I did a search but the several threads I found skirt around the issue and several were a few years old, so:
Why does my brand new flat screen, widescreen, tube HDTV say that I cannot have static images (like the black bars when viewing regular TV signals) for more than 15% of my viewing time?
There are different issues with projection and LCD, but I am not at that level, this is just a standard picture tube (still a cathode ray tube, right?) We apparently solved this problem with monitors years ago, so why the hell to TVs still have it?
Also, why would black bars burn in anyway? Wouldn’t you need to actually be showing something for it to burn in? Logic suggests that those parts of the screen are getting an illuminating signal even when black, but I don’t know enough about it to be sure.
This pisses me off because I bought the bloody thing so I can watch widescreen movies and HDTV (most signals are broadcast at 16:9) over the whole screen without making everyone a hell of a lot thinner. Now apparently if I want to watch a regular channel I need to make everyone gain 50 lbs or I ruin my TV. Argghh.
Not to discount what the manual may say, but it is my understanding that modern HDTV projection screens have next to nothing to worry about regarding ‘burn in’ from normal viewing. A tube HDTV has nothing to worry about. The manual will cover the manufacturers butt against some yutz putting incredibly bright static images on the screen and frying them in, but technology has progressed. Normal viewing will not cause problems. (Except on LCDs, but that is a seperate matter)
My couple of year old Sony 51" HDTV (projection), sees almost nothing but widescreen-format movies, and not so much as a hint of burnin.
And did you turn down the contrast settings from factory default as soon as you got the TV, Brutus? Of course you did…
I have heard numerous reports of burn-in on projection TVs, but never on a tube. I have also never witnessed burn-in personally. The biggest culprit seems to be video games, but as long as you turn down your contrast/picture setting you should be fine. The default factory setting is intended for use in brightly illuminated showrooms, and will cause unnecessary wear on the phosphors.
You are correct in thinking the black bars shouldn’t burn-in because nothing is displayed. In fact, they burn-in negatively, so that the 4:3 section of the screen becomes darker. Here is a site with images. Projection TVs are more susceptible to burn-in because they employ a small, very bright tube which projects onto the much larger screen.
Most videophiles watch 4:3 content in a “stretch” mode, and constrain the majority of their viewing to widescreen material. It’s up to you. As long as you don’t have a child who will be playing 4:3 video games for 8 hours a day with the picture settings cranked up, you have nothing to worry about. The 15%-20% viewing time limitation is just a way for the manufacturer to reduce their liability.
Our 51" widescreen HDTV is 2 years old and it has burn in - the channel guide. My SO spends a lot of time scoping out what is on. Actually, I don’t see the burn-in myself, but he sees it (or so he says) and whines mightily. Not covered under warranty. Or else he’s hoping to convince me we need a new one.
People said that modern CRT monitors shouldn’t suffer from burn in, but my monitor definitely has a burn in. It’s an image I had on it for about nine months.
With my rear-projection wide-screen TV I had a little burn-in on the sides from watching 4:3 images with the gray (not black) bars on the sides. When I switched to using “Justified” mode, which stretches the outer edges of the 4:3 image to fill the wide screen, the burn-in went away after a while. The slight distortion of the justified mode takes a little getting used to, but after a while I stopped noticing it.
My mistake. Sauntering back to our breakroom at work, we have a couple of big plasma screens, not LCDs. Burned in something fierce; I haven’t seen such deep burn since the old days of monochrome terminal monitors. I can’t speak to the burnability of a Plasma vs. LCD vs. Projection screen, but of the three, the worst burn I have seen was a plasma. Shrug Anecdotal, so take it for what its worth.
For home viewing, I calibrated my (projection) TV using an Avia DVD, and like Saranga said, my brightness settings are about half of what it was set at the factory. But since I watch it at night, in a dark room, the low setting serves me fine and extends the life of my TV.
Oh, phew! I really really hate carrying my huge and heavy TV when I move, and it’s about time for a new one, so I was looking at getting a nice little LCD. I’m glad that’s not what you were thinking of.
Thanks guys, now another question. The TV has options for wide format, panorama, zoom 1, zoom 2, and regular (4:3) but does not say what it is doing to the picture exactly. These are all for when you get a 4:3 signal. I know what regular does (black bars on sides/correct ratio) and wide (stretches to fit the screen). I have done a search and it seems that some people think that panorama is some sort of combination zoom stretch which may or may not be different across the length of the screen (more stretch at the sides, less in the middle) but I am not sure. Both Zooms fit the width and can scroll up and down to get the verticle section you want.
