Is Plasma break-in a myth or a necessity and calibration question. (1 Viewer)

I am going to be hooking up my new Panasonic tc-P42S1 Plasma tv this Saturday, and am wondering a couple of things. This is my first flat-panel TV, and I've never calibrated a set. I am color blind, will this hinder my calibration? Or perhaps should I have somebody with me to help? Most people don't understand color blindness, and I'm not even certain I do, but it's just primarily a problem with differentiating colors, not really seeing colors. I can see most colors fine, but defining and differentiating is difficult. And is Digital Video Essentials my best bet do to so?

In addition, do you have to break them in? I do play quite a bit of my Xbox 360, and I can't get my wife to stop watching SD channels when the HD channel is available, so she watches some programming with the bars on teh sides. I'm trying to break her of it, but I've also been trying to do it for a couple of years with little success. I know burn-in isn't really much of an issue anymore, but I have read the first 100 hours are most succeptible. So would I be well-advised to break the TV in? And if so, what is the process?

Thanks in advance.

Not sure on the break in, but for getting the wife to stop watching SD channels, take them out of the lineup. Don't most set top boxes allow you to "edit" the channel listing? I went through the same thing with mine, and she has finally seen the light.

I am going to steer a professional calibrationist
to this thead to give you the definitive answer....

...and I hope it does not contradict mine.

When I bought my Mother a plasma over a year
ago I did a lot of research on whether it was
necessary to break it in or not. Most everything
I read suggested that you should treat your new
plasma with the utmost care for the first 100
hours of use.

Upon first turning on the display I turned the
brightness down -- which is something you
should do anyway as these displays come out
of the box very hot.

Through advice I found on the Internet I downloaded
and burned a DVD that was basically everchanging
soft colors that played in a loop. Kept it playing
nonstop on my display for about 5 days.

Now all of this may seem extreme but I was not
going to take any chances. The one really good
piece of news I consistently read was that burn-in
is not the problem that it used to be with plasmas
though I have a feeling that our calibrationist may
have horror stories for you. I know my Mother
watches a lot of television in both widescreen HD

and 4:3 SD and has never had any burn-in issues.

Check back within the next few hours. I'll go talk
to Gregg Loewen and have him offer some advice.

Thanks Ron, that would be of great help. Perhaps the DVD on a loop would be the best bet, though five straight days is alot. I'll be curious to hear what Gregg has to say.

thanks.

hi guys

Ron is on target (mostly).

From the data I have seen...there is an outer layer of phosphor that is burned off in the first 50 hours. the panel if prone to burn in until this is done. Once done, the display is more durable.

The break in disc is pretty useless....alternating colors is no different than straight white (or gray) to the display.

I currently recommend: 100 hours of break in time. turn the panel on and leave it on. Select a HD channel and avoid much 4x3 material and or stationary logos (or news tickers) during this time.

Thanks guys. What about calibrating? As I am color blind, what am I going to get out of it? And is DVE the best bet to doing so?

I like Avia for calibrating, but I have them both. I don't know what effect your color blindness will have, but the test pattern that lets you set color (on Avia) requires an included blue filter. When you look through it, everything on your screen is blue and there are flashing boxes. You adjust color up or down until the flashing is minimized. I would assume color blindness would in no way hinder this process, but I know far less about it than you do. Try it and if you can't do it, give the filter to your wife.

While I'm here, I do have one question for Gregg that I have never gotten an answer to: should a calibration work on every input? For example, if I go to my DVD component input and run Avia and get the correct settings, should those exact settings be the ones I use on my cable box HDMI input for watching regular HD TV? If not, is there a good way to calibrate the input used for watching TV broadcasting? I just need a quick response because I don't want to hurt Jeremy's thread (hope he's not mad for this little break-in (no pun intended)).

No problem. Thanks for teh suggestion on Avia. I'll see if I can find one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

Upon first turning on the display I turned the
brightness down -- which is something you
should do anyway as these displays come out
of the box very hot.

