8 replies to this topic

[Maglorfin]

My dear friends, I have a question and I know many of you will be able to put my fears to rest. I've recently bought a new LED TV, a 37" Samsung model UE37C5100. I've tried it with everything already - DVDs, Blu-rays, normal TV etc. and it works great, I'm very happy with the terrific picture and its overal performance. However, there is a sentence or two in the user manual that mystifies me, maybe even scares me to some degree:

Do not watch in 4:3 format for a long time. Traces of borders displayed on the left, right and centre of the screen may cause image retention (screen burn) which are not covered by the warranty.

And later again:

Avoid displaying still images (like jpeg picture files) or still image element (like TV programme logo, panorama or 4:3 image format, stock or news bar at screen bottom etc.) on the screen. Constant displaying of still picture can cause ghosting of LED screen, which will affect image quality. To reduce risk of this effect, please follow below recommendations:
• Avoid displaying the same TV channel for long periods.
• Always try do display any image on full screen, use TV set picture format menu for best possible match.
• Reduce brightness and contrast values to minimum required to achieve desired picture quality, exceeded values may speed up the burnout process.
• Frequently use all TV features designed to reduce image retention and screen burnout, refer to proper user manual section for details.
WARNINGS: Image retention, commonly known as screen burn-in, can occur on most types of television if the same image is displayed continuously. The most common causes of image retention are logos that remain stationary on the TV screen. These logos are common on many programmes received via a Set-top Box. To reduce this risk, avoid displaying still images for long durations and lower the brightness or contrast settings to decrease the intensity of the picture. Extended viewing of movies and programs in aspect ratios that are different from the aspect ratio of the TV may cause image retention. Always endeavour to avoid black borders top or bottom by using the zoom function. This will help eliminate the black borders and fit the picture to the entire area of the screen. Using a video game console may cause image retention and is not recommended. When using a PC input, avoid displaying still images for long durations and reduce the brightness or contrast settings to decrease the intensity of the picture.
IMPORTANT: Image retention issues are not covered by your Samsung® warranty.

Since I'm a MacGyver fan, I will definitely watch the show's many episodes on this TV (I have all seven seasons on DVD and also plan to buy some more 80s and 90s TV shows which are also in 4:3 format), and also most of my DVDs and BRs are in 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 format (1.73:1 is necessary to fill the complete screen of my TV) which both leave black borders at the top and bottom of the screen.

So my question is, do I have to be afraid of the screen burn after watching two or three MacGyver episodes one after another, or after watching e.g. the extended cuts of the LotR trilogy? It seems even the TV programme logos are a problem ... I really thought we were long past screen burn problems with the new LCD screens and that only the old CRTs were afflicted by this problem. Or is this only the problem of these new LED screens? So how worried do you guys think I should be?

[Drax]

I can't speak for LED, but my plasma screen in the lounge room is from 2007, and back then images would burn-in quite easily, so I would have to use the "screen-wipe" feature quite often, which frequently got rid of any trace of ghosting. However, as the TV got older, I found that I had to do this less and less. These days, it doesn't really burn-in at all.

[king mark]

It's still a LCD so technically you don't have to worry about "burn in". I think the manufacturers still put warnings in the manual only for legal reasons.

What you see with the logos is temporary and my older model does the same thing . I notice If I play Star Wars I will see the main title logo into the next scenes .It's not "burn in", it's some other phenomenon, some kind of temporary image retention

[Marian Schedenig]

Different things to consider... Often burn in warnings are probably just there to be safe, even though the technology doesn't actually support the effect. On the other hand, I believe I've heard of burn in (or at least some kind of retention effect) where it's supposedly not possible. Also, some types of image retention are temporary. As far as I recall, liquid crystals can get "stuck", resulting in an image retention effect, but switching them a couple of times (e.g. by changing between black and white) gets them unstuck again. Also, burn in definitely WAS a problem on CRTs, but you were still able to watch letterboxed material on those without too much danger.

What I never understood is: Why don't they make the (TV-provided) black bars back? At least on my old Sony Trinitron, they were more of a dark, purplish brown. Which, unlike black, had a very slight danger of burning in on a CRT.

[Quint]

I wouldn't really worry about it. You would have to watch hours and hours of 4:3 continuously for it to have any effect.

[king mark]

Well if I judge by my LCD computer screen where I have the same wallpaper for months and no screen saver>>> no burn in

[Maglorfin]

I wouldn't really worry about it. You would have to watch hours and hours of 4:3 continuously for it to have any effect.

Yeah, I thought so too. Thank you all guys, I feel much better now. I also thought to myself that the warnings might be there for legal or whatever reasons, though this is stupid since it only confuses customers. But there was also some doubt that maybe this might be a problem only with the new LED-illuminated screens. I did some research on the web but didn't come up with much ... As far as LCD is concerned, I've had a 22" Samsung monitor for the last 3 years, I've always been very happy with it, watched a lot of 4:3 stuff on it and I've never had even the slightest problem with image retention or burn-in.

So thank you again everybody for your help, and if somebody finds out any new information about this issue he's of course welcome to post it here.

[Koray Savas]

DLPFTW!

[Maglorfin]

I had to look DLP TV up and I still don't fully understand what it is. But amongst its pros is: No possibility of screen burn-in. Very novel.

Concerning the screen burn-in problem on the LCD and similar screens, Wikipedia has the following to say:

Plasma displays are highly susceptible to burn-in, while LCD-type displays are generally less so. Because of the more rapid luminance degradation of current organic compounds used in OLED-type displays, OLED is even more susceptible to burn-in than plasma. In addition, the wide variation in luminance degradation with OLED will cause noticeable color drift over time (where one of the red-green-blue colors becomes more prominent).

In the case of LCDs, the mechanics of burn-in are different than plasma and OLED, which develop burn-in from luminance degradation of the light-emitting pixels. For LCDs, burn-in develops in some cases because pixels permanently lose their ability to return to their relaxed state after a continued static usage profile. In more typical usage profiles this image persistence in LCD is only transient. All major LCD manufacturers' warranties exclude coverage for burn-in (permanent image persistence) as a result.

Both plasma-type and LCD-type displays exhibit a similar phenomenon called transient image persistence, which is sometimes confused with screen burn but is not permanent. In the case of plasma-type displays transient image persistence is caused by charge build-up in the pixel cells (not cumulative luminance degradation as with burn-in), which can be seen sometimes when a bright image that was set against a dark background is replaced by a dark background only; this image retention is usually released once a typical-brightness image is displayed and does not inhibit the display's typical viewing image quality.