Mar
23
Plasma Television Longevity
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Many don’t stop to consider the life expectancy of plasma televisions but there are a few things worth keeping in mind to ensure longest life-span possible from your new purchase. Unlike DLP’s, or even LCD’s to some extent, there’s no such thing as a plasma bulb replacement and there certainly isn’t any way to “re-charge” the gas in them, that one’s pure urban legend. Now once a plasma starts to dim there’s really nothing one can do to reverse the process but that’s not to say there aren’t ways to lengthen your plasma’s life-span.
Most new plasmas can last ten or more years if treated well but running one hot can cut that life-span considerably. Hot would entail running the brightness and or contrast wide open and or leaving static images onscreen for long periods of time. That’s not to say the plasma will just shut off like clockwork at the ten year mark, but by this time it will be significantly dimmer than when it was new.
60,000 hours or more aren’t unheard of with plasma televisions so don’t think of them as poor investments. It’s just the displays that are taken care of last longer but that goes for anything right? To put things into perspective let’s say the plasma does indeed give up the ghost at 60k hours, you’d probably go through twelve or more DLP lamps during the same time period; at an average cost of $400, that’s $4800 easily more than the plasma’s cost to begin with. So as you can see, just because a display has a finite life-span that doesn’t necessarily make it a poor investment.
Mar
4
Mounting Flat-Panels over Fireplaces
Filed Under Plasma Television | 1 Comment
Of all the questions I’m asked about mounting LCD’s and plasmas, “can I mount one over a fireplace?” has to be in the top ten, or five now that I think about it. Obviously this is a multi-faceted question and the only way to tackle it is to go through the individual scenarios one by one. At the risk of stating the obvious common sense should always be your starting place when asking yourself this question.
If you’ve got a huge stacked-stone wood burning fireplace that runs all winter long then the obvious answer to this question is an emphatic no. If the heat doesn’t destroy your display over time the smoke and fumes will. On the other hand if we’re talking about a gas fireplace, with glass doors that gets used once or twice a year, it’ll probably be just fine. But more importantly than any of these tips, I have to go back to good ol’ common sense here, if the areas hot to the touch you probably don’t want to mount anything there.
Likewise if there are enough fumes or smoke to make your eyes water while standing close to the fireplace, again probably not the best idea. Smoke and fumes can discolor the lamp and or optics inside a display giving the image a dark or yellowish tint, this is just as big a concern as heat.
Feb
19
Plasma Burn-In
Filed Under Plasma Television | Leave a Comment
We hear a lot about plasma burn in, too much in my opinion, the problem used to be real to some degree and it still is to some degree don’t get me wrong but it’s really blown way out of proportion. The phosphors used (yes Plasma’s use those as well) in early plasmas were much more susceptible to burn-in than the materials used in today’s sets. Combine that with advancements like pixel-shifting and lower wattage power supplies and the burn-in rap plasma gets starts to look a bit silly.
That said there are a few things you can do to all but guarantee a hassle free and more importantly burn-free plasma television experience. First off for at least the first hundred hours or so, go easy on the brightness and contrast. We all know you want to crank it up so high you get a suntan but if you’ll resist this temptation for a few weeks; your set stands a lot better chance at a burn-free life span.
Secondly be sure to turn on any screen savers available in your source devices, many newer DVD players and satellite receivers have the feature built-in, look for it in other devices as well. I make it a habit to avoid any unnecessary pillar-boxed and or letter-boxed programming for the first 50 or so hours of use, what do I mean by this? no that doesn’t mean never turn a new plasma to a 4:3 aspect ratio channel when its new, it means don’t take the dog for a walk with Casablanca playing in the background, at least not until the sets had a few hours to break-in.
You might hear people talk about changing channels from time to time, randomly, during break-in to avoid “burn-in”. In my opinion that’s a bit excessive, as long as you don’t have the contrast and or brightness cranked up into the stratosphere you’ll be just fine, when the sets new avoid news tickers and practice some common sense, it’ll take you and your new set a long way.
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