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Plasma Burn-In
An Expensive Lesson
 You've probably noticed more and more plasma panels showing up in airports, boardrooms, churches, and even company lobbies. You may also have noticed another thing, plasma panels with burned in text or graphics. Many users have found out the hard way that plasma panels burn-in when an image or text stays in one place for too long-sometimes 3 hours or less. When this happens, the display is not only permanently marred, but displayed text may become unreadable. Many times the plasma panel must be replaced. It is an expensive lesson.
Plasma Burn-In
Figure 1: A graphic being properly orbited to avoid burn-in. |
Plasma panels use phosphor, like CRTs, so the same precautions need to be taken to avoid image burn-in. However, even those who take precautions may still end up with images or text burnt into their plasma panels. All it takes is for any data on the display to remain in the same place for a length of time e.g., the computer supplying the video to the panel to freeze up and not be noticed for a while. In other cases "welcome screens" such as the company logo becomes burned into the display. Even if data is continually changing, portions of the display may be displaying the same information for a considerable amount of time and burn-in may occur at that location.
Answer: Use a VideoShift
Figure 2 |
One of the questions Extron receives fairly often is "Can I use the VS 200 SL with a plasma panel?" The answer is yes. Plasma displays have no problems with the method used by the VS 200 SL. Burn-In can be avoided by using a good video shift product, such as Extron's VS 200 SL. The VS 200 SL allows any RGB signal to be "orbited" or shifted around a CRT or plasma display (Figure 1) so that the phosphor has a chance to cool, thus extending the life of the display. Using Extron's Advanced Digital Sync Processing (ADSP™), the VS 200 SL is capable of shifting all types of computer signals both horizontally and vertically so slowly that it is imperceptible to the eye. The VS 200 SL is the only VideoShift product available that is accurate enough to perform shifting at the sub-pixel level. That means that all horizontal shift movements are less than 1-pixel steps, providing the smoothest shifting available. The VS 200 SL allows the image to be moved up to one-fourth or 25% of the image. This is important; certain other video shift products shift the image only a few pixels. This is not enough in many cases and burn in may still occur.
"SL" Means?
Extron's solution to Plasma Burn-In: the VS 200 SL |
You probably realized that "VS" means "VideoShift," but what does "SL" mean in the VS 200 SL name? "SL" stands for Shift Lock. This means that two or more VS 200 SL units can be hooked together so that they orbit the images in sync (Figure 2). This can be useful in cases where several panels are used together to display one overall image. With SL the whole image, across several panels, will stay in sync as it is orbited.
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