Does pausing Tivo cause image burn in on newer plasmas?

You can get some image retention if you leave a static image up, but it tends to go away. Still if you use the pause button frequently, you may just want to turn the TV off and leave the TiVo paused especially when the set is brand new.

javabird said:

Do I need to worry about pausing my Tivo causing image burn in on my plasma TV? I recently bought my first plasma (Panasonic 42" Viera 720p) and I understand burn-in is less a problem than it was on older plasmas. But we use the Pause feature on Tivo a lot! The Panny manual says not to display still images on the TV for "a long time"-- how long is a long time? 2 minutes, 15 minutes?

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I have had my Panasonic Plasma for 3.5 years and don't see any issues. I don't pause for excessive periods but 5 minutes is fairly normal. I also use the Pandora app allot and use the thumbs up/down buttons enough so it is normally on a static page. I would be extra careful during the break in period and not worry that much after that. You can always just pause the TiVo and turn the TV off if you are really concerned.

Good Luck,

Thanks. I put some images on a USB drive to use as a screensaver-like slideshow but then I found you have to jump through a few menus to activate the slideshow on the Viera TV. Not too practical.

I have a plasma from within the past year, and *DO* see what is either burn in or retention, but pretty much only when the screen is ENTIRELY black.. and that's often even just when turning on/off.. sometimes I don't even notice it with a fade to black.

The things I notice - the 4:3 square, since I watch a ton of older 4:3 stuff... and even in the 4:3 image, there's a horizontal time bar from my XS32 recorder (since I leave the time bar on a lot, and it defaults to on when I play faster than realtime).

But again, during actual use, I don't notice it, so I haven't freaked out..

generally new plasmas are ok- I have a pioneer krp-5oom plasma and I haven't noticed anythign negative. I wouldn't leave it paused for 3 hours, but pausing it for 15 minutes isn't gonna hurt anything I don't think.

If you have a Panny I would be VERY careful displaying any static images for the first several hundred hours. I would continue to be cautious even after that.

Funny as I have the exact same question. Doing a little research I came across an article that said with a plasma TV you should set the Tivo to grey "letterbox" instead of black. I guess there is less chance of burn in since with grey the pixels are active instead of off. I know there are smarter people than me here that will confirm or deny.

That's probably true (since grey is "using" the pixels), but I often tell my DVD recorder to switch to 4:3 (within 16:9) BECAUSE it is black, and my TV uses grey when resizing. Obviously neither of those are directly Tivo related (except when recording from my S1 to DVD recorder and trying to play on my TV)... But I put up with the slight image retention/burn in (as I explain above), because I far prefer the black letterboxing.

mattack said:

That's probably true (since grey is "using" the pixels), but I often tell my DVD recorder to switch to 4:3 (within 16:9) BECAUSE it is black, and my TV uses grey when resizing. Obviously neither of those are directly Tivo related (except when recording from my S1 to DVD recorder and trying to play on my TV)... But I put up with the slight image retention/burn in (as I explain above), because I far prefer the black letterboxing.

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Black should be pixels turned off, so you wouldn't get any screen burn from them.

I WANT MORE said:

If you have a Panny I would be VERY careful displaying any static images for the first several hundred hours. I would continue to be cautious even after that.

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Having heard the same thing, I downloaded a DVD "burn-in" ISO and created a DVD that I played for 100 hours when I first got my new Panasonic Plasma. In 4 years I've had no problems, though I admit I avoid leaving the screen paused. In fact, I changed the Pause button on my Logitech remote to be "SLOW" instead. Also, I don't play video games.

But i admit that most of this is probably overkill.

bmgoodman said:

Having heard the same thing, I downloaded a DVD "burn-in" ISO and created a DVD that I played for 100 hours when I first got my new Panasonic Plasma. In 4 years I've had no problems, though I admit I avoid leaving the screen paused. In fact, I changed the Pause button on my Logitech remote to be "SLOW" instead. Also, I don't play video games.

But i admit that most of this is probably overkill.

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I hadn't thought about using Slow instead of Pause, but that's a good idea.

We frequently pause the TiVo for quite a long time, especially when we get into discussions about something on the news...5-10 minutes is not unusual, but since getting the plasma I've gotten worried about it-- maybe I'm too paranoid.

Panasonic says to use grey side bars instead of black when watching 4:3 (but the manual also says even that can cause image retention if used for long times) so I usually change to the "JUST" or "Zoom" setting on the Panny remote when watching 4:3.

unitron said:

Black should be pixels turned off, so you wouldn't get any screen burn from them.

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Yes, but if those pixels AREN'T being used, and the rest of the screen IS.. you're getting 'burn in' by noticing the darker areas.

Burn in for Plasma is nothing like it was initially. It is much more difficult to do. Some Plasmas, like my Samsung, have a feature that runs through a process to get rid of the burn in if it ever occurs.

BTW, if my Samsung is paused for any length of time it goes into a lower output mode. The picture is still there by about half as bright.

I've had my Panny 50" commercial plasma now for over 8 years and I've never concerned myself much about leaving the TiVo paused on it. I've left it for a couple hours before (unaware) and have never had any burn-in whatsoever.

If an 8 year old model is that good, I certainly wouldn't worry about it on a newer one as long as you don't have it in "torch" mode (max bright/contrast)

Thanks everyone for your responses. We now have more harmony in the household since I'm not so worried about pausing the TV for a few minutes

You can do as you please. Real Life. I have a PS3 madden score bar along the bottom of my 65vt25. The set was broken in for 150 hours with the colored slides. After 2 hrs of my son playing madden there it is permanently.