Panasonic Direct View CRT TV and PS2


hi,

new here, had a quick question.. I just bought a new widescreen direct view crt and GTA San Andreas for PS2, how concerned should i be about screen burn? When i first got the game, i played it on the new tv for like 14 hrs. within 2 days. So far i dont see any screen burn.. but ive been reading on the net and its kinda got me worried.

TIA

manilaboy1vic

Showing 2 responses by aroc

Guys, I think he might be worried about screen burn from the black bars on the wides of his new TV. I'm assuming that GTA San Andreas for PS2 is a 4:3 full screen game. I haven't played video games at TV-resolution since I had my Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in middle school, so I'm a little out of the loop. I'm also assuming his old TV was a 4:3 direct view CRT TV. The burn in with black bars is very real on a direct view CRT (Especially plasma too). Most of the wide screen sets I've seen however use gray bars rather than black bars. This helps offset the screen burn process. With the Gray bars you no longer have the stark contrast between a black phosphor dot a white/color phosphor dot, hence less screen burn per given hour of watching. The stark contrast is the real problem.

Another thing you could try is to stretch the 4:3 image so it fills the 16:9 screen. Granted all of the "hookers" in the game are going to look fat, but at least you will have less potential for screen from the side bars.

I'd tried to find some screen shots to show what I'm referring to, but I could not. You'll recognize a severed abused and damaged set as the contrast ratio will be all fugged-up where the black bars burned the image.

The key here is to alternate the black bar patterns as much as possible. you can watch a few 4:3 movies in a row, but then switch to a 16:9 or 2.35:1 source for a while ot turn the set off. and vice versa if using lots of 2.35:1 content. If you're going to be doing 14 hour+ 4:3 gaming sessions on a 16:9 set, I'd see if I could stretch the image to 16:9 and just deal with the fat hookers. Of course that ignores the health problems with your eyes after watching TV for 14 hours straight!

Aaron