Reverse tv Burn-in?

April 14, 2005 5:46 AM

Is there any way to reverse tv burn-in on a widescreen tv?

We've been watching too much 4:3 material on our widescreen and have started to notice lighter colored vertical bars on the side of the screen. Is there any way to get rid of this? My only idea was to play a dvd with white bars on the side and black center for a couple hours a day until they evened out. Would this even work? any other ideas?

posted by Mark5four0 to Technology (6 answers total)

I was beginning to have the same problem on my Panasonic plasma screen. I went to the preferences menu and set the letterbox bar color option to medium (or something like that) and it seems to be getting better; the side bars had been black before. There may be a similar setting on your cable box, if you are using one. This works on the same theory as your dvd idea, but was less hassle
posted by TedW at 5:58 AM on April 14, 2005

You've answered it yourself, pretty much. Yes it would work, but only in the sense of damaging your TV more.
posted by cillit bang at 7:17 AM on April 14, 2005

With your "fix", if you didn't get it perfectly lined up, you would be left with a skinny lighter or darker bar that would probably be more distracting.
posted by smackfu at 7:24 AM on April 14, 2005

Sorry, but its shot. As someone that works installing them, I have 3 letters for you....LCD. With plasmas, even if you don't damage it, in 5 to 8 years its gonna die anyway.(if not sooner) Really, it suchs but unless you have the cash to blow 10 to 15k every few years, I would avoid them.

NEVER.....I say again......NEVER hook it up to a PC or game machine. Thats just asking for it.
posted by The Infamous Jay at 8:06 AM on April 14, 2005

I wouldn't go so far as to say NEVER. I've had my 42" widescreen Samsung TV (rear projection) for about 2 years. I'm a heavy video game player, and I've had no burn in.

You just have to be paranoid about it. Many games are completely safe from burn in, like Prince of Persia where there is no static stuff on the screen like your score or life or whatever (unless you get hurt, and it fades in and out).

For games that don't offer an option to have a translucent interface, and there is static stuff on the screen, don't play for more than about 30-40 minutes at a time.

Also, if you're watching 4:3 TV, stretch or zoom. Yes, it doesn't look as good, but the alternative of burn in ruining your stuff is worse.

These days, I'm watching 90% HDTV. That's only going to improve. The only time I have black bars on the screen is when I'm watching a DVD that's in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. But even then it's only for a couple of hours, and I try not to do it often.
posted by robinw at 10:33 AM on April 14, 2005

Plasma burns in that quickly? WTF?

Is this only a problem with older sets?
posted by bshort at 12:07 PM on April 14, 2005