Plasma TV settings and facts

madbullram

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I am posting a compilation of various information I collected while learning about Plasma and also working with my PV8. Latest model Plasmas do not suffer from burn-in but its better to be safe during the first 100 hrs at least. Though this contains, PV8 info it applies to all Plasmas:

The following settings were derived from our Panasonic TH42PX80 review unit which was calibrated with reference to D65 and high-definition Rec.709 standards over HDMI in a dimly lit environment for critical viewing. To apply these settings, first reset the values to the default factory settings, and then follow the instructions. This is necessary because Panasonic did not bother to include a numerical guide for each individual control.

While these values provided a picture closest to D65 for us, they may not be optimal for your Panasonic TH42PX80 due to variations in ambient light, video source or between units. We recommend that you use a basic calibration disc like the Digital Video Essentials HD DVD or if you want to avoid HD DVDs like the plague since their demise the upcoming Digital Video Essentials Blu-Ray to finetune your settings.

Check: Panasonic TH42PX80 Best Settings After Calibration for the settings

Initially there will be some of you who may find the picture too yellow/ warm, and are tempted to switch back to [Colour Balance] "Normal". According to our measurements (and eyes), [Colour Balance] "Warm" gave the colour temperature closest to the D65 standard adopted by broadcast and movie studios. We suggest that you persevere with these settings for 3 days to 1 week, by which point hopefully you'll appreciate how natural the colours are, and won't revert to cooler colour temperature which looks brighter but inaccurate.

From our experience, these settings are good enough to break-in your Panasonic TH42PX80, as long as you don't go do something daft like display a static logo or the Windows desktop for more than 30 minutes which will greatly increase the risk of permanent screenburn. If in doubt, just lower your contrast and brightness even more, and only apply these settings after the first 200 hours.


First 100 hours is most crucial period of the Plasma and to reduce burn-in do the following:
1. If possible avoid Gaming and PC input during first 100 hrs. Txt in games tends to be at full levels to stand out thus running those pixels at max with all the rest not, this may lead to a slight mismatch in life for those pixels.
2. Stick to 16:9 viewing
3. Avoid display a static logo or the Windows desktop or pausing a DVD for more than 30 minutes which will greatly increase the risk of permanent screen burn
4. Basic thumb-rule is during first 100 hrs reduce the contrast and brightness to less than 50%
 
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What is plasma burn-in?
If you're familiar with the technology behind plasma televisions, you know that the gas contained in each individual pixel receives a charge from a set of electrodes and produces ultraviolet light photons. These light particles hit a phosphor coating on the pixel's walls. If the same picture remains on the screen long enough the phosphors will age prematurely and they will produce a less intense light and color. The phosphor's continuous light will also burn the screen itself, leaving a ghost of an image. This burning of the screen, and the residual image it creates, is called burn-in. Older CRT monitors, as well as ATM machines, are prone to burn-in. This was the reason behind the invention of screen savers; having a randomly shifting image displayed whenever the picture was constant for a certain period of time helps prevent burn-in.

Burn-in occurs in 2 steps: premature phosphor aging and screen searing. A still image will create an unchanging electrical current in each plasma pixel. The resulting continuous flow of photons forces the television's phosphors to release the same hue of light and this, when maintained for a long enough period of time, will damage the phosphors' ability to produce this color light. They will become conditioned, and will never stop producing a weak shade of that same color light, even when no charge is being sent through the pixel. This affects other images that require a change in the pixel's color. Screen searing is the dim, ghost-like image that literally gets burned into the glass of your screen. During a still image, the screen is bombarded with a specific spectrum of light from the phosphors. Since it's given no time to rest, the screen develops a shadowy copy of the image which was frozen on the screen. We most often see this at the ATM, when remnants of the main menu remain on the screen throughout your transaction.


Now that you have an idea what burn-in is, you should know some ways to prevent it from occurring. The root cause of burn-in is a static image. Most newer model plasma televisions have added functions to automatically prevent burn-in. However, owners of older model plasma televisions should be aware of the danger of burn-in and should follow a few simply tips to extend the life of their television. You can avoid static images by turning off your plasma television when you're not watching it. Also, you should steer clear of pausing a movie or a video game for an extended period of time and leaving the television on.


