Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"We need a digital camera that can be switched on and fire off that first shot fast. It's not a commonly tracked statistic on any review site, and nobody seems to have this information for every camera. We were hoping other readers could inform us as to what small digital cameras can fire off their first pics in under a second (ideally under half a second). It needs to be small, but mostly, just really quick in operation. Thanks!"
I, like millions of others, am avoiding plasma because of burn-in issues. It is inherent in the technology. Before you chime in with claims of "100,000 life", note that this "life" bears no relationship to burn-in! Check your plasma manufacturer's warranty, and you will note that burn-in is NOT listed as a defect, because it is inherent to the technology.
No amount of "proper care" can prevent plasma's burn-in. And unless you are prepared to crop and/or distort your screen image to always fit to a full 16:9, avoid banners (like CNN), and logos (like Discovery, History Channel, National Geographic channel, etc), and don't play video games that have score boards, borders, or fixed content like a HUD or a dashboard, and don't freeze-frame for any significant length of time, you will get burn-in.
Manufacturers have done all sorts of clever things to make burn-in less noticable like pixel shifting (to make burned-in images blurred), showing gray bars intead of black (burn in more slowly), and marketing material ("60,000 hour half-life" leads some buyers think this means time to visible burn-in), but the bottom line remains unchanged: Plasma will burn in.
BTW, I understand that some folks may not notice burn-in. Similarly, some folks don't notice a 4:3 image stretched on a 16:9 screen.
All CRTs and Trinitrons "suffer" from the same problem. I've had my Sony Trinitron for well over 10 years and I have no signs of phosphor burn.
Phosphor burn results when you have a static image on the screen for hours on end.
There is no perfect display technology out there but I think you're making a big deal out of nothing.
@SteveMak
If you would take time to read the question... the person said the want blacks and not grays, so plasma is the only way to go..
Sammy's LED does produce good blacks but it also produces halos.
And shut up about burn in is "Inherent" in Plasmas design. It is much less likely.
I have a 50PZ800U and I dont stretch anything. I have yet to see any bit of burn in. And before you say... I can tell what burn in is.... my father had a first gen plasma which was terrible.
I play PSWii60 all the time (4-5 hrs straight of halo and COD4) and watch movies that have black bars and do not get any of the ghosting.
Stop blowing stuff out of proportion
Sorry for the rant and the never ending comment. Sorry for extending the comment with saying sorry...crap
Get your facts straight. There's a clear difference between "burn-in" and image retention.
Burn-in is permanent. This is very rare now with plasma's. Can it happen? Sure if you're stupid enough to have your TV in torch mode playing CNN non-stop
Image retention IS something that plasmas will give you. Playing video games for a while or watching a 2.35:1 movie, I will see the bars or a games health bar in another image, but it goes away quickly.
For better PQ than LCD, I can more than live with some negligible IR.
Get your facts straight. There's a clear difference between "burn-in" and image retention.
Burn-in is permanent. This is very rare now with plasma's. Can it happen? Sure if you're stupid enough to have your TV in torch mode playing CNN non-stop
Image retention IS something that plasmas will give you. Playing video games for a while or watching a 2.35:1 movie, I will see the bars or a games health bar in another image, but it goes away quickly.
For better PQ than LCD, I can more than live with some negligible IR.
Burn-in is inherent in plasma technology. It comes from the natural brightness decay of plasma. The pixels that are on more decay faster and become "burned". Ones that are always on are of course affected the most.
You cannot prevent burn-in (like by breaking in like some people say) and you cannot remove it except by analyzing the burn-in and burning the unburnt pixels more to match the burned ones.
Plasmas burn more than CRTs because they output so much more light, also the lack of image drift with temperature and bloom means that the burned areas' edges do not get feathered.
Is this the end of the world? No, maybe not. But if you do view 4:3 content on your plasma without swirling on, you will eventually see the edges of the 4:3 image on a grey screen some day. Hopefully (and depending on the panel, likely) it won't be something you can't overlook in normal use. God knows my LCD has image quality issues (mostly uneven backlight) that I manage to overlook in day to day use.
