Prevent Image Retention and Burn-in
Note: This article is a summary of many articles and posts. Since everyone talks about the topic and questions more information, I thought that I should summarize in a single thread. Thanks and cheers.
However loudly the manufacturers' may claim, (temporary) image retention and (permanent) burn-in are a fact of life on any HDTV. Plasmas are much more susceptible to it of course, but it can occur on LCDs, though it takes much more abuse for it to happen. It depends on the quality of the display and the frequency, duration and brightness with which static or repetitive content is shown. Users of plasma TV should be very careful. There is an initial period during which we need to be vigilant.
Break-In Period
This period is also called sometimes as the run-in period. Break-in is a term used to describe a process which involves ageing the phosphors on a plasma TV safely during the initial 100-200 hours in which they are most susceptible to being damaged. This is because when phosphors are new they will burn the brightest, increasing the risk of burn-in. This somewhat-dated Panasonic FAQ recommends a break-in period of 100 hours, while the Samsung FAQ recommends up to 250 hours. Professional ISF calibrators will recommend anywhere up to 500 hours of phosphor ageing before an instrumented calibration is to be performed, to let the phosphors settle and achieve uniform brightness. There doesn't appear to be any precise figure, but the common denominator in all of this is that it makes sense to play it safe for the first 100 hours at the very least. During this period try to avoid displaying any static content, don't display any black bars, and don't use an extremely high Contrast setting, nor picture presets which have a high brightness level, such as Dynamic mode.
To summarize:
- There is no hard or fast rule as to how many hours this "extended period" can be - it can be as little as a few hours, or as long as several days or weeks, and varies depending on your settings and the quality of the display.
- On a plasma, conduct a "Break-in" period during at least the first 100-200 or so hours when the phosphors are new and burn more brightly, and thus more susceptible to burn-in.
- On an LCD, turn off the power for 8 hours after every 24 hours or so of cumulative viewing usage to prevent retained charge in the crystals. For example, turn the TV power off overnight after every week or two of normal viewing. Also power off the TV if it's to be left unused for long periods.
- On an LCD, avoid high ambient temperatures, as this accelerates the degradation of the liquid crystals in the display. The higher the temperature, the greater the risk of image retention and image sticking. Provide greater ventilation and cooling around the TV.
To reduce temporary image retention, and prevent burn-in or image sticking on both plasmas and LCDs, you should take the following steps:
- Cut down on contrast and brighness:
Contrast setting controls the white levels while brightness controls the black levels. During the break-in period or run-in period, cut down contrast to 35% or below. Brightness reduction is not strictly necessary but because we have cut down on contrast (white levels), it will be good to reduce brightness (black levels) to adjust the picture so that picture quality is uniformly adjusted.
Golden Rule: Do not use Dynamic or Vivid picture setting during this period.
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- Reduce or eliminate display of static content:
TV channels and DTH have logos in the corners. Video games have scoreboards, controls and other stationary content. This is typical form of static content. As far as possible reduce or even eliminate such static content display by:
- using the zoom mode so that channel and other logos are pushed out of the frame
- switching channels often and not watching the same channel for hours together
- turning on Pixel Shifting or Pixel Orbiting or the equivalent function on the TV's picture advanced settings, if available
- avoid display of wallpapers, photos, etc. for a long time
- avoid news channels' viewing for a long time because of the tickers
Golden Rule: Vary the type of content you view such that no portion of the screen displays the same image for any extended period of time.
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- Avoid letterbox (2.35:1) mode or pillar box (4:3) mode for long duration
Letterbox mode is when video is displayed in long rectangular window with black bars on top and bottom. Pillar box mode is opposite wherein the image is diaplayed in tradition 4:3 aspect ratio with black bars on each side. Viewing in these formats causes the "black" areas not to age evenly with the "exposed" area. Some SD channels show movies in letterbox mode in 4:3 format, i.e., black bars will be seen even on traditional 4:3 CRT screens. When such a channel is seen on 16:9 HDTV, the letterbox is further elongated and black bars cover nearly 50% of the screen area.
