Digsy Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 I have a 42" plasma screen (Hitachi 42PMA400E) on my lounge wall. I bought it about 2 years ago and (touch wood) its as good as the day it arrived. I looked into the screen burn thing pretty thoroughly back when I was getting the screen, so this info is a bit old and the technology may have moved on. Firstly, there are two types of screen "burn". The first is probably better called "image retention". This is caused when the gas inside the plasma pixel becomes excited through displaying a bright, static image for an extended period of time (which can be as short as a few minutes). When the image is removed, the gas remains more excited than it should be and you see a pale ghost after image in its place until the gas returns to its normal state. This effect is temporary and will usually dissappear in a few minutes. On moving pictures it is usually not noticable. The second effect is true "screen burn". Like image retention, screen burn occurs when a bright static image is displayed for a long length of time. Just how long varies acocrding to the image and use - more of this later. Screen burn is again brought about by the behaviour of the gas in the plasma pixel, but this time the image is displayed for so long that the pixel literally becomes "worn out" and the gas does not emit as much light as before. The effect is a permanent dark after-image overlayed on the screen. Screen manufacturers have tried to work around thes problems. The first is to include a screen shiftint function which randomly moves the image around the screen by a few pixels every few minutes. In theory this is sound but in reality the kind of image that produces damaging screen effects is larger than a few pixels, so you cannot shift the image enough to make a difference. This does work if you use the screen as a PC monitor, however, as it stops static text being burnt in. Another work around it to include screen "wipe" modes. Two examples of these are "white out" and "inverse image". The first, as it suggests, displays a totally white image for as long as it is selected. The second displays the input signal in negative so that light areas are dark, and vice-versa. What these functions attempt to do is actually "wear out" the rest of the screen so that the damaged portion does not show as much, so they are pretty much a last resort. The white out mode can be used to inspect your screen for damage or dead pixels, too. Finally, as mentioned above, plasma pixels get dimmer over time. If this happens uniformly then the net result is a darker image. The factory settings usually have the brighness and contrast turned up way too high, so you can reduce these manually to increase the life of your screen. Some manufacturers have an option where you let the screen control the brightness, and it will increase it gradually over time to maintain the overall brighness of the picture as the pixels wear out.` IMHO the biggest problem with a plasma screen is that it can dictate what you watch and how you watch it. Many of the screen burn threads on AVForums have a theme like "my wife watches QVC all day every day and the log is now burnt in" or "the menu screen from my kids favourite DVD / game is burnt in". Image retention can happen frighteningly quickly on bright, static images (red and yellow are the worst colours on my screen). repeated image retention will lead to proper screen burn. If you suspect that your screen may be used in this manner then a plasma may not be for you. However, I have used mine as a PC monitor and TV for 2 years and I do not even have a hint of screen burn. About the only thing I do is use one of the zoom modes to shuffle the brighter logos off the top or bottom of the screen if I am watching a channel with a bright logo (the music channels on Sky are the worst, and I don't go anywhere near BBC News 24 - too much red!!) When it is hooked up to my PC I try to keep aware if theer are any large blocks of colour that are not moving. The taskbar is set to auto-hide and I generally keep the windows switching and moving. The other thing I did which I am still not 100% sure isn't an old wives' tale was to "run in" my screen. Plasmas are supposed to be most suscpetoble to burn when they are new and some people recommend setting the brightness to bery low and running the screen for 100 hours or so on a non-logo'ed source. I piggy backed a signal to my screen off of my old TV and ran it every evening for a month before using it properly. I have had one or two image retention scary moments but so far no true "burns". HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJ Posted March 14, 2005 Author Share Posted March 14, 2005 Great info - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyJawa Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 Yeah - I bought mine in the Summer and have run it in darker, just turned it up now - TBH though you get used to it like that and its not dark to the point of being an issue I certainly wouldn't be without it now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Peace Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 We are on the look out for a Plasma Screen in the next couple of weeks so all this info is great...good timing. They need quite a bit of nursing it seems... Great Advice ...Thanks Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 What ever you go for do check that it's HDTV compatible. Sky are set to start broadcasting in HD late 2005 early 2006 and the difference is supposed to be amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJ Posted March 14, 2005 Author Share Posted March 14, 2005 What ever you go for do check that it's HDTV compatible. Sky are set to start broadcasting in HD late 2005 early 2006 and the difference is supposed to be amazing. I am assuming that the majority of plasma TV's will not be HDTV compatable then - certainly not the ones that are advetised at sales prices So does that mean the current models will be useless come the HDTV revolution or that they just wont be as good a quality as the HDTV enabled sets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyJawa Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 Depends, quite often they just need another board to plug in to make it compatible........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digsy Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 The key thing about HDTV is the number of scan lines, yes? Don't forget that plasmas and LCD TVs have a native resolution so there might be a limitation in the screen itself. What is the res of HDTV? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Peace Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 What ever you go for do check that it's HDTV compatible. Sky are set to start broadcasting in HD late 2005 early 2006 and the difference is supposed to be amazing. Yeah i agree..if you can afford the extra..its worth it...there are a couple of European Channels already broadcasting in HDTV I been told...the results are amazing... You can even buy a HDTV home video camera now as well at around £2.5k though. Does anyone have any news on HDTV DVD players yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 You assume correctly. I think it was What Hi FI (Sound and Vision) magazine just last month reported that out of over 100 Plasmas on sale in UK shops only that they enquired about only 6 !! were HDTV compatable and that none !!! of the sales people even mentioned it to them. The standard has been completly settled by manufactyrers since 1999 broadcst across Japan for the last 10 years and is rapidly becoming the norm in America too where ABC, CBC, FOX etc etc all broadcast films in widescreen with Dolby digital soundtracks too. Personally I'd do a bit of reading up on the subject just to get familiar before going to a decent dealer (I've used Seven Oakes a few times and found them to be helpful) and demoing a few set ups there. I did this a couple of years ago and ended up coming away not with a Plasma as I'd originall gone to view / buy but with a Projector which is fantastic. http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/ Oh and for anyone that's seen those ads for cheep plasmas and been tempted, beware !! http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=185630&page=1&pp=15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 Does anyone have any news on HDTV DVD players yet? Last I heard was that both of the projected replacment formats for DVD (those being HD DVD and Blu-Ray) have settled on their resolution which at 1920x1080 (gulp !!) give you some kind of idea as to the increase in qaulity we can expect from HD formats when compared to our (50 yearish old) Pal format which if I remember rightly is 576 X 720. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digsy Posted March 14, 2005 Share Posted March 14, 2005 1920x1080??? Effing hell! That's going to be one expensive plasma screen, and you might as well forget about HDTV LCDs for a few years! Mine is 1024x1024 but the vertical res is interlaced from 512 rows. PAL's true vertical res is 288 rows in 2 interlaced fields per frame (25 frames per second). Is HDTV progressive scan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 I know nothing about Plasma stuff but I know about bargains... http://ws3.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=LG-MZ42PZ45V-PLASMA&SID=949442484d311897f8c60cb415efab27 http://ws3.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=PANA-TH42PWD6B-BLK Could be the worst unit ever, could be OK, someone is bound to know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Peace Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Last I heard was that both of the projected replacment formats for DVD (those being HD DVD and Blu-Ray) have settled on their resolution which at 1920x1080 (gulp !!) give you some kind of idea as to the increase in qaulity we can expect from HD formats when compared to our (50 yearish old) Pal format which if I remember rightly is 576 X 720. Wow...the pictures are going to be awesome....well whatever we get here will have to be HDTV compatible and if its too expensive we will wait...just been reading the link to the AV forum...'Tiny' he he well what do people expect!!! Its Like getting a flight on Sleazyjet then complaining because its going to be delayed....people who go on cheap package tours to Spain for £250 and then complain they have been sent to a Building site... WTF do they expect, tiny have got an appalling reputation common knowledge i wouldn't even buy a pen off of them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyJawa Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 I know nothing about Plasma stuff but I know about bargains... http://ws3.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=LG-MZ42PZ45V-PLASMA&SID=949442484d311897f8c60cb415efab27 http://ws3.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=PANA-TH42PWD6B-BLK Could be the worst unit ever, could be OK, someone is bound to know The second one of those (Panasonic) is the one I have and it is a superb and VERY highly rated screen Its leagues above the LG. Again, just have a look on AV Forums at some threads about em! I paid a fair bit more than that too!!! But even at the price I paid its stonking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitelightning Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Personally I would spend the money on the Supra. But my mate bought his 50" HDTV plasma screen for £4.5k a few weeks ago. Obviously, as I have a bigger willy than he has - I don't feel the need to buy one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digsy Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Personally I would spend the money on the Supra. Yeah but you get shit reception on the Supra, even with the aerial up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz Walker Posted March 15, 2005 Share Posted March 15, 2005 Yeah but you get shit reception on the Supra, even with the aerial up. lol, class Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 CJ , Green Peace, did either of you get a new tv yet???? if so, which one. Unfortunately for me, my 32" crt just blew up on me - So I am going to have to treat myself to a plasma!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJ Posted March 23, 2005 Author Share Posted March 23, 2005 Not yet - still looking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 oh well, good luck! Neil, How do you plug your DVD player - TV tuner etc into yours?? I've just been having a look on av forums, and it seems to be a complex array of different connection cards!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Peace Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 CJ , Green Peace, did either of you get a new tv yet???? if so, which one. Unfortunately for me, my 32" crt just blew up on me - So I am going to have to treat myself to a plasma!!!!!! Not yet either still looking...but got offered a 42" Pioneer Plasma HDTV with HDMA connector for £2k in Tottenham Court Road...so getting there! Make sure if they say its HDTV that it has a HDMA connector or it wont work...personally I wouldn't bother with anything less than HDTV if its too expensive then its better to wait as they will drop in price later in the year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kunwho Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Sky HD will probably be at 720p rather 1080i. All new plasma, LCD and DLP will likely have a resolution 1280x720p. Even if you have a PC set up to your new HDTV compatiable screen running 1080i it will scale to 720p. TBH, I find it very hard to tell the difference and I run HDTV on a 8ft screen HDTV is well recommended if you can upgrade to it in 2006 with SKY. DVD HD format still being decided over but I hope Blu-ray will win. You can most info here http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=104 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kunwho Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 There a nice 50" Samsung HDTV ready screen at Unbeatable http://www.unbeatable.co.uk/CatalogueItem_19352.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kunwho Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 And those super high speed broadband can download trailers and demo from the net. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/HDVideo.aspx Some eye candy demo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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