Burn-in is no longer a serious concern with newer plasma televisions thanks to a technology called pixel orbiter. The pixel orbiter subtly shifts static pictures to continuously keep the plasma screen's phosphors working. By never resting, there is little chance of burn-in. Creating more work for the display may seem like a poor decision with regard to the lifespan of the unit, but keeping the phosphors fresh and changing actually helps the plasma screen last longer.

Source: How To Avoid Plasma TV Burn-In


A brand-new plasma TV has its phosphors shining at their brightest:
tv.png


When time passes, your TV phosphors age, and the overall lightness of your display is gradually reduced. This is normal wear. In fact, plasma manufacturers put numbers, such as 50,000 hours, to indicate the panel's "half life", meaning that after that number of hours your panel will emit 50% of its initial brightness. A used, but not affected with an after-image display is shown here:

tv-grey.png


Now, what happens if the TV is used to watch 4:3 standard definition broadcasts with black bars on sides most of the time? Those black bars will cause uneven aging of your TV's phosphors, with less lighted pixels aging less than those that were lighted.

4:3 broadcast may cause the following type of burn-in (notice how the black side bars are retained as brighter spots on the display). This is one of the common types of burn-in:

tv-43.png


On the contrary, if you only watch 2.35:1 movies on your TV, and almost never fill the entire screen, this type of burn-in may occur, though this is quite rare:

tv-235.png



Just imagine a possible combination of the two:

tv-comb1.png


In many cases, watching a single broadcast with a non-transparent channel logo or pausing a DVD screen for a long time may cause an after-image that looks like this:

tv-burnin.png


This is a bit of an extreme, but not quite unusual for some plasma users who do not follow a set of rules that help preventing plasma burn-in.

Source: What is plasma burn-in, and how to fight it
 
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How Do I Prevent Burn-In?

It is rather simple to prevent the burn-in effect from occurring to your plasma.
1. Calibrate your display. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this step. Most TVs come from the store with their brightness and contrast set way too high in order to show good in the display room. Get yourself AVIA or DVE (Digital Video Essentials) DVD, and you'll have a nicely calibrated set in less than 15 minutes.

2. Do not watch any 4:3 or 2.35:1 content during the first 100 hours of use. Most damage is done to the brand-new plasmas by inexperienced users. Plasmas are most susceptible to burn-in during the first 100 hours, and much more burn-in resistant after 1000 hours of use.

3. Restrict non-full-screen programming to 20% until 1000 hours. Plasma manufacturers also recommend limiting viewing of 4:3 or 2.35:1 programming to about 20% of overall viewing time after the first 100 hours and until 1000 hours. After that, your plasma is much less likely to take burn-in. Try watching 4:3 content in "stretched" or "fair" ("just") mode that fills the entire screen.

4. While your plasma is new, turn down the contrast (sometimes called "picture", which refers to white level, or the brightness of light areas of the picture). A new plasma TV is much more likely to take damage from displaying static elements such as logos or teletext. Reducing overall contrast (this controls white levels, and is called "picture" on some displays) helps reducing the possibility of those static elements to burn in.

5. Switch channels to avoid logo burn-in. Avoid extended viewing of broadcasts with non-transparent logos (Tata Sky, Big TV, SCV etc) or where the screen is divided into fixed parts (such as teletext, news channels, or weather reports) all the time. These logos or teletext lines may imprint into your plasma, causing burn-in.

6. Use grey bars instead of black. Some plasma displays allow using color bars instead of black for 4:3 programming. This may greatly reduce the burn-in effect.

7. Enable pixel shifting. Many plasmas offer pixel shifting, otherwise referred as "wobulation" technique, in order to reduce the effect of burn-in. Enabling this feature may decrease the effect of burn-in by "smoothing" the borders between bright and dark parts of the image. This feature alone will not prevent your display from burning in, however, because larger dark and bright parts of the screen will mostly remain where they are, thus causing an after-image with slightly blurred borders.

