HOW TO: Prevent burn-in on your plasma

Well now that you scored an unbelievable deal on a great 42″ plasma of Black Friday, how do you prevent burn-in? There is no burn-in for LCD, DLP, or LCoS TVs and is much less likely to affect direct-view tube TVs. Yes, those of you who snagged the 37″ Westinghouse LCD at Best Buy are safely enjoying 1080p. Read on for more.

Burn-in can be caused by those hated black bars, or a single steady image, for extended periods of time (CBS logo, DVD menu, video game systems). Filling the screen with a moving picture is the safest way to view non-wide-screen content on 16:9 plasma flat-panel and CRT-based rear-projection displays. Leaving the black bars on for an extended period of time can cause permanent damage to the display called burn-in or image retention, which often isn’t covered by the warranty.

Both plasma and rear-projection CRT sets are particularly vulnerable to burn-in during the first 100 or so hours of use. During that time, we recommend you watch without vertical letterboxing at all, and that you avoid still images, such as paused games or television shows. After this initial period, the danger of burn-in is greatly reduced.

Other easy measures to avoid burn in include: find a set or a source that produces gray bars instead of black (like ESPN HD does for non-HD content) to either side of the 4:3 image, turn contrast down to 50 percent or lower, balance your 4:3 viewing with more wide-screen material (sports and animation make good candidates for stretching).