A Cable guy was working on my TV the other day, and we were talking about the best TVs out there. He told me that you should stay away from plasma units, as they eventually burn out after a certain amount of usage…that his parents went off on a 2 week vacation, inadvertently left their plasma TV on, and came home to find it fried.
Any truth to this?
This from Consumer Reports via mySimon:
We have two plasmas in the house, and three flat screen LCD’s and have not had a problem as of yet. Everything I read about them prior to my purchase said the same thing, a high risk of burning out.
It is one of the only times I would recommend purchasing an extended warranty.
RV manufacturers have learned, much to their misery, that plasma screens do NOT like vibration. From what I’ve heard, LCD is the way to go.
Leaving your television on for two weeks while you are on vacation would seem to be a fairly low-probability event for normal households.
Unless you do something that is at least as spectacularly foolish as this, burn-in from a modern plasma - i.e. one you can buy new today as opposed to those of even a few years ago - is highly unlikely.
Which direction are you concerned about burning?
Burining in? Yes, PDPs (Plasma Display Panels) can suffer from image burn if a static image is left on them. Unless you’re watching MSNBC all day long with the stock tickers at the bottom, or the kids are prone to marathons of old-school video games like Pong, static images aren’t a huge risk. A good many newer PDPs have an image shift function that constantly nudges the image around by a few pixels, which will at least soften the edges of a burn. Most sets also have a “cleaning” function that works to un-burn images.
Guess what? Plain old CRTs can also suffer from burn-in. Next time you’re at an airport, look around for a flight times monitor that’s not on and see how easy it is to read “Destination” “Gate” and “Time” at the top of the screen.
Burning out? Sure. The thing will eventually fizzle out. But this is measured in so many years that we’ll probably be looking back at 1080p and wondering how we could ever stand such low resolution. And again, burning out is not unique to PDPs. DLP and LCD displays have backlights or projection light sources whose lifespans are best expressed in months.
I’ve been getting, on average, 5-6 years of service from the last handful of CRT televisions I’ve bought. I was worried about buying a plasma thinking it would die in 5-6 years.
I found a 42 inch for around $1400 USD. When I put the price into prospective, I spent that on my laptop which I expect to get about 5 years out of. I decided to buy it.
Now, about a year and a half later, it looks like the day I bought it. I’m careful with static images on screen and I do turn it off if I plan to be away from it for 20-30 minutes (instead of just leaving it on like the CRT’s). But, it is as bright as the day I bought it and it does have a better picture that the average LCD’s I see (quicker refresh rates as well). The average LCD doesn’t seem to have the nice, dark blacks the plasma does.
On average, I think I can say mine gets 2 hours of use a day. 550 days x 2 = 1100 hours. This set has an expected life of 50,000 (If I recall). At this rate I can expect another… umm… 48900 hours / 2 = 24450 / 365 days = 66 years of service.
I’ll be happy with 8-10 years. If I can get 10 years out of it that’s only $140 a year. That’s a good value in my book. Of course, one day I’ll buy a new, bigger/better TV and this one will be retired to the bedroom and it will see even less use.
The one thing about plasma is they do use more power than an LCD. I think you need to baby them a bit more than an LCD, but LCD’s can have their backlights fail as well. I’ve two 20 inch LCD’s in the computer room and I don’t leave them running if I’m not using them so as to conserve the backlights.
So, CRT’s die. Plasma can burn in as well as lose brightness overtime and one day fail, and LCD’s lose brightness overtime until the backlights fail. Projection TV’s have bulbs that need to be replaced.
Repair costs for a dead CRT isn’t worht the cost of fixing. Same with a dead plasma. Backlights on a LCD are worth replacing if it is a nicer LCD unit. Projection bulbs are a few hundred.
How about overall costs?
Costs of a CRT are fairly cheap. Around $700 for the larger tubes… $300-400 for a standard size.
Cost of an average 42 inch plasma run around $1500-1900 USD.
LCD of the same size start at $2000 but expect to pay $2500 or more for a nice bright one with deep blacks.
I think the best value for the money is in plasma at the moment. In a few years I think Plasma will die off due to cheaper, better quality, and quicker refresh rate LCD.
There is another situation to consider other than Pong: non-HD channels from your cable box (and I’m speaking from experience here - I do have burn-in on my plasma).
Here’s the situation - you hook your cable box to your plasma unit using the HD cables. This is required in order for you to view HD channels from your cable company. So this works great for the HD channels (actually the only way you can view any of the HD channels).
Now you can also tune your cable box to non-HD channels (of course), but here’s the kicker - the cable box (only) fills the sides (beyond the 4:3 ratio) with black vertical panels. These panels can cause burn-in over time (mine did).
There are a couple options on how to deal with this:
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(my solution), in parallel, run normal video from the cable to a separate input on the plasma unit. When watching non-HD channels, change the input on the plasma. When the plasma displays in 4:3 mode, it fills the side bars with GREY panels, and though these are also static, the burn in is far less noticeable.