8. If your DVD player has a screen saver and auto-shutdown feature, turn it on. This helps a great deal saving you from burn-in resulting from paused movies (screen saver) or disk menus (auto-off).

9. If seeing early signs of image retention, run a screen saver on your plasma. New plasmas are likely to display non-permanent image retention after displaying a still image or a still element, such as a logo. Chances are great that this effect will disappear by itself after you watch a different channel (remember using full-screen "stretch" mode) for some time, or if you engage a special burn-in reduction screen saver, if your plasma has it. Please refer to your plasma documentation to find if your TV has a screen saver. Many plasmas don't have it.


Seems complicated? It is not! Here's the list once again:

While your plasma is new:
1. Reduce contrast
2. Avoid content that does not fill entire screen (leaves black bars) for the first 1000 hours
3. Switch channels from time to time
4. If seeing any signs of image retention, run a screen saver on your plasma

Always:
1. Use grey bars instead of black
2. On your plasma, keep pixel shifting enabled
3. On your DVD player, keep screen saver and auto-shutdown enabled
4. Calibrate your display to avoid unnecessary high brightness and contrast levels

Source: What is plasma burn-in, and how to fight it
 
I followed the instructions given and have set picture settings of my plasma.
Thanks a ton for the info.
 
gUYS ,

i TOO GOT THE tv 5 DAYS AGO FROM DEVI FOR 44200 NET.

QQ, to all u guys , i have been reading to watch contents which fill up teh entire screen during first 100- 200 hrs. But if i watch a DVD or some movie channels , they dont fill teh entire screen , i do see the black lines on top and bottom the lines which come with normal DVD .so i do have to zoomit to fill the picture to entire screen and watch or can i just watch it , can some body please advice.

Regards
 
Unlike TV Channels, while watching DVDs we dont swap channels, which means the black bar stays for 1.5 to 2.5 hrs depending on the movie you watch.

So for the first 100 hrs of viewing, use the Zoom function and fill the screen. After that you can watch the way you prefer, some of my friends still watch with zoom as they get the 42 inch exp. I prefer the panoramic mode
 
I got my Panasonic 46G10 yesterday. So far i have run slides for 24 hours.
Another 96 hours to go. I will get back here when i have questions about calibration. Tx man.
1000 hours is too much though to avoid black bars. It will take so much time for me to get there.
 
I am posting a compilation of various information I collected while learning about Plasma and also working with my PV8. Latest model Plasmas do not suffer from burn-in but its better to be safe during the first 100 hrs at least. Though this contains, PV8 info it applies to all Plasmas:

The following settings were derived from our Panasonic TH42PX80 review unit which was calibrated with reference to D65 and high-definition Rec.709 standards over HDMI in a dimly lit environment for critical viewing. To apply these settings, first reset the values to the default factory settings, and then follow the instructions. This is necessary because Panasonic did not bother to include a numerical guide for each individual control.

While these values provided a picture closest to D65 for us, they may not be optimal for your Panasonic TH42PX80 due to variations in ambient light, video source or between units. We recommend that you use a basic calibration disc like the Digital Video Essentials HD DVD or if you want to avoid HD DVDs like the plague since their demise the upcoming Digital Video Essentials Blu-Ray to finetune your settings.

Check: Panasonic TH42PX80 Best Settings After Calibration for the settings

Initially there will be some of you who may find the picture too yellow/ warm, and are tempted to switch back to [Colour Balance] "Normal". According to our measurements (and eyes), [Colour Balance] "Warm" gave the colour temperature closest to the D65 standard adopted by broadcast and movie studios. We suggest that you persevere with these settings for 3 days to 1 week, by which point hopefully you'll appreciate how natural the colours are, and won't revert to cooler colour temperature which looks brighter but inaccurate.

From our experience, these settings are good enough to break-in your Panasonic TH42PX80, as long as you don't go do something daft like display a static logo or the Windows desktop for more than 30 minutes which will greatly increase the risk of permanent screenburn. If in doubt, just lower your contrast and brightness even more, and only apply these settings after the first 200 hours.


