Lots of people say it is dangerous to play video games on some HD sets because it causes burn-in, but I need a little more information. Are there certain features of video games that cause burn-in, or is dangerous to simply play the game? Only if you play for too long, maybe? I don' t play for long. Maybe 5-20 minutes at a stretch, usually for the entire day. The TV I am using is a Hitachi 51F510, and I' m aware that certain HD sets have no risk of burn-in, but I got a great deal on this one.

It is extremely dangerous and will permanetly damage your rear projection TV unless

1. It says LCD or DLP (immune to burn in images)

Anything else plasma, or any other type should not be used at all. Even if you watch the news allday.

Why do the images burn into the screen?

plasma is really how and burns an image into the screen that the image is produced on.

Other light processes burn the image onto the screen becuase it does not move and stays in one place. ( Halo 2 huds)

if your just watching movies then that is ok considering that you have black bars on your screen (no light) or full screen everything is moving on screen no static images or an HDTV the best ever LCD, DLP the projecters do burn in though not the TVs.

I wouldn' t be TOO worried about it, but I' d be cautious. Try not to play many 4:3 games (they have black bars on the side). Or try not to play them for more than an hour or so at a time. And before you play another 4:3 game, you should watch some 16:9 material, or just stretch all 4:3 games. Be sure to turn on widescreen in your Xbox dash, and check for widescreen in a few PS2 and GC games. Go to www.hdtvarcade.com to see what games support widescreen and 480p and whatnot. You' ll need component cables for 480p or higher.

Plasma is far worse than CRT projection though. Plasmas are crap. Avoid them.

I have a CRT direct view and I would have to leave it on a static image for months to burn in. But CRT projections are more vunerable for some odd reason.

The Hitachi 51F510 is a CRT rear projection set, so YES static images will eventually burn into the screen. An LCD projection set (either LCOS or DLP) would better serve an avid gamer, but if you only play 5 to 20 minutes a day, I guess that' s not that bad.

Are there certain features of video games that cause burn-in, or is dangerous to simply play the game?

Anything that sits on the screen and doesn' t move (static image) will burn in over time. In fighters, it' s the energy bars. In racing games, it' s the cockpit gauges. Hell, even watching the History channel a lot will burn that little H in the bottom right corner into your screen. You should play " The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher' s Bay" on the Xbox. Not only is it a great game, but the energy bars disappear when you' re not fighting.

Plasmas are crap. Avoid them.

I agree.

I believe that there should be a standard for all HDTV' s

No Burn in
All video sources accepted
component, S-Video, composite, HDMI, Firewire,VGA,SVGA,XVGA,UVGA,RSC...,
and all HDTVs should be able to upconvert/dispaly all content at 1080p, and I or higher.

It should be able to do this without the stupid lagg effects or the stupid pixelation of lines and curves. If you want to see what I' m talking about go to your local Best Buy, Comp-USA, Circuit City and the worst of all Wal-Mart to see the most horrible excuse for an HDTV (all should be widescreen 16:9. And all videos should only be available in 16:9.) The HDTVs that are really bad are

All low end sony HDTVs under XBR( wich are still subpare compared to Pioneer or Sharp.

Panasonnic, Mitibishi, Toshiba, JVC, Dell, Hitachi,etc...

The best are pioneer, sharp, lxg and projectors (wich should also be required to upconvert all material to 1080p/i 16:9)

If you don' t like it then you are stuck in the obsolete past and need to open your eyes to the future. If you cannot afford it then save your money to buy one. You are missing out on one of the best inventions of man.

You will have superior quality, more pictures, inputs, outputs and compatiblity with future technology.

so remember

Those who wait will lose in the end, and those that act know will achieve all in the end.

Example: playing Halo2 (most mindless game ever created, no strategy or anything) or Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow.

Now playing in 16:9 mode with a real widescreen HDTV will give you a really big advantage over a 4:3 TV guy (box TV)

HDTV owner will have superior video quality and sound (hoping he/she owns a surround sound system (man I wish the games were DTS(pure digital) instead of the crappy Dolby Digital/THX)) and they can play against you will watching a progressive scan 1080 movie/TV show or another video game console game.

HDTV is the future

Upconverting sucks ass. ALL video should be displayed at its native resolution ONLY! See the other thread about Xbox360 sucking on 4:3 TVs or something. Look at my pics of ActRaiser being displayed on an HDTV. It looks like ass because the TV upscales the 240p to 480i, something which a normal analog NTSC set does not do. Therefore it looks tons worse.

I want a TV that can display the following resolutions in their pure, native form without any upscaling, frequency modulation (which makes light guns " not work" on HDTV sets) and the like:

-240p - (Progressive scan) Most games during and before the Playstation 1 era ran at this resolution.
-480i - The common resolution for games today.
-480p - Progressive scan. Smoother than 480i. Should also support all framerates natively without pulldown (24fps, 30fps, 60fps ... 72Hz, 60Hz, and 60Hz, respectively).
-720p - Progressive scan. Pretty nice. Should also support all framerates natively without pulldown (24fps, 30fps, 60fps ... 72Hz, 60Hz, and 60Hz, respectively).
-1080i - Nice and sharp.
-1080p - Progressive scan. The best! Should also support all framerates natively without pulldown (24fps, 30fps, 60fps ... 72Hz, 60Hz, and 60Hz, respectively).


