One of the concern that many people have when buying a television is whether it will hit the “burn-in” issue. Many plasma TV users have experienced this issue, and one commonly asked question now is whether a LED TV hit the same issue as well.
So what exactly is burn-in? Simply put, it’s a phenomenon in which a static image left on the display, over certain period of time, could wear itself into the display permanently. And this issue usually happens only to phosphor based TV such as plasma, CRT rear projection, and tubes displays.
So since LED TVs use LCD display, and LCD display is not phosphor based, does it means that LED televisions are immune to burn in? The answer is yes and no. It’s true that LCD displays are susceptible to phosphor wear, due to it’s not using phosphor to create a television image, certain characteristics of the LCD will cause it to get the same effect similar to the burn-in if it’s left too long with a static image.
LCD panels use a complicated process of organizing liquid crystal molecules into a twisted or untwisted state, which allows polarized light to pass through the liquid crystal substrate. Over time, it is possible the liquid crystals can “get used to” the state of twist they are in, causing a static image, similar to phosphor burn-in, appear on the screen.
Having said that, LED TV owners don’t have to worry too much about this issue as the nature of LCD products makes them extremely resilient to building up a video memory. So the “video memory” issue usually happens only to LCD monitors which are left uninterrupted for too long of time without screen saver. Whereas a LED TV should always have enough motion to prevent it from getting this issue.
The only possibility that will get your LED TV into this issue is if you watch 4:3 programming on a widescreen display with static bars on the side too often. While this possibility is still pretty low, it’s better to limit yourself from viewing of 4:3 material on widescreen TV too frequent.
