Are the black bars bad on a plasma?

[chriso_86]

Hi, I was wondering how bad the black bars that are on the bottom and top of the screen when watching some blu-ray/dvd movies on a plasma TV? I have had my plasma for about 1 month now and is getting fairly broke in and was wondering if it would burn in with those bars. I guess my question is should I zoom in the picture or not. Will watching a movie with the bars make for problems? I zoom mine now but I don't really like to because it cuts a lot of the picture out sometimes and makes watching certain scenes with people on the edges really anoying. If it makes a difference I have the Panasonic TH-46PZ85U.

[smv25]

It depends on the brand of the tv, the age of the set, and what setting you have it at. For the first 250 hours, you should go easy on it. For more info. read the plasma burn in myth thread. Also, Panasonic and Pioneer make the best plasma displays that some argue that even at 720P, they look better than most LCD's.

[DetroitSportsFan]

On newer, high quality plasmas it's not a concern.

[secret]

Originally Posted by smv25

It depends on the brand of the tv, the age of the set, and what setting you have it at. For the first 250 hours, you should go easy on it. For more info. read the plasma burn in myth thread. Also, Panasonic and Pioneer make the best plasma displays that some argue that even at 720P, they look better than most LCD's.

About a year ago, it was the Panasonic professional (non-consumer) brands that really kicked ass.

Pioneer consumer displays were always getting editor's choices across the board. Originally, Fujitsu wasn't bad either.


But really, if you can get a qualified calibrating professional to enter your service menu and make some tweaks, your display should look good regardless of the make of your tv, if your tv uses good hardware to start with.

I own a Pioneer plasma that won lots of awards, but I don't have it professionally calibrated. Even without the calibration, the picture quality is still cinematic to me. And that's probably because the Pioneer Elites come not so much pre-calibrated, but rather unadulterated or unmanipulated to catch our attentions on the showroom floors.

I've seen some so-so Bravia run of the mill Sony LCD's and old timer Plasmas get tweaked by a professional using all kinds of $5,000-$20,000 vectorscopes or waveform monitors and computer programs. And I'll tell you that the picture quality on those monitors have stayed in my mind until this day as being nothing short of breathtaking. These monitors cost much less than my Pioneer and have received only average review scores...but after calibration, you'd think they'd get editor's choice for sure.

I think the Pioneer Plasma's have been receiving glowing rewards not only because of their ability to produce deep blacks, but it's mainly because they keep their color decoder's as original and intact or "normal" as possible, whereas other tv manufacturers try to manipulate their colors to catch your attention. In other words, Pioneer's plasma's have gotten good reviews for their color accuracy mainly because they left their color decor alone rather than say, "Hey, look at me, I'm super bright blue. Hey, look at how glaring my reds are."


It's funny how, because of the flaws of consumers (us), manufacturers are forced to manipulate their colors in order to attract our attention, which causes everyone to lose because of the bad picture. If consumers didn't flock to those monitors with the super bright blue color temperature and glowing reds like flys flocking to the flame, we'd all be enjoying a beautiful picture by now without the need to calibrate anything. Almost everyone's monitor will show the same picture right out of the box or at least have that option, unless manufactures skimp on hardware and choose bad components.

Thank goodness for the popularity of CNET or the internet in becoming widely used to make purchasing decisions by consumers. Cnet will point out for us that color accuracy is important and that only these brands have the "right" unmanipulated colors. Eventually, hopefully, all manufacturers will start to give an option to put the tv colors back to normal again (as an option) so that we won't ever need to calibrate these damn things again because consumers will start to choose monitors with good colors, not the monitors with "Hey, I'M NEON GREEN...!!! LOOK AT ME...!!!"

[rubberghost]

Originally Posted by chriso_86

Hi, I was wondering how bad the black bars that are on the bottom and top of the screen when watching some blu-ray/dvd movies on a plasma TV? I have had my plasma for about 1 month now and is getting fairly broke in and was wondering if it would burn in with those bars. I guess my question is should I zoom in the picture or not. Will watching a movie with the bars make for problems? I zoom mine now but I don't really like to because it cuts a lot of the picture out sometimes and makes watching certain scenes with people on the edges really anoying. If it makes a difference I have the Panasonic TH-46PZ85U.

yeh, if you have a newer t.v. i wouldn't worry too much about it. i fell asleep(drunk), with the hd, sopranos, playing. when i awoke, about 6 hours had passed, with the menu screen on. it burned the piss out of it. 3 days later it was gone. (by newer t.v., i mean new technologies, not new to you.)

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by rubberghost

yeh, if you have a newer t.v. i wouldn't worry too much about it. i fell asleep(drunk), with the hd, sopranos, playing. when i awoke, about 6 hours had passed, with the menu screen on. it burned the piss out of it. 3 days later it was gone. (by newer t.v., i mean new technologies, not new to you.)

That is called "image retention", not burning. Image retention goes away after a short time. When an image is burned in, it never goes away.

[chriso_86]

Ok, well since I have this years Panasonic model I guess I won't be to concerned with it. If anything maybe when I'm watching a longer movie I'll zoom it in for five min. or so half way through the movie to get some moving images on the black part again. Thanks for putting my mind at rest.

[elwaylite]

After break in on a newer plasma, dont even worry about black bars. If you have to the tv in mid show for a long time, just turn it off.

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by chriso_86

Ok, well since I have this years Panasonic model I guess I won't be to concerned with it. If anything maybe when I'm watching a longer movie I'll zoom it in for five min. or so half way through the movie to get some moving images on the black part again. Thanks for putting my mind at rest.

There's no need to even do that. I watched a 2.40:1 movie within a week of buying my Pioneer plasma (in March of this year), and it is fine. Watching a scope movie will not do any harm unless that is all you watch for a LONG time. This also goes with 4:3 content. The big thing I did to play it safe was to watch TV using the stretch feature, so that the screen is always filled then. Watching a scope ratio movie, though, won't harm it.