I'm kind of worried my TV will have burn in marks soon.
 

I play a lot of video games, and watch a lot of movies in widescreen.... how do i fix it if it burns in?? I have a phillips 55 inch widescreen CRT tv.

If it does happen the only true way to fix it is to have the damaged CRTs replaced at a cost of about $200 each. You are taking the normal precautions of keeping contrast at the correct levels and varying your viewing right?

no i dont do any of that lol. What do you mean by keeping contrast at the correct levels?

Most all RPTVs come delivered with contrast set all the way to the max. You need to calibrate your contrast, brightness, color, tint and sharpness using a calibration disc like Avia or DVE. This will calibrate you DVD input which you can then use as a guide for you broadcast TV, VCR, laserdisc, etc. Once calibrated to your room lighting you might find that the contrast when set according to the test patterns on these discs is more like 30 out of 100 for optimal viewing. Less contrast means less chance of burn in since the whites aren't being run in torch mode.

-eek- How long have you had the TV? You are probably lucky if you don't already have burn-in...

I'm assuming the contrast is low on his tv. With high contrast, the picture is terrible and I doubt he's kept it at such a high level.

i have had the tv for like 5 months and did anything i wanted. So you mean i should have the Picture, color, sharpness, ect all down below 50?

and if i keep the contrast low, can i watch dvds with bars and it will not burn in?

ugh godddamnit, if i turn all the contrast down to 30, it looks so dark! i had it on high contrast with everything up to 70 LMAO. man im so damn lucky, its either me or my parents watching dvds each day, and me playing xbox/ps2 on it, for 5 months and not even caring about the burn in, cuz it wasnt on my mind. Seriously with high contrast it looks way better, but with low its so dark, and looks ugly, i knew i should have gotten that DLP. :(

What was dark when the contrast was set at 30? Contrast controls the white level and if it's too low will make whites look grey. It also could be that you didn't like it simply because you've got so used to seeing an overly bright image. Most people dislike a properly set up display because compared to how they're used to seeing it the picture just looks wrong when it fact the picture they've been watching is nothing close to how it should look. Give a calibration disc a try or at least use the optimode feature on many THX discs. Contrast and brightness often effect each other so if you only turned your contrast down and didn't adjust the brightness along with it the picture won't look correct either.

which calibration disk is the best?

If you have no intention of entering the service menus and just want to set the user controls properly then I think the Sound and Vision Home Theater disc is the best. It's cheaper than Avia and easier to use than DVE.

oh okay, and if i set the controls properly can i watch dvds with blackbars and play xbox with out having to worry about burn ins?