Potential TV damage?

[blizard]

I get this once in a while.
It started happening after I moved my reciever to the top of the entertainment center.

How old is the TV?

I would suspect is is bad hardware in your CRT TV that can cause Red Green and Blue to run out of sync or that your phosphor/mask is not very good to keep a clean picture. It might be an idea to speak with TV repair shop about this as I can not see clearly on your picture what is wrong as it is too small. It looks like you have darker zone to the left and I guess it is that discolour you are talking about.

Here is an explanation for burn in:

What is burn-in?



The phosphors used in CRTs and plasma displays become less bright with usage. The phenomenon is a lot like “tire wear”. If you drive fast, the wear-per-mile increases, but there is some wear at any speed. The speed of a car corresponds to white in a TV image.



CRT burn-in used to be rare, but the demand for brighter images has made manufacturers less conservative. Now CRTs that have been showing a Windows desktop for a couple years will often show a lightly burned-in task bar when the screen is painted all white. The CRTs in big-screen TVs are pushed even harder, especially in the largest sets.



All CRT and plasma sets dim with usage. Making the screen age evenly is the user’s responsibility. The user must ensure that a fixed, unmoving shape is not displayed for many hours, or that shape will slowly become burned into the screen.



LCD, LCoS, and DLP sets do not suffer burn-in. (Some LCD and LCoS sets exhibit “image retention”, but it goes away in an hour or so.)

How serious a problem is burn-in?



Many CRT sets are nearly immune to burn-in, but you can’t know if yours is one of those. There is no website that tells which sets are prone to burn-in. But such information would not be a guarantee.



Ultimately you must accept the fact that burn-in can happen to your set. You must watch for it and must not delay taking action if you see it. A very mild burn-in can be made to go away, but a more severe burn-in requires replacing the CRTs, probably a $2000 service call for a big TV.



Network logos and scrolling “ticker tapes” on news channels can cause burn-in. The black sidebars on 4:3 programs are a big threat if you watch mainly 4:3 programs. Some manufacturers will state that the warranty is void if the user watches with black bars more than 15% of the time. That would mean that you are allowed hundreds of hours of black bar viewing over the life of the product. But still you must watch for burn-in and act quickly if it shows up. Other manufacturers refuse to cover any burn-in in their warranties.



(The author watches 4:3 programming with black bars about 40% of the time. His set shows no burn-in after 5 years of this.)



One measure of the likeliness of burn-in is the screen size to CRT size ratio. That is, a 60-inch set that has 9-inch CRTs is less likely to burn-in than a same sized set with 7-inch CRTs. Direct view CRTs rarely suffer burn-in.



Also note that black is less of a problem than white. It might take hundreds of hours watching 4:3 material for burn-in to occur. But a station logo containing some fully intense white can cause burn-in in less than ten hours.


Should I buy one of these sets?



Adults who understand the consequences can generally avoid serious burn-in. But kids present some uncertainty. If you have kids and a limited budget then you should keep in mind: If you buy a CRT set with an incomplete warranty then you are taking some risk. It is generally a mistake to connect a video game to a plasma or projection CRT set.



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The rainbow effect



One-chip DLP sets employ a rotating color wheel. Thus the three colors are delivered to the screen sequentially. Suppose the image is white text on a black background. If you shift your gaze rapidly across the image, the white lines will decompose into the primary colors (until your eyes stop moving). Most people don’t notice this, and most of the people who do learn to ignore it. But a few people can’t get past being distracted by it.



Set makers can reduce this problem by changing the colors faster (using color wheels with 6, 9, or 12 color segments). The rainbow effect is eliminated in three-chip DLP sets, which have no color wheel.



Some CRTs have a similar problem. The author’s set employs a green phosphor that stays lit 4 times as long as the red and the blue. A rapid eye shift will reveal some flashes of green in an image that has only white text on black.

Source

[martint123]

Yes, I got something like that, but at both sides. Sadly about a month later the picture collapsed in size. It was before I was into GBPVR, but I think it was when there was a lot of blue in the background.

[TheLoneIguana]

I switched to an older 64MB card (that I forgot I had) and that seemed to have slowed the discoloration. It still happens, but not nearly as bad.
It seems to me it's something to do with the Svideo on my TV.
I may have to hunt down a video card with composite out (or a good shvs/composite adapter cable) and see if that helps.

[nothernic]

I have a Phillips 32" TV and it does the same thing. Very annoying.

[zaphod7501]

I have noticed that when I leave the menu on a static screen for any length of time, discolorations appear on the screen. If a video or live TV is playing, it's fine

This is caused by the "shadow mask" heating up with the solid color pattern left on for a period of time. It's pretty common on some brands. Brands such as Sony have mechanical and electrical compensation to minimize the distortion. It is a brightness/contrast level occurrence.

In general, there is no long term damage, just short term annoyance. Burn-in is not usually a problem since it is not a sharply defined image.

(I've been in the TV repair business since 1972)

[nothernic]

So I guess the question would be, is there anything we can adjust on the TV to minimize this, or should we stop being cheapskates & pony up the $$$ for a better brand TV?

[TheLoneIguana]

I think I'm going to try switching to something with composite-out rather than SVideo first. The cheapo svid/comp adapter I tried resulted in a picture that was too dark, but showed promise.
Can't quite justify a new TV juuuuust yet. :o

[CableGuy006]

I have this same problem, but with a few more specifics that might point you in another direction. What brand of TV do you have? I have a Toshiba High Definition Tube. I noticed someone else mentioned Toshiba, so it might not be a coincicence.

First, This might not be a connection issue, my TV was connected via a DVI to HDMI cable to my HTPC.

Second, I noticed this problem when I was running Windows MCE 05, so it's not specifically a GBPVR issue.

Third, the problem didn't go away after I went back to my old Comcast box, but it did fade out eventually.

Four, My coloring was green, not magenta. I don't know if that matters to anyone or not.

zaphod7501 is probably right. But if it is a refresh issue or resolution issue, I'd like to know so I can change the settings.

[capone]

It could also be not enough power. I had a 350W power supply, and the screen would get wavy lines after a while from power fluxuations.

Once I got a better power supply, it was fine. I'm not saying go buy one, but could be an issue.