Do you actually own a modern plasma set that was made from within the last 2 years? I own BOTH plasma and LCD sets. Today's modern plasma sets are no more prone to burn in as your trusted old cathode ray tube sets. One has to understand that image retention is NOT the same as image burn in. Image retention is temporary and will subside over time with regular program material, image burn in is permanent.
Since I have both LCD and plasma sets in the house, I can tell you that I have accidentally fell asleep while leaving my plasma sets with fixed banners from CNN on all night, and there was a retention issue that resolved by itself within 20 min or so, but no permanent image burn in issues. This was verified with all white field video test signals with varying setting of contrast level and gamma curves after the fact.
I am reading several types of responses from folks, which sound like they fall into one of the three following categories:
(1) Modern plasma sets do not get burn-in
(2) You're over-reacting to the fact that plasmas are susceptible to burn-in
(3) *My* plasma has no burn-in, so so I'm okay
Note that I am *not* flaming plasma consumers, nor criticizing them for their choice. That's *their* choice. The decline of plasma's popularity, and the rise in LCD's popularity (which are typically more expensive than plasma per diagonal inch of HDTV, and which owns a bigger market share than plasma), is showing a trend that consumers, as a whole, are making different choices.
As soon as someone can point me to a manufacturer whose warranty covers burn-in on their high-quality plasma HDTVs, then I will add plasma to my list of prospective technologies for my next HDTV.
Please refer to my comment on the phosphorous emissive display technologies...
But your points have several flaws:
1. No one is claiming image burn in will not occur with plasma displays. It is just not as easily done now days. It is comparable with CRT sets. If one chooses not to purchase a plasma set solely on the issue of image burn in, then the same should be applied to CRT sets. Yet, CRT sets have been used for video game consoles in the past...
2. LCD displays are more expensive than plasma sets. However, the trend of LCD sets selling over plasma sets are of the following factors:
A. LCD sets are brighter but with poorer black level and shadow detail performance. The human eye is drawn towards bright displays, that is why all displays on the sales floor, whether it is LCD, plasma, CRT, are all set to very high color temperature and very bright. This is one of the primary reason why LCDs sold better in the past.
B. Plasma sets typically are available only for 37" and bigger, with most common sets 50" or above. Majority of the consumers purchasing HDTV are purchasing sets 37" and smaller, therefore the choices are severely biased towards LCD sets.
C. Almost 100% of the sales persons at common consumer electronics stores have very low level and often mistaken knowledge of the science behind these technologies, and they push for LCD sets, which are eye pleasing and bright.
The rise of LCD sales is very similar to audio brands like BOSE selling well. Quality audio and video performance takes some training to understand and spot, and there are a lot of tricks manufacturers know how to fool the ears or eyes to cover up substandard performance. However, once a person knows how to spot certain performance issues, it is often very difficult to go backwards as one can notice the performance issues all the time... It is why many who chose plasma sets, when buying new sets, tends to choose plasma sets again. This is even true for ones who own both technologies (like myself).
Oh forgot one point..
Furthermore, manufactures will include all risk factors, no matter how big, how small, how insane, and every possible misuse scenarios, to limit their responsibility when it comes to warranty coverage. The definition of "normal use" out of these warranties are pretty narrow and strict. If one is avoiding a certain product because the warranty does not cover severe and gross misuse of product, then no one will ever purchase anything....
Yes, image retention and image burn in CAN occur with plasma sets, and can ALSO occur with CRT sets, but it is not that likely. Of course a manufacturer will not encourage misuse, no matter how gross and severe, and this is reflected in the warranty service contract.
Oh a few other points...
1. There is a resurgence of plasma sales recently. As a matter of fact, this was reported right here at EngadgetHD.
2. I have yet to read a single review from any reviewers who prefer LCD over plasma. These are people who understand the science behind the technologies and have trained eyes, and they pick plasma over LCD over and over. They know better than the average consumers or sales persons.
3. The sales of HDTV sets above 50"/52" has always been plasma over LCD, past and present. LCD sets larger than 52" are prohibitively expensive and performs far inferior to plasma sets of the same sizes.