If you say DTS is " pure digital" , then so is Dolby Digital, since it is also a digital signal (hence the name). There is no such thing as " intermediate digital" or " kind of digital" . It is either there or it is not, digital or not. Dolby Digital and THX are far from crap. First of all, THX is not a sound format, just a set of guidelines which manufacturers must adhere to. Dolby Digital is pretty damn good. DTS can be a bit better with ES Discrete. But DTS is still a compressed audio format. I mix and design sound in both Dolby Digital and DTS sound formats.

Are the response rates on LCD TV' s still rubbish?

i have the Hitachi (51F510) and sometimes play about 4 hours straight and havent seen any burn in.But then again i only have the tv since HALO 2 came out.

Joe Redifer I agree with you on the native resolution for older games but I have seen some TVs display upconverted sega that look just like the game in 240p at my friends house down the street so I know it is possible to upconvert without the crappiness.

It looks like crap because the TVs upconversions sucks.

And what I ment about the DTS/ DTS-ES (best loudest sound I have ever heard excellent of course) that the only way to here DTS is through a digital signal only. Not like Dolby Digital as you can here it through you composite audio outputs.

DTS is much louder than dolby digital SN
If you don' t believe me but in final destination 2 and during the car seen switch between DTS and DD you will hear an extreme improvement. That is what games should also be encoded with to add even more crispyness.

And for THX I was talking about the THX DSPs available on Higher End Surround Sound Processors not the Standard. The DSP sounds just a little better than default factory systems on lower end systems but not much improvment.

and for the rear protection there should be some way that the manufacturer could remove burn-in forever.( enhanced LCD with brighter color, and deeper contrast maybe one day it will surpass the evil plasma HDTV)

I want to see a 100 inch LCD HDTV
That would give me a very large advantage in the world of gamming and movies.

Regarding burn in. Some of the newer plasmas do a screen refresh every hour to stop it.

Hello, if you want the best (in my opinion and also according to CNET.com) HDTV it should be out soon. One is called the Samsung HLR6168W which is 61" and the HLR6768W which is the 67" are both newest and most high tech TVs right now like i said CNET gave the HLR6768W best in show at the CES for being the biggest DLP with amazing picture coming in at 1920x1080p and Samsung has like the best technologies incorporated in it. Also no Burn in images. Imagine playing the next gen consoles on that big super high res screen? the 61" should be around $4500 and the 67" will be around $6500. Just some suggestions me and my friend plan to buy one. They are suposed to come out either next month or July.

President pain, just out of curiosity, what country are you from?

You can use a composite cable to carry a Dolby Digital signal, but the signal is still digital. I can use the same cable (and do, in fact) to carry a DTS-ES signal. DTS isn' t louder than Dolby Digital. It just depends on how the sound is mastered for each format and to a lesser extend the quality of the receiver.

Thank you all for the input and thanks for all the advice! Much appreciated

You are very welcome sir

Dolby digital just always sounds lower no matter what reciever I am using 150 dollar or $25,000. DTS-ES/DTS is just better and I don' t know why. It is crisper and more precise it is very strange.

And I also use the composite cable to carry a digital signal from the COAX digital output on a weird DVD player. But for my XBOX I use the optical cable 3' Just because it looks cool when you have a $40 dollar cable just for audio hangin out of your xbox.

And the plasmas that so called refresh every hour are still aseptable to burn in sorry.

Why because it is plasma.

Ohh and HELLO

DLP and LCD HDTVs don' t burn in or bothered by electromagnetic waves from subwoofer magnets, or speakers. A really good plus. Plasma well it is I think you can destroy one by putting your 15 inch 2000 watt powered subwoofer next to it.

so if you want to have the best videogame experience then you should by a flat panel LCD monitor. you will never have to worry about burn-in, magnetic problems or any of the horrible things that affect other TVs (DLP you can get the eagle-glare on certain people can see one of those type well I am one of those people. The Samsung shows up very small so it is not that irritating and it may not even bother you.)

So remember 42 inch and above

LCD HDTV, built in tuner is the best

at least support for 1920x1080 i/p anything less will cause you to miss out on the full power of next generation videogame consules.

Component,Compostite,S-video,HDMI,Firewire (IEEE 1394)(DVI) and VGA inputs and outputs are a most make sure you have at least 1 of each output and at least 2 of each input

Make sure it has upscalling to native resolution, stretch, zoom 1 2 a maybe.

And different Gamma Settings Warm, Cool, etc...

And if you see one you really want and can' t afford it wait and save up a little longer.

If you buy anything less then you are depriveing yourself of the future of video, computer gaming, and much more.