With overuse, this will be visible on screen with different colour shades in the aged and non-aged areas. Modern TVs are more robust but during the run-in time, avoid such display for more than 2 hours or a movie a day. Some TVs also have capability to display white/gray bars instead of black in the pillar box mode. But this option is not available for the letterbox mode. Alternatively, use the zoom mode with proper aspect ratio so black bars are not seen at all.
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- Use break-in slides:
Break-in slides are excellent way of aging the panel evenly. Evangelo's Slides serve the purpose very well. To run these slides, do the following:
- Download the slides
- Transfer them to a USB drive. It is best if the USB drive does not contain any other media content.
- Connect the USB to your TV
- Power on the TV and then go to the media player
- The slides will be displayed. Run all of them as a slideshow.
- Run the slideshow for a couple of hour or so everyday, gradually reducing the time each week.
Alternatively, you can also use the Break-in DVD. You can accelerate the process and also make it even safer by using this Break-in DVD. Routinely run the DVD overnight for example, and combined with regular viewing, after a couple of weeks you'll easily reach over 200 hours of break-in.
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- Enable any Screen Saver functionality on your TV, DVD or Blu-ray player so that it kicks in when the display or player is idle for a period of time. This prevents burn-in if you fall asleep in front of your TV for example. Refer to the relevant user manuals for details.
The general rule is that the brighter the static portions of an image, and the longer they are continuously displayed without any break, the greater the chance for long-term image retention or permanent pixel damage. Protect your investment by playing it safe,
but don't go overboard either. Viewing a movie with black bars for a few hours for example is perfectly fine on any display and is precisely what they are designed to do; constantly viewing a TV station with a bright fixed logo and with a high Contrast setting on the other hand is a recipe for potential disaster.
There are a few ways you can get through the break-in period with a minimum of fuss. The simplest is to just watch a variety of regular content in a conservative picture mode, such as Cinema, Movie or THX mode, at the default settings, or close to them. If viewing a movie or TV show with black bars, or fixed station logos or tickers, use the Aspect Ratio function on the TV or player to zoom in to the point where the bars, logos or tickers are no longer visible. Do this for several hours a day over a month and you're in the clear.
Although what you've read so far may alarm you, modern plasmas and LCDs are actually very resistant to being permanently damaged by burn-in or image sticking as long as they're not abused. Break-in is simply a sensible precaution, not an absolute necessity.
A note of caution though: although plasmas are ideal for gaming because of minimal input lag, especially in Game mode (See the Motion Handling section for more details), anecdotal evidence suggests that long-term image retention is still a problem when gaming on a plasma. It's easy to lose track of time while gaming and as a result you may play continuously for several hours at a time. The typically very bright static portions of a game image, such as the Heads Up Display (HUD) elements (Score, Health Bar, Crosshair etc.) may leave stubborn image residue or in some cases become burnt-in to the display. As such, gaming during the initial break-in period is not wise, and subsequently, you should either reduce the opacity of any static elements like the HUD, or remove them altogether where the option is available, and also break up your gaming session by frequently switching to regular content for a few minutes or running the scrolling bars every hour for example. Once again, it is better to be safe than sorry.
Fixing Severe Image Retention
If you already have some form of image retention or image sticking on your HDTV, try the following:
- For mild image retention, display a full screen of regular moving content. This should eventually wash away any signs of the retained image within a few minutes to a few hours. For example, run a movie with no black bars or static logos for a couple of hours and see if this removes or reduces the retained image. If you see an improvement, repeat as necessary.
- For more stubborn image retention, if you have a Scrolling Bar or similar function on your TV to wash away image retention, run it for 5-10 minutes to see if it reduces the problem. Repeat as necessary and combine with the first method above to remove the image retention.
- For serious image retention, run full-screen regular content with no black bars or static logos for an extended period, such as 24-48 hours continuously, to reduce or remove the image retention.
- On an LCD, aside from running a full screen of regular moving content for an extended period, at some point turn off the TV, unplug it from the power, and leave it off for 24 hours to see if this helps resolve the issue.
Image retention, burn-in and image sticking are explicitly not covered under the manufacturer's warranty as these issues are risks inherent to the technology.
Sources:
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TweakGuides.com - A Guide to HDTVs
- A great many articles on this forum
- other internet sites
Do not ask questions. Shoot first. Ask later. 