So, the questions are: what is panorma doing exactly (it is a Samsung set), are both zooms keeping the right aspect ratio, if they are, then why when I give it a widescreen movie from the DVD player is there still some black box showing up (shouldn’t it fit exactly), and is there any way for a TV to recognize that it is getting a widescreen movie and adjust acordingly (even if mine can’t do it)?
The individual LCDs in screens are pushed to the limit of technology. The “edges” of their range are hard to achieve: getting them to go all dark/all light. When a pixel is set to all dark/all light for too long, the range of dark-to-light it can later achieve gets squashed. Maybe it will tend to be darker overall, or maybe lighter depending on how it was made and why it is failing.
I’ve seen some such burn out in laptop LCDs, but for TVs it’s far more likely given that those LCDs are also being pushed technologically in terms of refresh rate.
In short, they are at the limit of tech, they are being pushed hard, it doesn’t take much to make them go over the edge.
I can answer this one. The 16:9 widescreen used in TV’s is not the same aspect ratio that motion pictures are filmed in. Therefore, when the sides of the picture are at the screen edge, you will still have a smaller black bar at the top and bottom.
I’m not sure why they didn’t make the aspect ratios the same, but they didn’t.
The 16:9 screen size was a format chosen for future and current HighDefinition broadcasts.
A lot of people who buy these sets are disappointed that when they view a “widescreen” movie that it doesn’t fill the screen and still leaves black bars on the top and bottom.
The reason for this is that theatrical movies do not have a “standard” ratio and vary greatly (look on the back of the boxes of your DVD collection and notice the aspect ratio the film is in). Most in fact are wider than the 16:9 format. So while you do end up with the top/bottom bars, they are not as thick as when you see them on a 4:3 screen.
Watching with these bars would be the “true” way to see the complete picture undistorted.
A zoom mode can zoom in on the picture till it touches the top and bottom of the screen but then your are cutting off the sides.
A vertical stretch mode can pull the picture to the top and bottom of the screen but now you have a distorted picture with thin looking people.
So get used to watching your widescreen movies with the bars. Or until film makers start filming in a 16:9 format.
To hit some of the other points in this post: LCDs do not burn-in. This is significant because the newer crop of projection TVS, LCD-based and DLP-based, do not suffer from burn-in. Subpixels may become defective over time, but it’s a different process.
The panorama mode creates a sort of fisheye-lens effect. The center of the screen (where most of the action is assumed to take place) is displayed normally (like 4:3) while the sides of the image are stretched out to fill the black bar area. Like any of the stretch modes, you eventually get used to it.
Finally, most movies are short wider than 1.78:1 (16:9) but there are many movies which are shot in 1.78:1 or less. Most newer DVDs have the aspect ratio printed somewhere on the back cover. Check out yet another use for the IMDb.
My Hitachi (57", rear projection DLP) has 3 modes for viewing standard (4:3) programming:
4:3 – unmodified aspect ratio, but black bars are inserted on the sides
4:3 Zoom-- unmodified aspect ratio, but whole picture is blown up sufficiently so that the image edges reach to the screen edges. This results in significant cropping of the top and bottom of the image.
4:3 Expanded-- the middle 1/3 of the image is unmodified. The two outer thirds are stretched horizontally to fill to the edge of the screen.
I very rarely have any problems with option #3, and I use it about 98% of the time. On occasion I do see the distortion. When a single object fills the screen, especially on a diagonal, yoo see some lines that should be straight that aren’t quite. Or in a frontal shot of three people walking toard the camera, the outer two look slightly fleshier and chubbier.
On most DVD players, there is a setup option to adjust the output depending on the TV you are playing through – either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. My TV also has sensors that adjust the picture and aspect ratio based on the input signal. The TV adjusts to 480p or 1080i, and I think some intermediate 720i or p.
But the system is not perfect – I think there are occasional software conflicts and I end up having to pick a better manual setting. I am sending signals to my TV from: an HD cable box, a progressive scan DVD player, a VHS player, and I have also used it (not very successfully as my computer monitor. All this stuff is from different makers, so it’s not surprising they don’t always mesh perfectly.
