot of people use 'burn in' when they really mean 'image retention'. That's about as good as many of these people get. All that people really care about with LCD's, is if they get image retention at all through normal usage, if it's easy to get rid of, or if they'll ever actually experience any burn-in. The discussion heading towards 'well all it does is burn over time' things nobody really cares about. We should try to stay relative to what's really being asked, instead of being a tech expert and confusing people any more. All that's going to do is ask them if they should even use LCD at all to begin with.

Nick Martin

I'm not insulting or denying the intelligence and expertise of him at all.

Some people assert themselves as an authority on a particular subject and that's fine, but can sometimes come across as showing off, or even arrogant and that can be offputting for people with different views, or like you said someone who may not understand the terminology.

I watch 4:3 content on my LCD set to 'natural', which doesn't stretch it and I've never had any kind of retention.
5 seconds of white text on my plasma, and it's another minute before it's ghost vanishes.

fumanstan

People are always going to consider images permanently "ghosted" on the screen as burn in. Seems like that's the common term ever since old CRT's had tickers or home shopping network numbers burned in to the screen. I don't really see a big deal about getting technical and correcting terminology, even if it's not truly "burn in."

GreenMonkey

Then technically plasmas don't "burn-in" either. Because it's a somewhat different process that causes it on a CRT.

mzupeman2

That's exactly what I mean.

On the other hand, how else are we going to learna bout this kind of stuff if it wasn't for people like Spiky? However, yet again on the other side of the table, there's the issue of confusing people and going way too far with the info when we know what people were asking for.

Spiky

Read my first post, by itself, before all this crap. I gave both terms and stated which applied. I don't think that post was arrogant, preachy or anything like that. Tell me what you think. GreenMonkey responded to me, not the OP, so I debated his assertions that I was incorrect.

I apologize for being willing to talk about whatever. I am a debater. And when proved wrong, I am happy to learn something. If you look closely at our debate in this thread, it was about semantics, not burn-in. Course, I'm more arrogant about semantics than HT, so what you say applies even more strongly.

I don't apologize for being self-confident or for knowing what I know. And really, should I? People seem to want apologies for the wrong things. I think people who are willfully ignorant should apologize to everyone else. Or at least stay out of the way. And I'm not talking about anyone in this thread. I'm actually thinking about idiots who don't know the basic rules of driving in my state. Seriously, is a semaphor that complicated? (crappy weekend on that point, sorry for digressing)

Does that mean they never should? I feel we'd all be a little happier if we knew a little more. When I bought my first stereo, I didn't know a damn thing. If I had, I surely would have gotten something else. I actually thought Bose was cool back then. A couple decades later, you are calling me an authority (well, maybe you aren't), although I still learn something new almost every day and read internet forum conversations all the time where I have no clue. Then, I go find out what they are talking about and learn something.

movieking

OK, rather than post a new thread, this one should suffice. I've got a Sharp Aquos LC37D40U, and I am seeing major signs of image persistence/burn in/whatever you want to call it. It wasn't paused on a particular image for a long period of time. I can see some signs of distortion on the sides of the TV when you would be watching a 4:3 show on a HDTV, but I also can see some various black spots in the centre of the TV as well.

I've tried Jscreenfix and I've cleaned the screen with no luck. I've read a few places about just leaving a white background on overnight to see if that would work. I am not opposed to it, I'd just like to get further suggestions. Thoughts? If I were to go the white route, how would I do it?

It's frustrating as hell, because one you start to notice those spots, it's pretty much the only thing you can see when you watch TV.

Nick Martin

I've never seen a Sharp TV without a screen issue of some kind....if you have the means (warranty or what have you) do yourself a favor and swap it out if possible.

movieking

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, so I am stuck with what I have.

arminius

Eventually, when enough people use it that way, burn in will mean any type of screen retention. Thats how words change their meaning.