What is screenburn and will I suffer it ?
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LCDs are far less susceptible; in fact it is practically non-existent. Plasmas though use phosphors to generate the image; a still image burned onto phosphors over a period of time can become permanent. E.g. if you left a still image on your plasma for several hours quite a chunk of it would still be there ghosted into the background by morning. Thankfully many plasma screens have built in screensavers as a preventative measure, and “image reversal” mode, which allows you to try removing any residual image.
In most home environments, the material displayed on the plasma is constantly changing (i.e. the screen is showing moving video rather than fixed slides or advertising screens as in a commercial environment) and plasmas are becoming more resistant to burn anyway (the Panasonic is notably good on this front). It has got to such a point where except for the first 100 or 200 hours use where the plasma is more susceptible, you can almost forget about burn-in altogether! |
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How long will my plasma last, can it be regassed?
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Recharging of plasmas is an urban myth at best. There again, the plasma won't show any visible signs of losing image strength until about 30,000 hours use which even at 6 hours a day 7 days a week would take 13 years!!! The latest generation of plasmas are capable of 50,000 hours use…
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Do I need to tilt the plasma on the wall?
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Usually no. It is very tempting to place your plasma high on show (maybe above the fireplace) with a 5-10 degree tilt aiming down at where you audience will sit. However, this tilting does nothing to remedy the fact that the plasma is still too high in the first place which invariably leads to you receiving a creak in the neck! Given that most plasmas have a 180-degree viewing angle, tilting still wouldn't offer any real advantages unless the plasma was installed at a completely out-of-reach position (e.g. above doorframe)!! In short, think twice about plasma positioning – if you think you need a tilting mount it may be that your plasma is already too high…
(many of our customers cut out a piece of cardboard to the size of their plasma and experiment with positioning using this – may be crude but works a treat!)
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How bright does my plasma need to be?
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Plasma brightness figures are a bit of a lost cause. It is virtually impossible to gain any sort of idea of how the plasma will look based on this number! The only way to know is to look for yourself!
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Do I need a Tuner ?
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A tuner in the literal sense of the word refers to a chipset that can “tune” into analogue or digital signals and output them in a format that your screen understands. In the context of specific plasma and LCD televisions the media box containing the inputs, buttons and tuning chip is often (incorrectly) referred to as a “tuner”. So this question has two parts: 1. Do I need a tuner to tune into TV signals? In which case the answer is yes unless you have Sky TV, Freeview etc to send pictures to the plasma instead. 2. Do I need a media-box to connect all my stuff too? In many cases the media-box is the easiest way to do this and may offer other advantages such as teletext or picture in picture, but it is sometimes far easier (or better quality) to run your sources direct to your plasma using various cables, switchers and signal converters available from our site
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Are Flat Panel Screens silent ?
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In short, No. Plasma screens are made up of electrical circuits and as such these will make a buzzing noise from the PCBs much like any other electrical device would! These circuits both draw the image, and reuse energy to keep a the panel cool and energy-efficient without the need for fans. 50" panels still tend to need fans due the larger amount of processing and cooling required. Realistically speaking any buzz is no louder than the sound of a DVD spinning, a transformer buzzing, or an amp clicking, and is practically inaudible unless the rest of the room is silent.
The other type of noise you may be able to hear is fan noise. Again this is usually much lower than that which is audible over a soundtrack and is hardly an issue. 9 out of 10 42” plasmas do not have fans at all (fans tend to be on high resolution models only) and those that do run at low speed while there is a picture on screen, and only run louder on start-up and shut-down.
Noise from a plasma is often reported in situations where the panel is used at night watching low-volume broadcasts and/or the viewer is closer than 12ft to the panel. It may pay to know that different installations have different noise levels in these circumstances - a wall installation will reflect circuit buzz back from the wall, and the harder the wall surface the more any sound can be reflected (i.e. wallpapered walls will not reflect sound as much as wooden walls).
It is totally normal for any buzz heard to change tone with picture brightness/detail since it is a direct relation to the amount of processing which the panel is having to undertake. Ideally your display should not be set to high levels of contrast or brightness, if it is then turning these down will decrease the effect, as will changing the picture mode of the screen to a normal or cinema/theatre mode.
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