Questions About CRT Burning...
 

I recently got a 51" HDTV and it's a CRT projection TV (Hitachi 51F59 or 51F59A on the manual along with other sizes). I now find out about these burning of images on the screen and I have a few questions.

Firstly, I know very little about HD. This TV was bought at the spur of a moment because my parents got it but it was too big for the space they planned to put it in. Secondly, I love video gaming. I read that you shouldn't play games on these systems. Is this true? Or could I play an hour at a time without worrying too much. I like stuff dating back to the Atari 2600, so. At the same time, I read TV logos can burn into the screen as well. So I figure there can't be much of a difference from video gaming to TV.

So now where I get confused is if this burning is so prominent, why would anyone even want one of these? If you watch TV it is essentially, seemingly unavoidable. I need help because I guess my parents could sell the TV to someone else if it can't fit my needs. I'm just really confused as to how long it takes to actually burn an image into the screen. In my manual it makes zero mentions about playing video games on it, so that left me even more confused.

They did purchase the extended 5 year warranty from The Brick, so, essentially, am I safe anyways? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

First of all, burn-in is very easy to avoid and takes almost an intentional effort to acheive. Two best tips - avoid static images and reduce brightness / contrast. A proper calibration either by AVIA / DVE or better yet, an ISF professional will do wonders for you (especially a set as nice as that one).

As for gaming, it's true that it is reccommended that you do not use projection units to video games, but plenty of folks use DLP and RP CRT for gaming and you can too. I think you'd be fine if you make sure to change to a full HD station for about 30-60 mins after gaming (many people use Discovery HD for this).

Burn-in is not unavoidable. Taking some simple precautions will allow you years of enjoyable use from your set without it ever being an issue.

What about older games like Atari 2600 where literally the whole screen is one color for the 30 mins?

My main problem is I watch a lot of hockey and obviously the score is on the screen at all tims. I had read about turning the contrast down but wasn't sure what it'd do in relation to the quality. The screen will not need to be overly bright as I'll not be sitting far back from it. Not to mention I don't even know how I'm going to hook my TV up to HD, how much is the box you need to do this? Are full frame channels gonna burn it out anyways?

If I knew where to buy a 45 inch normal TV, I'd be happy with that. But it seems everywhere just has HD bigger TVs now which leaves me in a bind. Plus I'm getting this for a cheap price and I feel all I'm gonna do is end up selling it for nothing. Of course if the bulbs burn out every 6 months, that's not a big deal.

Burn-in takes longer than 30 minutes. A lot longer. Just vary your viewing. Don't leave the same static logos on the screen for several hours all the time. Keep your contrast at correct levels. Get a calibration dvd. Generally display stores have contrast on torch mode (100%) which is awful. Calibrated contrast should be between 35-50 usually. If contrast is set to high colors bleed and whites blowout. You lose detail.

Wherever you get your HD from usually provides the reciever needed. Usually at a small monthly fee.

I'm just worried one night I leave the TV and fall asleep on the weather channel, next morning I wake up and the thing is ruined because of one minor mistake.

Yeah, you don't want to do that.

BTW, what on earth is a "normal tv". :lol:

Full frame you will want to watch with one of the stretch or crop modes. Either that or with the option for grey bars on the sides instead of black (slows uneven wear).

I have it hooked up right now. Watching a DVD. If I turn the contrast down to 20% the screen is incredibly dark, how do I make it so it looks normal while maintaining the 20% that prevents burning more? I turned it up to 43% and it still doesn't look any better.

EDIT: The movie is 2.35:1, will the black bars burn in?

http://search.deepdiscountdvd.com/se...nd&isort=score
Don't think about it, just buy it. Under $17 shipped, I'm sure it won't break the bank. Your 20% setting is probably too low, it is different for every TV. The DVE disc will help you get it correct. The contrast is the most important setting to get right.

The CRTs are most susceptible to problems when they are new. You should probably try to stick to full screen viewing for the first few hundred hours of the TV's life. Yes, letterboxing for 2.35:1 movies can burn-in, so can old video games. I would probably keep the Atari stuff on a different TV for the first year just to be safe. Or take Slayer's suggestion to stretch or zoom stuff to fill the screen for now. It's only temporary.

After 1000 hours are on the TV, you can probably do almost anything to it without any problems. I still wouldn't go away for the weekend and leave CNN on, though.

Follow my friend Spiky's advice - get DVE and pop it in. But generally speaking, keeping it below 50% of both should do you well.

The worst thing you can do is leave it displaying static images. I imagine that the weather channel has moving and varied images, so that's probably not the worst thing that can happen.

Atari presents a unique problem. I'd probably stay away from playing from more than 1 hour at a time, then change to an HD channel for 15 mins or so before resuming playing.

Nice thread, I just picked up this TV and hooked it up about 30 minutes ago. For a guy without cable, it was sure nice to hook up the antenna and get new HD channels!

I think I am going to pick up that DVE cd. The contrast definately needs to be primed. It appears that the tv is calibrated a little poorly though, the HD logo on ABC is cut off on the edge of the screen.

I just want to chime in here and say that I agree with what most are saying about calibrating the display and burn in.

