RPTV and Gaming consoles (1 Viewer)

Eric,

The issue of burn-in, IMO, has been over emphasized immensely, and is not nearly the threat many people believe it to be, provided:

1) You adjust the contrast (sometimes called "picture") setting on your set to well below its factory preset, commonly referred to as "torch mode", and usually at a level of about 30-40%. Using a calibration DVD such as DVE or Avia to set the contrast level is best.

2) You resist the urge to pause your game for lengthy periods of time. What is a lengthy period of time, you ask? Did you ever see "Mallrats"? "Lengthy" would be for hours at a time (like pausing your hockey game while you get a good night's sleep, then picking up the action again in the morning). A few minutes here and there, or anything else that would be the result of any reasonable amount of normal play will be fine.

2-3 hours of gameplay a week should certainly not be a problem at all.

I think part of the problem people have is that setting contrast to its properly calibrated level results in a picture that, while ideal for movies, may prove to be too dark for some video games. If this is the case, it's probably better to adjust the brightness setting, rather than contrast to improve image quality.

Personally, I don't have a console hooked up to my RPTV (though I'm itching to get an XBox), but know of several people who do and have not had any noticeable burn-in effects.

Best of luck.

-Jason

We just upgraded to a front projector from a 50" Hitachi RPTV. We had it for six years and my son played his PSX and PS2 games on it as much as we would allow him to. Certainly more than a couple of hours a week. He knew better than to leave them paused for a long time but that rule was always applied to TV also. So the game was treated no differently and after six years there is NO sign of any kind of burn in. I think, as Jason said, to get burn in it must take very high contrast and pretty extreme neglect.