LCD Flat Panel HDTV (1080i/p) is the way to go

links to TVs

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-BUa9LgOn9LN/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=154550&I=284LC45GD6
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat31800050028&type=category&parentCatID=null&initialize=false&initialize=true&_requestid=109056
etc...

And I also use the composite cable to carry a digital signal from the COAX digital output on a weird DVD player.

Weird DVD player? Sounds like a normal one to me? Only the cheapies offer optical ONLY.

But for my XBOX I use the optical cable 3' Just because it looks cool when you have a $40 dollar cable just for audio hangin out of your xbox.

I' m going to be blunt here. It is NOT cool to have a $40 cable just for audio when a $2 cable (using the coax connection) could do the same thing. It is the same audio. Optical sounds no different from coaxial. The Xbox is cheapie cheapie and that is why it only offers optical (though I would think that coaxial would be easier to implement... people just must like little red lights in their cables). Anyway, a $40 digital cable will not improve your audio over a $10 optical cable. The only thing that matters is if the signal makes it to the receiver or not. That' s it. It' s digital. That means it is there or it is not. There is nothing lost in the translation. Avoid Monster Cable like the plague, especially for optical connectors.

The cheap dvd players offer coax only not optical. where did you get your information from. And the xbox is a $200+$30 DVD player not cheap. Not something you pick up at Wal-mart on sell for 80 bucks.

And with all coax dvd audio inputs/outputs you can use a regular audio RCA cable I don' t know why the video dosent work it is weird. Is there a difference between them ?

And I have the cable just for braging rights. There is a difference between coax and optical mmm let me break it down for you.

Optical
better frequency response sometimes dont believe me take a optical and coax retail box and compare the spec online or in the store.

No distortion ever unless your amp sucks. Nothing to distort the signal if run properly magnetic energy can distort the coax wich I hate at my friends house man I fell bad for him. He is such a looser he bought one of those sony amps and got screwed because he didn' t know that sony is cheap on everything.

No RF' s and grounding issues

Better more secure connection (The snap)

higher detail than coaxial connections

There is no " conversion circuitry" with optical... it is an LED at one end driven by the signal and a phototransistor at the other end which regenerates the signal immediately and directly from the incoming light

But the differnce in audio quality is very low.

Most people cannot here the difference unless they are in a very quiet inviroment like me.

but i would personally use optical because it is optical 2000x the bandwidth of coax and no overheating (talking about cable TV and stuff...)

Optical or COAX
you probably can' t tell the difference so get what you want.

The cheap dvd players offer coax only not optical. where did you get your information from?

Experience. Every cheap-o DVD player I' ve seen has had an optical. You start getting higher end, and they start having coaxial or both, like mine. The Xbox is a game machine. As a DVD player it is cheap (in quality) just like the PS2' s DVD player. It sucks. The Xbox' s DVD player cannot even do progressive scan.

Check out these numbers below:
10011011

Those are the numbers that are sent through an optical cable, though the stream is much longer than 8 digits. This same exact stream of numbers is sent through the coaxial cable. In order for one to have " better frequency response" , the numbers tehmselves would have to actually CHANGE. The numbers are either there or they are not. The only real advantage of optical is for longer runs. With coaxial, if you have a long run (about 100 feet or so) then information can get lost, which results in dropouts (no sound at all). The sound itself doesn' t change. If it changed, it would have to be analog. This is the last time I will explain this.

Did I mention that one very large aspect of my job is creating and mixing sound in both Dolby Digital 5.1 EX as well as DTS-ES? Did I mention that I have been paid by Dolby Labs in the past for freelance work? I' d like to think I know a little sumptin' sumptin' in this field. How old are you, just out of curiosity? I don' t mean to come off as thinking I am better than you , but I feel I must show my credentials here. It does get pretty frustrating, but then again that' s just life, I guess.

whoah calm down there buddy everything is ok as I' m not trying to start a war on insolting your intellegence we are all have our opinions your right and im right

how about that now here is a questions for you.

Do you do any video editing. If so what do you use?
And for your audio mastering what do you use?

My favorite non-linear editing software is well the best AVID

Final Cut Pro 4.5 until recently. Now Final Cut Pro 5.

For audio lots of tools are used, anything from Cubase, Pro Tools, Final Cut Pro (yes it is actually better with audio than you think), a bit of Soundtrack Pro as well as tools like Surcode and A.Pack.

My favorite non-linear editing software is well the best AVID

I' m not sure what that sentence means. The best Avids are used by movie studios to edit film. And they aren' t just called " The best Avid" . My problem with Avid is that everything has to be done a certain way or else it doesn' t work well, plus it' s rather unpleasant interface. Final Cut Pro is really awesome in that it lets me do just about anything I want (in conjunction with After Effects).

It means I like to use Avid to do video editing and yes sometimes it can be a frustrating if you don' t do things right but in the end it is worth it.

I don' t use final cut pro because I don' t like to use the Mac. If that wonderful program was for pc then well I would use it instead.

If it cannot be done with avid then it might be done with Adobe Premiere, Affter Affects or even Vegas 5.0