First 100 hours is most crucial period of the Plasma and to reduce burn-in do the following:
1. If possible avoid Gaming and PC input during first 100 hrs. Txt in games tends to be at full levels to stand out thus running those pixels at max with all the rest not, this may lead to a slight mismatch in life for those pixels.
2. Stick to 16:9 viewing
3. Avoid display a static logo or the Windows desktop or pausing a DVD for more than 30 minutes which will greatly increase the risk of permanent screen burn
4. Basic thumb-rule is during first 100 hrs reduce the contrast and brightness to less than 50%

Hi,


I bought VIERA TH-P50U30D 2 days back. I see an issue with brightness. It either increase or decrease a bit (noticeably) during scenes changeovers.It doesn't happen for all scenes but for some.

I read about Picture Mode in manual - It says contrast, black and color reproduction happens in Cinema mode. Hence, I tried setting to True Cinema mode where no revision happen. But, No luck. The brightness change is still visible during few scenes changeovers..

I complained and got the replacement immediately in very first week and started to enjoy my 'plasma'...My luck did not survive for long...The channels logo's started to burn into screen.

252530d1310743486-panasonic-viera-thp50u30d-brightness-issue-logo_burn.jpg

Now I feel, I did a biggest mistake going with Plasma. But i likes the picture quality of Plasma.

From the user guide, I read this after hitting the problem :(

'Pixel orbiter' was set to 'Auto' ; recommended is 'On' to prevent 'image retention'.
'side panel' was set to 'low' ; Recommended is to set 'high' to prevent 'image retention'.

Wish I would have tried this setting before. At least their engineer would have recommended these settings.

Thanks for great inform.They should put this somewhere in manual :)


- Dilip
 
Hi,


I bought VIERA TH-P50U30D 2 days back. I see an issue with brightness. It either increase or decrease a bit (noticeably) during scenes changeovers.It doesn't happen for all scenes but for some.

I read about Picture Mode in manual - It says contrast, black and color reproduction happens in Cinema mode. Hence, I tried setting to True Cinema mode where no revision happen. But, No luck. The brightness change is still visible during few scenes changeovers..

I complained and got the replacement immediately in very first week and started to enjoy my 'plasma'...My luck did not survive for long...The channels logo's started to burn into screen.

252530d1310743486-panasonic-viera-thp50u30d-brightness-issue-logo_burn.jpg

Now I feel, I did a biggest mistake going with Plasma. But i likes the picture quality of Plasma.

From the user guide, I read this after hitting the problem :(

'Pixel orbiter' was set to 'Auto' ; recommended is 'On' to prevent 'image retention'.
'side panel' was set to 'low' ; Recommended is to set 'high' to prevent 'image retention'.

Wish I would have tried this setting before. At least their engineer would have recommended these settings.

Thanks for great inform.They should put this somewhere in manual :)


- Dilip

kindly share the price for this TV. Also how is the PQ in bright light conditions?
 
The brightness of plasma decreases due ABL(auto brightness limiter) when the APL(average picture level) increases and vice versa,this happens usually with a light or bright colored picture displayed.
For eg Here is the curve of the samsung D550 plasma
Samsung-PN51D550-falloff.jpg

As you can see the brightness drops when the APL increases,the worst case scenario is when a all white picture is displayed.

The brightness however may not fluctuate if the manufacturer has limited the tvs brightness to a lower level.

Not sure about this year, but last years panasonic plasma did have floating blacks.
 
I treated my 50" LG 50PK550 like a beauty queen during the 1st 3 months, and took all precautions madbullram mentions. In fact I almost risked a divorce, cos I wouldnt let me wife watch TV like most normal women are prone to doing. However, that hasnt stopped the TV from suffering from Line Bleeding, Its something plasma owners will just have to live with.
 
Just found this thread. Thanks a million Ram for sharing the info. The information and the subsequent posts portray an scary picture and I'm having second thoughts on buying Plasma TV. I found Ram commenting that these are less pronounced in newer generation Plasmas but the last post is not very old. Are these things still applicable?
 
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