"Breaking In" Plasma TV?

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Sugnid

So already there are conflicting posts over the issue-one person says he's never done any "breaking in" and another has said he's kept his tv on for a week solid....

As I said-it seems a hell of a lot of hassle just to watch some TV.

really?? a few days of inconvenience is a hassle??? if you want a plug and play tv go get an lcd. plasmas require more work than the average TV but they have fantastic pictures

[BMox81]

Originally Posted by wormraper

really?? a few days of inconvenience is a hassle??? if you want a plug and play tv go get an lcd. plasmas require more work than the average TV but they have fantastic pictures

Why should I spend a large amount of money on a TV for it to be broken in?

My old flatmate bought a 50" Samsung Plasma 3-D TV a while back, plugged it in and not once have I ever heard him utter the words, "break in", "image burn" or "image retention".

Hence why I'm asking why is it necessary to do it.

I have films I want to watch, but I'm being told I have to watch them zoomed in? Defeats the purpose of watching them in their intended format surely?

[Cevolution]

@ Sugnid, breaking the tv in won't help against image retention or the unlikely event of burn in, it just helps age the phosphors for calibration. To be honest you don't sound like someone too me who will put a lot of time and effort into calibrating the tv to the extent of what many members here do, so if thats the case I say just use the tv the way you want straight away, forget the break in period, especially since you don't sound keen on the idea to begin with.

[liquidice]

recently been over this whole issue with my mom who I finally convinced to buy a plasma over lcd.

It's been said a couple times now over a couple people's posts; you "break-in" a plasma to age the phosphors evenly, preparing for calibration. Your dealing with much better technology with a plasma, and you should take care of your monitor right out of the box. You buy a plasma for better picture, better blacks, and no motion blur. Take care of the thing, and it will treat you good for a handful of decades.

As someone said, if you can't deal with the extra care it takes to have the best picture possible, go with lcd, but don't be upset dealing with the issues later down the road; ie stuck/dead pixels being the worst.

I would say about 80-90% of consumers have a tv that is not properly setup, and is not seeing the image in the best manner they could be. Too many people put down the money to upgrade to HD, and pull out of box and set it up and forget about it.

In all honesty, I put buying a new monitor in the category of buying a brand new car. Are you going to get that new car and not care for it? No wax?...no interior vacuuming?...no oil changes?

[Grif32]

Originally Posted by liquidice

recently been over this whole issue with my mom who I finally convinced to buy a plasma over lcd.

It's been said a couple times now over a couple people's posts; you "break-in" a plasma to age the phosphors evenly, preparing for calibration. Your dealing with much better technology with a plasma, and you should take care of your monitor right out of the box. You buy a plasma for better picture, better blacks, and no motion blur. Take care of the thing, and it will treat you good for a handful of decades.

As someone said, if you can't deal with the extra care it takes to have the best picture possible, go with lcd, but don't be upset dealing with the issues later down the road; ie stuck/dead pixels being the worst.

I would say about 80-90% of consumers have a tv that is not properly setup, and is not seeing the image in the best manner they could be. Too many people put down the money to upgrade to HD, and pull out of box and set it up and forget about it.

In all honesty, I put buying a new monitor in the category of buying a brand new car. Are you going to get that new car and not care for it? No wax?...no interior vacuuming?...no oil changes?

You can get stuck/dead pixels down the road even doing the break-in

My buddy and I bought the same TV, TC-P60ST30. He did the "Break-in" slides on his and I just did what I wanted from day one, game, watch movies, sports etc.

He left it at my house since he was going to be out of town and wanted me to watch it.

After all the care he gave it with running the slides we compared PQ side by side and there was ZERO difference! I have installed many many Plasma's over the years and never done the "Break-In" and NEVER had one complaint about the PQ.

Telling someone they can not watch their brand new TV for 100 hours because I need to run slides is just funny to me and they would probably want to kill me.

You talk about buying a new TV is like buying a new car. Ok how would you like it if you bought a new car but couldn't drive it for 100 hours, you had to let it sit and idle there for a week to "Break-In" the engine. That's how I would compare it to buying a new car, not oil changes

See sounds kind of funny doesn't it.

Also as D-nice stated if you run the slides you shouldn't watch any TV, movies etc. during it because it defeats the purpose of doing it.

Own 4 plamsa's and never did the "Break-in" and my plasma's have amazing PQ.

I agree that people buy beautiful HD TV's and set them up wrong but not because they didn't run slides but because they are using composite cables!

Just my 2 cents!

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by Sugnid

So already there are conflicting posts over the issue-one person says he's never done any "breaking in" and another has said he's kept his tv on for a week solid....

