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Buyer's Guide: The Best Monitors 
Panasonic P50V10: 1 hour
Vincent Alzieu
Updated: March 5, 2010
Updated: March 5, 2010
Let's play with fire: round two!
Recap of the rules: to see how badly plasma screens are effected by screen burn, we're trying another, the Panasonic Viera TX-P50V10, to see what happens when we show the same static test card for an hour, then overnight, and then for a week.
After each test, we leave the TV to relax, filming it to see how long any burn that appears takes to disappear.
After each test, we leave the TV to relax, filming it to see how long any burn that appears takes to disappear.
Let's burn a plasma screen! Testing the endurance of a plasma screen to the limits to see if it ends up suffering from screen burn might well seem like a crazy idea, but that's exactly what Panasonic are letting us do with one of its televisions.
Of course, it took a little bit of persuading on our part before they agreed, but that's perfectly reasonable. The plasma television that they've agreed to let us use is the Panasonic Viera TX-P50V10, which will set you back around £1400 if you want to try it at home yourself. Don't forget that the last TV to receive this treatment, a Samsung PS42C96HD, didn't come out alive.
Round two of our experiment was almost over as soon as it began: when we received Panasonic's plasma, we discovered it already had screen burn! Incredibly, there were thin black bars along the top and bottom of the screen giving the impression that it had been used to watch a film for far too long.
Our technician Alexandre had to try and repair it before we could even get started on the tests. He gave it a little make-over by turning the contrast up to maximum and showing a snowstorm for a whole weekend.
Of course, it took a little bit of persuading on our part before they agreed, but that's perfectly reasonable. The plasma television that they've agreed to let us use is the Panasonic Viera TX-P50V10, which will set you back around £1400 if you want to try it at home yourself. Don't forget that the last TV to receive this treatment, a Samsung PS42C96HD, didn't come out alive.
Round two of our experiment was almost over as soon as it began: when we received Panasonic's plasma, we discovered it already had screen burn! Incredibly, there were thin black bars along the top and bottom of the screen giving the impression that it had been used to watch a film for far too long.
Our technician Alexandre had to try and repair it before we could even get started on the tests. He gave it a little make-over by turning the contrast up to maximum and showing a snowstorm for a whole weekend.
The Panasonic panel showing a dark grey background when we received it
If you've got a decent monitor and it's correctly set up, you should be able to see two black strips next to the red lines, one at the top and one at the bottom:
If your screen is less good (we're thinking of you, laptop users), then a more accentuated version of the same photo makes it clearer:
When he got back to the lab on Monday, Alex found the P50 in much better health. That's the first piece of good news: even before we started trying to burn it ourselves, we managed to wipe out the screen burn caused by whoever used this plasma before us. What we don't know, though, is exactly how it was produced, or how long it took to appear.
Now that it's out of the way, we can start to show the same fixed image with our heavily contrasted logos, a particularly tough challenge for plasmas.
The test card we showed for an hour in Cinema mode:
1 hour of burning, 25 minutes to recover
After showing the same frame for a whole hour, there was a very slight trace of screen burn on a plain grey background. If you start watching a movie--or anything with any movement, in fact--it's impossible to spot. You can hardly even spot it even when you look for it. This plasma certainly passed this test, and getting rid of the effects just required leaving it to cool down for 25 minutes.
So, that's the first test out of the way! So far, Panasonic's plasma is head to head with Samsung's. The gap of just five minutes before getting rid of the first evidence of screen burn isn't enough to justify any real difference between the two contenders.
Next up is step two: the same image on screen for eight hours …
To be continued …
