Any way to prevent burn-in on my plasma monitor?

Tripi · Post by **Tripi** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:59 pm

I have a new 42" Panasonic Plasma tv that I am using in my studio to display video (for film scoring work). It's connected by an HDMI cable, and works very well. I'm noticing though, that the timecode window (a static rectangle with film frames in it) is causing image retention after i shut my programs down.

Does anyone know of a program that can make something periodically wipe over the screen of one monitor (my plasma display) infront of any running programs to prevent burn in? I figure that it would be something simple like running your screensaver as your desktop image... but it would need to do it infront of any other open windows.

thanks for the help!

Tripi

jeff sanders · Post by **jeff sanders** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:27 pm

do a search for your os plus screen savers. you should get a few freebies to choose from. in the mean time maybe you can shrink your window up a bit and relocate it randomly to give the hotspots a fresh area once in a while.

Tripi · Post by **Tripi** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:45 pm

I have a couple of good screensavers that help 'wipe' away the image retention. I usually run them for a few minutes on the plasma monitor after i finish working in DP.

I've read that some new plasma tvs use a technique that gradually shifts the image by a few pixels while it is on. It's not noticeable to anyone watching it, but it moves the image enough to prevent burnin. I would love to find a program for OS X that can do this to just my one monitor while it is on.

Wish I knew how to write the program myself.

tripi

Sticky Fox · Post by **Sticky Fox** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:43 pm

You could try working in inverse video (I think it's shift-command-option 8 ) on monday wednesday and friday, and normal mode on tuesday, thursday, and weekends.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:11 am

Ha! That would be impractical, but that's genius thinking IMHO, Sticky one!

1nput0utput · Post by **1nput0utput** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:16 am

I didn't know that plasma displays could suffer from burn-in. VGA displays have this problem, LCDs don't. I'm surprised that this could still happen with technology as new as a plasma display.

Tripi · Post by **Tripi** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:49 am

I like the inverted screen idea. Maybe I could write an apple script that changed it every 5 minutes. I'm sure that would induce some sort of good nonherbal halucinations.

Plasma screens have definitely gotten better at avoiding burnin (or image retention), but the problem is when something is on there all day. My screen is just for video, so I have the movie I'm scoring up there all day long. While most of the movie is always changing, the timecode burn window is stationary, as is the movie bars from DP at the bottom. These are the two main things that are staying on the screen after I finish working.