As I said-it seems a hell of a lot of hassle just to watch some TV.

Would you read some of the info provided before *****ing about it?

It was not stated by me that you had to do it, i do it to get hours on the tv for calibration and check for problems. If you dont care about either, dont do it, sheesh.

[BMox81]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

Would you read some of the info provided before *****ing about it?

It was not stated by me that you had to do it, i do it to get hours on the tv for calibration and check for problems. If you dont care about either, dont do it, sheesh.

I never said you did say to do it-I just stated that there were conflicting stances early on in the thread about the issue.

[elwaylite]

Its not conflicting. One said they dont do it, and one said to do it if you need a, b, c.

Thats not conflicting, thats different scenarios. People always over think plasma, because of 10 years of FUD.

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by Sugnid

So already there are conflicting posts over the issue-one person says he's never done any "breaking in" and another has said he's kept his tv on for a week solid....

As I said-it seems a hell of a lot of hassle just to watch some TV.

Originally Posted by Sugnid

I never said you did say to do it-I just stated that there were conflicting stances early on in the thread about the issue.

What did you expect, for everyone to tell you what you want to hear? You asked a question and obviously you're not going to get the same answer from everybody, as people have different opinions about it.

[BMox81]

Originally Posted by Cevolution

What did you expect, for everyone to tell you what you want to hear? You asked a question and obviously you're not going to get the same answer from everybody, as people have different opinions about it.

Not at all. I'm glad of the discussion - both pro and against. Makes interesting reading and some good insight to when I take the plunge when getting my new TV.

My intent for this thread was to find out whether there is an actual need to "break in" a plasma or if it's merely a case of people being over cautious with their TV's. Nothing more, nothing less.

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by Sugnid

Not at all. I'm glad of the discussion - both pro and against. Makes interesting reading and some good insight to when I take the plunge when getting my new TV.

My intent for this thread was to find out whether there is an actual need to "break in" a plasma or if it's merely a case of people being over cautious with their TV's. Nothing more, nothing less.

No.

[Pelican170]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

no.

+1 ^^^

[Grif32]

Originally Posted by Sugnid

Not at all. I'm glad of the discussion - both pro and against. Makes interesting reading and some good insight to when I take the plunge when getting my new TV.

My intent for this thread was to find out whether there is an actual need to "break in" a plasma or if it's merely a case of people being over cautious with their TV's. Nothing more, nothing less.

No!

Plug it in and enjoy it!

[liquidice]

well, once again this topic has people up in arms. Seen it since I've joined this site.

Look, I know the science behind "breaking in" a plasma. Doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to play slides on my monitor for a week straight. Does it mean I may do a full screen image overnight for a week? Sure. Does it mean I'll take it out of DEMO mode right on setup? Sure.

Point is, do your own research. I'll quote an old friend of mine from this very website, "I will not spoon feed people info they can find on their own". Obvious this subject has people battling wits because they own "X" amount of plasmas, or have installed "X" amount of plasmas, but do your own research, then come back to this this site with more narrowed questions. Too broad, and people's opinions start to flail all over the place.

[ewsjr]

Yea, it's a funny situation. I've never used the slides (firm believer in ISF calibration) but the strange thing is, after I bought a Panasonic 42ST30 at the end of April, I got a hold of DNice's final settings for this display AFTER you had run the slides, punched them in, tweaked a bit here and there and bingo, excellent PQ on my cable, Roku and blu-ray player. Haven't changed a single thing since I set it up. Just goes to show you, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[whipit]

I just bought a 50ST30 and in a few hours I punched in D-nices' settings and am pleased with the picture. I made a few very minor tweaks and am sure to make a few as the panel ages. No need to waste the tv on slides if I'm not going to have it calibrated. I may get into calibrating eventually.

Like any tv the picture settings can drift, especially when new, so the point is to do the slides to age the panel so when the calibrator comes you will get a good value our of your calibration dollars because of less drift. This is suggested by your calibrator. Your tv will still need touch-ups as time goes on to keep the best pic possible.

I'm going to take it easy early in the panels life and gradually bring in the questionable material while monitoring the effect on the panel. IE: if I start to see lines at the top and bottom from widescreen movies I'll just use full screen content more often, simple really. I feel it's worth doing this to have the pic quality vs getting an lcd which I don't like. The main thing is to enjoy your purchase and don't dwell on the small things too much

[BadsantaKQ]

Hey guys,

Am a new owner of a phenomenal Plasma 60" - Samsung PN60E6500 and had it for 2 weeks.

