Should I worry about Plasma Burn-in?

One of the drawbacks of Plasma televisions is Burn-in, which is when an image gets permanently etched into the screen.

Old Computer Monitors

Most people who remember what computers were like way back in the eighties remember the old green-screen computer monitors which suffered from burn-in. When images were displayed over and over, the light slowly wore down the coating on the screen. Toolbars, the lines around the outside of a window or the lines of a spreadsheet which were almost always on screen would wear the screen out faster.  After several years a faint image of whatever was on the screen the most would be ‘burned-in’ and then was always on the screen, even when the monitor was turned off. Modern computer monitors don’t suffer from burn-in, but still tend to use ’screen savers’, which were originally intended to vary the image when the computer was not in use. They limited the amount of time that the same image was displayed continuously and preserved the screen. Now they just display cute images of cats or scenic vistas.

Plasma Screens

Modern plasma screens suffer from burn-in in two different ways. One is permanent, the other is temporary. If a screen is left on too long, the individual pixels can become charged in such a way that they glow slightly even when they’re not on. This effect is temporary, and fades after a few hours.

Plasma screens can also suffer from permanent burn-in, like the type of burn-in that occurred on old computer monitors, although it doesn’t happen as quickly or as severely as with the old monitors. Burn-in can occur on plasmas when the same image is displayed continuously for long periods of time. Ordinarily this isn’t a problem, because television images are constantly changing, not static images like the outline of a spreadsheet.

There are a few exceptions. When a television displays a computer game, very often the same images are displayed over and over. Sports shows often have a logo displayed in the same position on the screen, and news programs have logos or news tickers that appear in the same position over and over. If these channels are left on for long periods of time, it can result in burn-in.

When to Avoid Plasmas

Ordinarily, Plasma screens should work just fine for normal television. But, there are a few scenarios where an LCD would be a better choice. If you plan to use the screen as an oversize computer monitor, LCD is a better choice. Likewise, you should consider an LCD if you play a lot of video games. If you’re buying a screen for an office, or a sports bar, or a health club, where it’s likely that the same news or sports station will be played all-day every-day, then an LCD television is a better choice than plasma.

The situations under which Plasmas suffer from burn-in are few, and like every technology, the people who design them are working hard to eliminate difficulties like burn-in for newer generations of the product. I wouldn’t advise a typical television shopper to avoid Plasma, in fact I personally prefer the image on a plasma. Burn-in is something to consider, but it is only an issue depending on how you use the screen.