Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater 3808 and Image Retention

So I noticed a huge bump in video processing on the 3808 vs. the 663, and today experienced a watershed moment with network music over the 3808, verily sweetness incarnate, yet my karma continues with regard to a quick fix (SD TV died in August 2008, so I decided to upgrade to HDTV/Surround sound) gravitating into a slow burn: my daughter came home from school and I wanted to demonstrate how cool Rhapsody on HDTV could be, and we listened to one song she wanted to hear and then I noticed that the image of the GUI had burned in, from top to bottom and left to right (i.e., "Denon, Now Playing" being just a tiny particle of the burned in image), even though the GUI quite impressively shut itself off quicker than any I have seen (e.g., Samsung, Sony, Directv). Ran the left to right burn in solution (black to grey to white) on the samsung and the image retention was gone in less than a minute (of course); however, it seems I have to finally get around to calibration, I've been too busy putting out other fires up until this point yet of course have planned to do so all along, the calibrated set I viewed when I first decided to purchase looked beautiful.

I noticed tonight that when the Denon volume/db increase appears on the screen during playback, it is much brighter (heavy duty white numerals, supposedly bright white is the worst culprit with regard to plasma burn in) than anything I have seen now or previously on Directv and blu ray. I have never experienced ANY image retention or burn in issues EVER since September 2008 until now, and the white network logos in Directv seem positively faded by comparison to the Denon volume info, and the white or grey Denon screensaver is totally faded out, as if they understand the problem, yet appear to have missed the issue with regard to the internet music GUI, which naturally hangs around longer than the rest of the menu options. Makes me wonder why the music menu is so bright, will have to study if it's just Rhapsody, however, the representation of volume increase/decrease clearly appears pretty over the top as well, of course that goes away fast and leaves no image.

This all relates to plasma of course, anyone out there with a plasma and a 3808 noticed any image retention issues. AVS forum suggests the Kuros are immune after the first 50-100 hours (but don't they cost an arm and a leg? I think the 58PZ800U would be a more relevant comparison, but that's AVS for ya, wild West stuff).

Thanks all,

Hey, you're not allowed to have any new issues.

You're absolutely correct, problem is I've attempted to build an HT from scratch, hoping if I bought reasonably good stuff I would not have problems, yet as soon as I deal with one problem, hydra heads spring up and sneer or smile, whatever is their desire, not mine, verily.

I've come to believe I will soon turn the corner, and have decided that stoic persistence is my only ally, i.e., to stare into the face of the demon until victory is mine! I'm almost there, I mean I really hope so, this has gotten old, ages ago.

3808's bright, but not TOO bright (if you disallow the flash in the second photo).

Actually glad I didn't calibrate before because the 3808 seems brighter than the 663, unless of course that means I should have performed calibration myself, and then again over and over as so many maintenance tasks that recede further and further onto the backest burner.

I have a 3808ci, & a Samsung 50PNA550. What you are talking about is image retention, and not burn in. I know that it is semantics, but there is a difference. Burn in does not go away after running the scrolling, or watching something that is full screen. I believe that the Samsung's maybe a little worse at this than the Panny's, or the Kuro's. Image retention, and the possibility of burn in are inherent in plasma. It is one of the draw backs of the technology. One of the reasons that the GUI on the Denon leaves an image so quickly, my opinion "Is because the menu is in HD". My GUI leaves image retention faster than anything else on my set. I do have my set configured to the Cnet review settings, but I have not had it calibrated. Hope this helps. I just try and make sure that I run the scroll, or watch something that is full screen after watching something with bars and so forth.

Thanks, I will check out the CNET recommendations for settings, there are also a number of settings recommended by users on the official PN58A550 thread, this will be one of the next things to accomplish on my list, so image retention has no possibility of progressing to the point of actual burn in.

That is correct. IR, will always fade. It takes hours to days to actually cause burn-in.

You've had this set since September? Approx how many operational hours do you have on the panel? Generally after 200 hours the amount of image retention lessens.

Hard to say, my wife and daughter love to watch TV and it has become a hobby of mine now that I am attempting to set up the HT. I think the set is probably going something like 4-6 hours a day, i.e., 1-2 hours each (we only have the one tv).

The funny thing is that in all that time I never saw any image retention whatsoever and I have had my eye out after one user reported that the QVC log was emblazoned in the lower right corner of his mother's unit (same model). I kept thinking I was going to end up with the Nick at Night logo forever in the lower right corner of our plasma, but nothing has ever been a problem.

If it happens again I will try to post some pics, it was quite dramatic in that the image was only static for a couple of moments, and then the entire menu was burned into the screen.

i was freaked out when i first brought my plasma home and there was image retention after 10 mins of playing a game

i thought it was permanent burn in :P

if I dont have people over i just turn of the lights and turn the contrast down to 50 that usaully causes no IR

Sat the 3808 also has picture quality settings that you can set to lessen the brightness etc.

