RPTV + Burnin. Soopa = 0wned.

[soopa]

Soo...

I have a 57" 16:9 Sony HD-RPTV...

Over the past several months... I became ADDICTED to SOCOM II (A PlayStation 2 Game)

Well... this game involves alot of hiding in dark maps... shooting through bushes... blah blah blah blah blah.

Because of this... my dumbass got sick of squinting and turned the brightness/contrast up pretty high in my `game mode`


Well... luckily... this game doesnt have many areas of high contrast... EXCEPT... for in the bottom right/left corners... there are two areas of white text.


Well... last night I popped in the `Love Actually` DVD (decent for a chick flick )

The DVD Menu is `PURE WHITE` and right away I noticed what looked like `dirt` on my screen.

Well it was only a few seconds later that I realized... the `dirt` was actually brown-hued... and very vague... outlines of the text from SOCOM. :\


So... I've looked through the FAQ... and the only fix I saw was `reversing the screen image`

How would I do it in this case... where the only `burn in` is small text outlines in the bottom corners? Is it possible?

If not... what can be repaired in my TV to fix this?

[brucek]

what can be repaired in my TV to fix this?

You unfortunately would have to replace all three CRT's in your RPTV at a cost likely close to the TV's full price. :cry:

Turning up the contrast when there are fixed images on the screen are a real no-no. The phosphor wears unevenly in that area and shows up as a shadowy image when you display a white screen.

If you've caught it before it's too bad, you likely won't notice it when regular video is displayed. The good news is that if it isn't too bad, the effect actually will not be as noticeable as time goes by.

I hate all those darned fixed logos that stations display and you have to be careful of tickers along the bottom of your screen like CNN produces too.
Also continually displaying 4:3 images on a 16:9 or vise-versa without using the full screen option can burn the screen.....

brucek

[soopa]

yeah the worst part is... i knew better.

my tv is nice and calibrated for tv watching...

but i just couldnt see in them damn shadows without that brightness up in the game


yeah its not bad... not noticeable on anything but a stark white background.. and even then looks like dust on the screen.


someone elsewhere recommended the `snow` method... letting the tv run with snow on for awhile to cure mild burn in... similar to the tried and true inverted picture method.


damn im an ass........... ops:

[brucek]

someone elsewhere recommended the `snow` method... letting the tv run with snow on for awhile to cure mild burn in... similar to the tried and true inverted picture method.

I have to say I don't really like either of those methods which are really designed to wear the entire screen down quicker to the level of the burnt area - do you really want to do this? - it's just accelerated damage...

Your best bet - keep that contrast to a minimum (<50%) and never play games on the RPTV again - at least ones with fixed bright areas and certainly all games that use that damaged area....that probably means your favourite game has to go, but you'll have to decide what's more important to you........ 8O

[Kevin P]

How old is the set? If it's new (only a few hundred hours on it), and the burn-in is minor, it'll likely clear up fairly quickly. This is because of the way phosphors dim with age - they lose maybe 10% brightness during the first few hundred hours, then it levels off for most of the life of the set (10,000+ hours), then they start to drop off again.

With new guns, a slight burn, the burned areas are closer to the 10% than the rest of the tube, and the rest will catch up eventually. If the guns are older though, the burn may still fade, but it'll take longer. If the burn is more serious, then it's permanent, and the affected CRTs would have to be replaced.

Next time around, if you're playing a "dark" game, turn up the BRIGHTNESS only, not the CONTRAST! Cranking the brightness (which is really a black level adjustment) makes the dark areas lighter, bringing out the details in the shadows. This won't hurt the CRTs. Contrast (white level/picture level) makes the bright areas brighter, which is what leads to CRT damage/burn-in.

[brucek]

If it's new (only a few hundred hours on it), and the burn-in is minor, it'll likely clear up fairly quickly.

Good advice Kevin.....

turn up the BRIGHTNESS only, not the CONTRAST! Cranking the brightness (which is really a black level adjustment) makes the dark areas lighter, bringing out the details in the shadows. This won't hurt the CRTs.

Maybe better to say it won't hurt it as much, but too much brightness will also wear the phosphor faster, since beam current will increase with higher brightness because the DC biasing is decreased on the CRT cathode (less dc on the cathode with respect to the grounded grid-1 increases beam current).

Not wanting to bore anyone to death with details, but in a nutshell the DC biasing (brightness) sets up the threshold so the rastered beam is just beginning to light up the phosphor on the screen with no AC present..
The AC video component (contrast) is then applied to the cathode to increase the beam current to make the spot brighter than its base dc brightness so as to vary the spot from black to white. It varies the level of beam current around the preset dc bias and reproduces the picture on the screen by doing so. This is why it's such a dance between these two controls - one always affects the other.

Anyway, too much brightness is bad too......

[Kevin P]

Anyway, too much brightness is bad too......

Maybe to a point, but even with brightness cranked 100% the raster won't be bright enough to cause burn-in unless you run the set for months at a time that way. But if it makes the whites brighter too (this was more the case in older sets with analog controls) then that could contribute to burn-in, which can be compensated for by turning contrast down further.

[soopa]

hmm good data..

as for wearing it down... id prolly rather wear the set a lil more than have it always say `soopa` in the bottom right corner


plus now that i know its there i seem to notice it more.


the age of the set? hmmm... prolly 2-3 years old now. anyone know of a way to access the service menu on Sony's? My plasma tells me the run time right on the setting menu... wish the RP did.