I just want to add that when you do you should try and control your room lighting as much as possible. What I mean is that if you calibrate at night with subdued lighting it will look one way. Then you'll wake up in the morning with sunlight coming into the room and the image will look too dark are washed out and you'll start adjusting it again thinking that it's all wrong. You need to have somewhat consistent lighting so that the settings and PQ can remain fairly constant.

Also it's very possible and quite possibly probable that you'll dislike that calibrated image at first. You'll think it's too bright, too dark, too sharp, too soft, too red, too green, etc. The fact is that if your eyes are so used to watching an uncalibrated picture all these years then it will take a while to get used to how it should look. Give it at least a week before you start making further adjustments and deciding you don't like it. You might be surprised in a week that you're seeing more detail, your eyes don't get as fatigued as before and the colors look more natural and maybe more vibrant than what you're used to.

You need to calibrate both contrast and brightness correctly. There should be a big difference between the light level with 20% contrast compared to 43%, but you still need to use brightness to control the black level. Contrast is the white level control and brightness controls the black level. Your set may also need gamma correction to bring out more shadow detail. I don't know if you set has that or not. If it's not one of the settings you can find easy it'll probably be in the service menu or your dvd player might have a gamma control that can be raise a bit.

2.35:1 bars can eventually cause "uneven wear", which is technically a form of burn in. It basically means the 2.35:1 section will wear the tubes slightly faster than the area where the black bars were. This means eventually the middle area will be slightly darker than the top and bottom. This is something that could take thousands of hours with a properly calibrated set though, unless you watch 2.35:1 material all of the time.

Yes, I can definitely notice the difference between night and day. The TV looks fine in light, but at night the image sucks in dark scenes in movies, an area I need to fix as I am a horror fan. I am going to get that disc to try to make it right.

I've also come to the realization of no Atari/NES on it. I think SNES/Genesis may slide but I wouldn't chance it. but if I can play PS2 on it, that seems ok. I will just put my normal 27 inch TV in the closet and slide it out when I want to play. Easy enough, it's not that much work. I was playing video games on it tonight and I noticed in NHL 06, on the scoreboard when I would skate up the ice, the blue would dim and become clearer, then when I skated down the ice it would go dark blue. I assume this is what people mean when they say game developers are trying to prevent burn.

Thing about "turn it to an HD channel when you're done" well, I don't have an HD box, hell I don't have it hooked up at all to cable (this is coming, re-doing my room, right now I'm just playing around with it for a few minutes when I get time). Could I just put a normal DVD in? I noticed once that when my screen went to black there were some remains of the image that was on it the prior second (can't remember if it was before or after I adjusted it), but it went away and I would imagine that is a sign of burn waiting to happen.

Just go buy a set of rabbit ears. I hooked it up with a cheap set of those last night and got 5 HD channels and that is in the basement of my house. Unless you are out in the boonies you should get at least some HD out of it.

Rabbit ears get you HD but normal cable doesn't? That's weird.

Yep, that was a downgrade to this model I believe. It has an OTA HD tuner, but not the Card for cable HD. It's not an issue for me, but it's pretty crappy to lose a feature in a new model.

Your set is in desperate need of a good calibration if dark scenes at night time are not good. CRT destroys all digitals with dark scenes. No comparison whatsoever. It is the king of black levels and on/off contrast.

BTW, some games nowadays add features in the options menu to disaable static things on the screen (ie health meters and stuff like that). I doubt an NHL game does, but some others might.

I personally think you are freaking yourself out too much regarding burn-in. Burn-in is very easy to avoid. If proper care is taken the set can easily last thousands of hours without burn-in.

Does anyone know what the Night/Day setting on this tv is for?

My guess is day setting would put the set in torch mode (contrast set way too high). You should be able to check the brightness/contrast settings to see how they change.

I don't know anything about the model you have but if you do have a built in HD tuner it most likely has QAM. This will decode most HD signals from your regular cable if it is connected to the digital coaxial on your TV. Most HD channels on cable isn't scrambled; at least where I live they aren't. I can get Discovery HD, INHD, most local HD such as ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX without the cable box.

Yeah, I figured it out, its basically just a way to have 2 different settings that you can switch between. Sometimes I over think these things.

Mrhan, it is weird, but this TV does not have the QAM capability. They removed it from the newer models, I assume to save money. The OTA HD works fine though.

To anyone on the fence, I would highly recommend this TV, for the price it can't be beat and apparantly it would be sold much longer.

So how does one correct burn in if it has already occurred? I'm visiting the folks this week and noticed some light imaging across the bottom that matches the CNBC logo and stock ticker. :( My dad watches that channel during the day and I noticed that CNBC even displays their logo and ticker during the commercials too. :mad: There is no break unless you change channels and he doesn't do that too often.

This is a Samsung CRT RPTV that is almost four years old. I tune it every year during Christmas with DVE and I ran it through the test patterns again last night to confirm the settings.

Any thoughts or is it too late?

If you can get him to change the channel, it will go away over time. I bought a 2001 Samsung RPTV 2 years ago with a "MUTE" burn in the center. Since then it has completely disappeared.

It would probably be easier for me to petition CNBC to move their logo around the screen once in a while. ;)

Actually, now that you mention it will eventually go away, I'm think I may get my dad a small, standard CRT TV in his office to just watch CNBC on. It hurts me just thinking about their nice TV getting burned this way...

Thanks for the info. :)

Get him a nice LCD TV in his office. Single CRTs also burn-in.