Grey bar ghosts on 16:9 Toshiba (1 Viewer)

[WillieM]

I have noticed muted color in the two grey bar areas of my 50HX81 Toshiba while watching in 16:9 format. The set is only 10 months old and was calibrated by an ISF certified technician 6 months ago. I admit to watching 60%-70% in 4:3 mode for standard broadcast stuff but I thought Toshiba put the grey bars in to avoid uneven degrading of the phosphors?

I do have a factory authorized serviceman scheduled to look at the problem and it's still under warranty but I was wondering if this is normally a problem in such a short period of time?

I have taken to watching standard broadcasts in streatch mode but I don't really concider this an acceptable "fix" for future problems after my set is serviced.

 

[John-Miles]

Sorry its a sad fact of life, the grey bars will burn in, there is no avoiding that. thats why most people look at the stretch modes carefully before buying a widescreen tv, to avoid burn in. If it is infact burn in that is causing your problem the service tech will tell you that you are shafted and that he hopes you like those grey bars.

personally I hope it isn't burn in for your sake, but thats what it sounds liek to me.

Although you may be able to make a case to Toshiba... they warn about things like video games causing burn in, but do they warn about the grey bars? who knows you might be able to make a case for it, but liek i said burn in is not covered under warranty. it is considered abuse of your tv.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

My friend had a 16x9 where the gray bars burned-in too, that's why I don't buy the reasoning for having them gray. Whatever TV I get is going to have them BLACK, because it doesn't look good with gray on the sides and stretching is totally out of the question!

 

[ThomasL]

The reason why Toshiba made the bars gray as opposed to black was most likely to try and avoid uneven phosphor wear. Some people confuse this with burn in. Burn in is when an image is on the screen for so long (usually with contrast very high) that the phosphors properties/characteristics are changed. They begin to permanently emit that particular wavelength of light. I've seen this happen in person on computer monitors but never on a tv. Uneven wear is when a portion of the raster is used more often than another. For example, if you have a 4:3 tv on which you do a raster squeeze to 16x9. The "black bars" on the top and bottom are now not even part of the screen image. If you did this a LOT and over a lengthy time period, the pixels in the 16x9 area would wear faster than the pixels in the black bars. The same analog can be said for someone who watches a lot of 4:3 programming on a 16:9 set. Toshiba apparently was more worried about uneven wear than they were burn in of the actual gray bars. It would be pretty ironic if gray bars are burning in on these sets. Personally, I'd take my chances with uneven wear over time than with burn in of gray bars.

cheers,


--tom