I just bought a Toshiba 43H71 HDTV. I figured I wouldn't get a widescreen since I would also be using the TV for normal TV viewing more than I would for watching my DVDs. Plus the TV does the anamorphic squeeze, so I could still watch my movies widescreen without any loss of resolution. However, I have found that I am getting Letterbox Burn in Paranoia! I even have caught myself using the full frame version of open matt movies. (Only open matt movies. I would still never resort to Pan & Scan)

Am I just being paranoid? How likely is this burn in? I have the contrast and brightness turned way down, and I do watch more normal TV than I do letterboxed movies.

Also, should this burn in happen, can't I fix it by hooking up a computer and making white bars occupy the non burned in space, and then cranking up the contrast and brightness, and burn it in to match the middle? Has anybody ever done this?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't burn in occur because of bright whites? And aren't the bars black? I don't think that black burns in, does it?

It's not that the black bars burn in, it's the fact that they don't. The middle will slowly get dimmer because it is used more than the top and bottom black bar area.

Try not to sweat it too much. If you've turned down the brightness, and you do a watch a fair amount of regular TV to fill the screen, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

do not worry about it. unless you are watching a ton of movies in a row day after day all at the same resolution I think you are ok.

Frankly I would gladly burn in my tv screen if the only other choice was full screen movies

where this was a problem was in the old widescreens where the tv was on for hours and hours on 4:3 and the screen burned in. the old widescreens burned in because the tv was left on for hours everyday at the same resolution and then burnin.

the newer widescreens have stretch modes to combat this. I just set my tv to stretch the 4:3 material that my brother watches and watch my movies in their OAR.