Sat, do you have the PN58A550? If so, I have the same unit and the 3808 and I have had image retention five or six times. A couple times from the black bars on a widescreen movie, I've had the GUI from the Denon burn in even after a minute or so of using it, as well as my Samsung DVD logo, but everything disappeared after using the "scrolling bars" built into the TV.

I've inquired about this a couple times on the PN58A550 official thread and I've had responses from calibrators and "special members" saying that this is normal.

Cam, you should find out about the barring (black bars) on the widescreens....I'm sure I read somewhere, that this is why the TV settings allow you to use grey bars as an option instead of black to help avoid this.

Hey Adrian, thanks, I am aware of that function but I double checked the manual and the gray bars only work when watching 4:3 aspect ratio broadcast, it doesn't mention anything about utilizing them for (top and bottom bars) widescreen format. It may be available and I'm just not seeing it though.

Thanks, Cam, for sharing that research, I do have that same model, it's good to know that it's considered normal, I never noticed it happen from the widescreen bars before but as I was saying before I had the 663 and the images seemed less bright so there may also be an interaction effect in my case, do you play much music on the 3808? I've been wondering if it's the GUI in general or just the Rhapsody upgrade, that's where I noticed the IR effect to a very intense degree.

Anyway the tentative plan would be to calibrate which I've been wanting to do yet not gotten around to, also hopefully to set the Harmony One to select a less bright mode such as Cinema after I set up an Activity on the remote called "Play Internet Music," don't know for sure but hopefully I can set that automatically so I can teach the girls which button to press and they will be able to play music without having to adjust anything like brightness for that particular activity. On my set just shifting the volume brings up an extremely bright graphic with the volume bar and numerical indication of volume in dbs in bright white, there it only lasts for a second so it makes no immediate difference (other than supposedly to help burn out the plasma in the long run), I'm glad because I wouldn't want to adjust overall brightness for video playback to match the avr info, on the other hand I'd be happy to turn brightness way down for the music menus.

What do people think about professional calibration? Before I was thinking about having the Circuit City guy come out with his "$7,000 of professional equipment" to calibrate the video for $150, now they're out of business and last I heard BB wants $300 to calibrate both audio and video, don't suppose I really need audio calibration and given its shelf life I can't see that audio calibration would be worth it. Do those calibration DVDs work? Are they easy to use and get decent results? I might begin messing around with the settings recommended on AVS forum, however I'm always looking for a shortcut, this has been a time consuming project.

SK,

My brief thoughts on this (sorry, too lazy to write more this AM)

1) Audio -> very easy to do yourself with just the test tones in the Denon 3808, I think a calibration DVD is overkill for audio setup.

2) Video -> harder to do yourself. If when watching your display you think the video looks unrealistic or are not happy with it, then you might find the cost of a professional calibration worth it. If you're already happy with what you see on your screen, then I wouldn't bother with it as I don't believe the calibration will result in night & day difference. YMMV of course.

Jason

Thanks, that's what I thought. I do like the way the picture looks for the most part, however, I've been told that the life of the plasma would be extended by calibration, and I have no doubt it's running a little hot at the moment. I may try some minor modifications as Jay suggested (e.g., turn down brightness) until I get around to a more permanent solution.

I find it very easy to calibrate displays with just a couple of test patterns (gray steps down to below black, and up to above white), and a blue filter plus some color bars.

I did go to school where I had some video production classes, but I didn't really get the hang of what was happening with these test patterns until I had a couple calibration DVDs. Probably the easiest one to learn from is Digital Video Essentials (DVE) it also comes with the nicest set of color filters. Now since I just need the patterns I use some one of the enthusiast-built AVCHD DVD images, but still use the blue filter from DVE.

Thanks, I will check it out, ordered a copy of the blu ray version of DVE for 16.99 from Amazon Prime.

I guess I should have said "adjust" rather than "calibrate". Adjusting the default controls gets you 9/10 of the way there. That'll be a better picture than most people have. The last 10% is half setting the color of white, and the gamma curve. Those two can't be done with simple patterns and filters, you need a colormeter to do those.

But yeah, $17 to get 90%, that's great. I'd recommend watching the tutorials and just paying attention to what is being said. Don't worry about adjusting anything the first time through. Once you understand the basics, then go back through and make the adjustments.

I think they'll mention it on the disc, but some of the controls interact (they shouldn't but they do), so after you've done the big 4: brightness, contrast, color, and tint, it helps to double check them again to see if any one shifted another.

I actually prefer adjusting displays over audio. With audio it is always a bit of a guess if things are right. Once you've learned how the video patterns work, you'll have no doubt when you've got the controls in the right place; it's just obvious.