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(what most people do). Watch non-HD channels in “wide” or “stretched” format. This fills the picture into the full screen (so it takes care of the side panels), but distorts the image: the screen is kind of “squashed” so everyone looks a bit fatter than they really are.
It amazes me 1) how many people do this (most under the guise of “I paid for those extra pixels so dammit, I’m going to use them !”) and 2) how many people have done it so long they no longer can notice the distortion (everyone on screen is just fatter all the time !). -
I’m guessing that there may be some cable boxes that allow you to select the color/pattern on the side panels for non-HD channels. I’ve tried searching for some setting on my cable box, and have not been able to find one. If the cable box had a setting for “grey”, this would be the equivalent of option #1, only easier (you don’t have to keep switching inputs on the plasma unit).
So what does the burn-in look like ? On most things you cannot see it. It is only noticeable if the screen is very light, or almost all white. Then you can clearly see that the side panels are slightly darker than the center of the screen. But for any image where 1) things are moving and/or 2) there is a lot of non-white content (which most images are), you would have to look pretty hard to notice it.
cormac262, what kind of cable box do you have? Mine has an option 4 - I can pick what format the cable box transmits non-HD channels over the HD cabling (component or DVI). It can send it 1080i, in which case it fills the sides with black bars, or 480p or 480i, in which case I can set my TV to select the display format - zoomed, stretched, or bars on the side. I keep it stretched, but if I wanted to, I could use the TV’s own grey bars.
And to answer the OP - I’ve had a plasma for 2.5 years now. I’ve never heard of burnout as you describe, and it probably gets 40-60 hours /week of usage, and has been known to be on for 10+ hours at a stretch. I suspect the cable guy meant burn in, and the TV was tuned to some channel with a static image while they were gone. I have had some slight burnin issues with a kids channel (Noggin) that uses a persistent logo on the bottom right of the screen, but I can only see it if I set the TV to an unused input and examine the black screen closely.
I don’t know the exact model, but the cable box is a Scientific Atlanta.
The issue is I’d prefer to be able to just change the channel, and not have to (also) change my TV setting (be it a different input or a display setting). My cable box does output 1080i, but it only puts out black bars (no options). This is the problem. Because I got lazy in not wanting to change the display option, I’d watch non-HD with the black bars and this caused the burn-in.
So if I understand what you’re describing, you can select, on a per channel (or perhaps on a channel type: HD or non-HD) what format to output (over the HD cables) ? That would get me closer, but I’d still have to change two things (you are getting the sense of how lazy I am when I surf 
If I could have the cable box always output 1080i, and could select grey instead of black bars on non-HD channels, I’d be there (only need to change channels, not have to change the TV).
I would use this feature sparingly. It works by burning the rest of the screen to hide the burn in the corner. It reduces the life of the TV. I don’t know how much, but it still can’t be good.
As an engineer who designs TVs (including Plasmas), I would say that they wear out no faster than any other type of TV would. The biggest complaint I have is the amount of heat they put off. I had one in a bedroom and that room stayed nice and toasty whenever the TV was on.
That’s good to know!
Sounds rather like the way we used to clear burned images off TV cameras - aim the camera at a very evenly and very brightly illuminated white posterboard for a day, and hope it all evened out, or at least became tolerable.
I have a Motorola 6412, and I can set it up to output 480i, 480p or 1080i over the DVI&component cables when tuned to a 480i (non-HD) channel. There’s nothing restrictively HD about DVI or component - they’re both happy transmitting any type of signal. This is a configuration setting - once I’ve set it, I don’t have to change it again.
Case 1 - I set the box to output 1080i when tuned to a 480i channel. Since 1080i is inherently a 16x9 resolution, and 480i is inherently a 4x3 resolution, the cable box has to do something to scale up the 4x3 to 16x9, and in my case and yours, it puts in black bars. Since the TV is receiving a 1080i 16x9 signal, it doesn’t give me any options to zoom, scale, etc.
Case 2 - I set the box to output 480i when tuned to a 480i channel. It send the 480i signal unchanged to the TV over the DVI cable. When the TV receives the 480i signal, it offers me the choices of zoom, scale, show with bars, etc. I usually used justified scaling, but I have it set it to display 4x3 with grey bars provided by the TV on the side. This is a persistent setting on my TV - once it knows I like justified scaling for 480i signals on the DVI input, I don’t have to worry about it again.
So I don’t have to do anything at all when I change channel. When I go to an HD channel, the box sends up a 1080i signal which the TV displays unchanged in 1080i. When I go to a non-HD channel, the box sends up a 480i signal, which the TV displays in the way I like for 480i. I don’t have to switch inputs, settings, or anything on the TV when I change between the 2 types of channels.