KruzeS said:
I wouldn't call it a myth. Watching a majority of boxed content stuff - either 2.35:1, 4:3 or both - is very likely to quickly cause "burn in". So much so, that most recent plasma TVs use very bright and annoying (IMO) grey bars instead of black on 4:3 content (which is the majority of programing accessible in many parts of the world). And on 2.35:1 content, the bars usually come with the package and they'll be black, so you either zoom (which might not be an option with subtitles), or tough luck. Some badly done TV channel logos will also burn in pretty quickly, as will sports statistics and stuff (which a lot of people want an HDTV for). A lot of this is recoverable with time (and screen savers), but permanent burn in is still a problem in my experience. At work, we got permanent burn in on 20 plasma screens we used for less than a week in an interactive marketing application on a shopping mall. Yes, that would never have happened on normal content, but I'm sure a Wii, even with display dimming, if left on for a few hours on the main menu, would cause at least temporary damage on most plasmas in the market today. And watching 80%+ of 2.35:1 and 4:3 content with black bars and pillars would certainly cause permanent visible damage in less than a year on all but the most expensive plasmas I know, that's for sure. For me, that's unacceptable. I maybe careful, but I do want to watch movies and regular TV on their native formats without constant worry for the health of my €1000+ purchase. |
No, a few hours of the Wii being left on will cause no damage at all. On my Samsung 42" Plasma I left my Wii on overnight (on accident) and left in the morning for class without even noticing it in the other room. I got home at noon, and the TV had the Wii menu image on it for a total of 12 hours and there was no burn in at all. Not even temporary.
As far as the bars being "bright" grey, they are certainly grey instead of black, but they are hardly bright. I watch movies on my Plasma quite often and I would never notice that they are grey unless I turned the TV off from that screen (seeing the contrast between that and black). I'm not sure what type of Plasmas you used for your presentation, but even a medium quality Plasma shouldn't have experienced that issue. I'm not going to stress test my Plasma for days or anything but it's not affected by being left on for any reasonable amount of hours even with a static image like a pause menu. It's very true that this was an issue with early Plasmas, but no recent plasmas of any decent quality will experience burn-in under reasonable circumstances.