Update: Currently I have broken in my new tv set for about 100 hrs thus far, only 50 hours to go. As per many people's suggestions, my picture settings are as follows:

Cell Lighting: 50
Brightness: 50
Contrast: 50
Sharpness: 35
Noise Reduction: Off


My question is NOT about the break-in period, but AFTER. By next week, after achieving my 150 hours of break-in, (of course taking the usual precautions by fixing my settings for contrast/brightness/sharpness/cell lighting/noise reduction settings exactly as listed above + viewing 100% 16:9 or Zoom Mode aspect ratio leaving no black bars or grey bars and varying my viewing content over this period), is it THEN safe to change all those same settings back to "Torch Mode" as when I first took my tv out of the box?

If so, should "Torch Mode" after this break-in period be only used for short periods of time (i.e., 2 hrs on, then switch back to 50/50/35/off then 2 more hrs torch mode, then back etc? Or is it ok to leave it in "torch mode" "forever" regardless of what I watch or use the tv for?

[blue11]

Originally Posted by BadsantaKQ

Hey guys,

Am a new owner of a phenomenal Plasma 60" - Samsung PN60E6500 and had it for 2 weeks.

Update: Currently I have broken in my new tv set for about 100 hrs thus far, only 50 hours to go. As per many people's suggestions, my picture settings are as follows:

Cell Lighting: 50
Brightness: 50
Contrast: 50
Sharpness: 35
Noise Reduction: Off


My question is NOT about the break-in period, but AFTER. By next week, after achieving my 150 hours of break-in, (of course taking the usual precautions by fixing my settings for contrast/brightness/sharpness/cell lighting/noise reduction settings exactly as listed above + viewing 100% 16:9 or Zoom Mode aspect ratio leaving no black bars or grey bars and varying my viewing content over this period), is it THEN safe to change all those same settings back to "Torch Mode" as when I first took my tv out of the box?

If so, should "Torch Mode" after this break-in period be only used for short periods of time (i.e., 2 hrs on, then switch back to 50/50/35/off then 2 more hrs torch mode, then back etc? Or is it ok to leave it in "torch mode" "forever" regardless of what I watch or use the tv for?

do you have any plans to calibrate the display after your break-in? Also, is there any particualr reason you want to use Torch Mode for your viewing?

I don't feel, and I don't think I'm the only one on this, torch mode would be the best picture setting to use for viewing. On our Panasonic plasma, we have it set to THX. I've also made some tweaks to the different setting values based on the basic calibration tools some of the discs we own have.

[BadsantaKQ]

Originally Posted by blue11

do you have any plans to calibrate the display after your break-in? Also, is there any particualr reason you want to use Torch Mode for your viewing?

I don't feel, and I don't think I'm the only one on this, torch mode would be the best picture setting to use for viewing. On our Panasonic plasma, we have it set to THX. I've also made some tweaks to the different setting values based on the basic calibration tools some of the discs we own have.

Blue11,

Thanks for the reply. No, I don't *actually* plan on keeping settings on Torch Mode, but I wanted to know if there will be any ill-effects IF I had cranked the settings back up to max. Just wondering what my upper and lower limits are within the realm of responsible Plasma use.

Yes, Blue11, I will definitely calibrate my tv after the 150 hr break in period - my first try will be with the Munsil & Spears Calibration CD. If all else fails, and I'm still unhappy with my own calibration, then I will consider hiring an ISF calibrator.

Cheers!

[blue11]

Originally Posted by BadsantaKQ

Blue11,

Thanks for the reply. No, I don't *actually* plan on keeping settings on Torch Mode, but I wanted to know if there will be any ill-effects IF I had cranked the settings back up to max. Just wondering what my upper and lower limits are within the realm of responsible Plasma use.

Yes, Blue11, I will definitely calibrate my tv after the 150 hr break in period - my first try will be with the Munsil & Spears Calibration CD. If all else fails, and I'm still unhappy with my own calibration, then I will consider hiring an ISF calibrator.

Cheers!

I can't personally tell if there would be any ill effects, as you put it, if you were to use it in torch mode since I've never done it on our TV.
Based on the research I have done myself, not using the torch mode would be a good first step. Now calibrating after the break is also a great idea.
For what it's worth, after using the calibration disc, live with it for a while and see how you like it. You may not like it right away but you may change your mind after a while. Now if after some time, maybe a few weeks or a month, you're still not happy with the TV, then get it ISF calibrated. This is my opinion of course. It's your TV and you can do with it as you wish. I'm merely telling you what I went through. After tweaking the settings on our TV, I've been happy with it for the past 3 years and haven't felt the need to have it professionally calibrated.

hopefully the last bit of break in you're doing goes by fast and you get to enjoy your TV soon enough