Through advice I found on the Internet I downloaded
and burned a DVD that was basically everchanging
soft colors that played in a loop. Kept it playing
nonstop on my display for about 5 days.

Click to expand...

My personal research took me in the same direction. Adjusted the default settings to those recommended on an enthusiast's forum for my model, used a USB drive to rotate through various full-screen color images for a total of about 200+ hours (running all night to get the hours in for 2 or 3 weeks). Kept the display on FULL (stretch mode) the whole time as well.

A year later, I play video games and watch window & letterboxed programming without concern. I've since found that even my (quite nice) Plasma isn't perfect, with some subtle image issues. But what's to be done? Maybe get a new display in five years and grumble about its problems

jumping in on this post with a side question... I just bought a Panasonic 55GT30 last night. So far I think the picture looks pretty great (especially compared to the tv it replaced). But my wife is having issue with it, and the way she describes it, it sounds like phosphor trail/ghosting or something (I can't see it with normal tv material). Is it worth waiting to burn the TV in, or should I go ahead and return it to replace with a LCD or similar tv? thanks for the input - not sure what to do about the issue!

I always run the color slides for 150 hours, basically never cut the tv off for 7 days straight. I do run them only when sleeping and at work, and watch full screen content when home at night, all of this is done really to get some hours on to bring out any apparent issues, then I calibrate it. You could try running the slides to put a lot of hours on it quickly, and see if it helps your situation.

Originally Posted by craig_curtis

jumping in on this post with a side question... I just bought a Panasonic 55GT30 last night. So far I think the picture looks pretty great (especially compared to the tv it replaced). But my wife is having issue with it, and the way she describes it, it sounds like phosphor trail/ghosting or something (I can't see it with normal tv material). Is it worth waiting to burn the TV in, or should I go ahead and return it to replace with a LCD or similar tv?
thanks for the input - not sure what to do about the issue!

Click to expand...

I don't recall ghosting being a plasma concern when I did my research three years ago. I don't know that a break-in would help with that, if it's there.


I'd say: if your wife is unhappy with the TV, and has more sensitive vision than you, return it and take her shopping to pick out the next TV, as she's pickier than you

Can you tell us what kind of content she was looking at that had the ghosting issues?


Have you adjusted the contrast and brightness levels of the display (i.e. taken the display off "torch mode")? If the contrast is set too high it could be causing a ghosting or bright area after effect (similar to when you see spots after a camera flash goes off).

Originally Posted by craig_curtis

jumping in on this post with a side question... I just bought a Panasonic 55GT30 last night. So far I think the picture looks pretty great (especially compared to the tv it replaced). But my wife is having issue with it, and the way she describes it, it sounds like phosphor trail/ghosting or something (I can't see it with normal tv material). Is it worth waiting to burn the TV in, or should I go ahead and return it to replace with a LCD or similar tv?

thanks for the input - not sure what to do about the issue!

Click to expand...

/t/297195/is-plasma-break-in-a-myth-or-a-necessity-and-calibration-question#post_3870991

elwaylite said:

I always run the color slides for 150 hours, basically never cut the tv off for 7 days straight. I do run them only when sleeping and at work, and watch full screen content when home at night, all of this is done really to get some hours on to bring out any apparent issues, then I calibrate it. You could try running the slides to put a lot of hours on it quickly, and see if it helps your situation.

Click to expand...

I'm contemplating a plasma but have no experience with one. What are the "color slides"? Is this something built into the tv?

Simply solid-color bitmaps that fill the screen. It was pointed out in a thread a few years back that solid white would be simpler and equally effective. A few years back plasma had a reputation for burnin problems particularly when new. This was a method to get a few hundred hours on the screen in a safe way. I did this on my 2009 kuro. I've since watched many hours of letterboxed and window boxed materials without problem. I don't know if this is considered a concern for 2011 plasmas.