Would hooking up a Playstation 2 to a bigscreen TV hurt the TV?
I don’t remember how big the TV is exactly, but it doesn’t really have a “glass” screen, it’s projection, I guess? I’ve seen warnings saying not to do it, but I don’t know if they mean not to leave the game paused for a long time or what.
So what could happen and what are the chances that it would happen?
Older projection tv’s had a potential problem with burn-in–that is, if you paused anything, movie, video game, etc. and left it there for a while, the image could wind up being permanently there. I believe they’ve just about fixed this with newer ones, however, you should check your owner’s manual for the TV first.
Most, if not all ‘projection’ TV’s have the burn-in problem. I remember playing Super Mario Bros so much on the original NES that it left a burn in of all the letter across the screen! Eventually it faded away, but my mom left QVC on so much that there was burn in as well, since the layout of the lettering and logos was always the same.
I know there’s warnings like crazy about not using a PS2 with a projection TV, but I don’t know why. I got the impression that worse things than burn-in would happen if you did…
From the gamers at Penny Arcade :
“It’s a common belief that videogames should not be hooked up to projection televisions because you will get what is called “burn in”. However if you understand what causes burn in and you’re smart about how you treat your equipment you won’t have any problems at all. Burn in is caused by static images being displayed on the screen for a long time. This was much more of an issue with older games which tended to have much more static environments. Atari games for instance often had the same image on the screen the entire time you played. This isn’t as big of a deal anymore as today’s games tend to be much more dynamic. However things like life bars or pause screens can still cause problems if you aren’t careful. Personally when I pause a game I actually turn the television off until I am ready to play again. I’ve had this particular TV for a little over a year now and I haven’t had any problems at all with burn in.”
We need to clarify that the only problem is with CRT projection TVs. This is because the CRT projection TV has the gain turned up to maximum levels in order to achive enough brightness to project a large picture. The problem does not apply to either LCD or DLP style big screen TVs, although I’ve recently heard it can be a problem with the new big screen plasma TVs.
I say Play it safe, call the manf of the tv & ask them. They might even have the info on their web site.