Preventing Screen burn

Question

I've written a helpdesk monitor application that is designed to sit on a big plasma screen in a support department, the application has 5 views that it revolves around, the content of most of those screens is different, but they have some common components, being one silverlight control and a css background image.

I'm worried that over a period of time these will get burnt into the screen, I've looked into techniques to fix this, and some people suggest moving the image by one pixel every few seconds or displaying a different view.

I just don't know if these techniques are sufficient.

Does ensuring that I use a different css background, and a bit of silverlight animation 1-50% of the time actually fix this problem? The same image will be in the same place the other 99-50% of the time.

Answer 1

Check the documentation for the plasma screen, I did hear that many of them countered burn in by running colour flashes at some points and it is not as big a problem with modern plasma screens.

From what I've heard, this is a common complaint because of the annoying channel logos in the corner of screens so they had to do something about it.

What I am saying is, I think your hardware will probably manage it anyway.

Ryan

Answer 2

It depends on the plasma screen you use. Some manufacturers take steps to reduce the risk of it happening. However, if it does happen, I've found that there is something called JScreenFix that can be used to remove the burn-in. The basic problem is caused by the image on the screen not changing. You can either make sure the image moves at least slightly over time or reduce the contrast to reduce the risk.

Also, if possible you should use an LCD screen instead which are technically not susceptible to burn in...though they sometimes suffer from image persistence which is not permanent.

Check out for more detailed information:

• http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-burnin.html
• http://www.wikihow.com/Use-JScreenFix-to-Remove-Plasma-Screen-Burn-in
• http://compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDBurnIn.htm

Answer 3

I think the risk of screen burn is much smaller than it used to be.

And why even bother if the screen will only be used to display the same view all the time? If the same image is kept in place all the time, it doesn't really matter if it gets burnt into the screen or not :-)

If you still would like to take measures, I would also suggest some animation or moving the image around a bit when the view rotates.

[EDIT] Forgot something... A lot depends on time between the views rotating. If you only switch the view (and image) every few hours, the risk is a lot greater than if you switch to a different view every ten minutes... [/EDIT]

Answer 4

I've used this program with pretty good success. You can probably create something similar in your program.

http://www.e-motional.com/TScreenLock.htm

• Plasma Screen Saver Option.(TSL-PRO Only) A black bar of variable width floats across the screen preventing Plasma Screen Burn-In. This option allows TSL to be used as a Plasma Screensaver.

Answer 5

The comments that new plasma displays do not burn as easily is only partly valid since your department will probably buy the cheapest plasma they find.

mezoid is right. Reduce brightness and contrast and turn it off at night but I have found that burn-in isn't that serious. We have few monitors at work for this purpose and although there is obvious burn-in around borders of windows we can still see very clearly the important data.

If you are not presenting this to customers it should be okay although the staff may make fun of this occasionally :)

Plus you could run the JScreenFix every couple of months mezoid proposed you are okay.

Answer 6

Just be careful with JScreenFix, do note that it works merely by burning in the rest of the screen simply changing your perception of burnin and will, over time, make your monitor a washout.

There's an idea I haven't tried, but might help, If you phase the obvious static problem area through the 3 primary colours, or the 3 secondary colours, or both, you could utilise the benefit from only burning each pixel for 1/3rd of the time effectively tripling the time it takes for burnin to occur.