Why does it matter?
Screen burn, or ‘burn in’, can occur with some TVs if you leave a particularly bright image element, like a channel logo, on screen for too long at a time. What happens is that the phosphors can eventually ‘tire’ where that logo is located, leaving a permanent shadow of the bright picture element behind. Obviously this is a very undesirable situation – especially as there’s no real way of getting rid of burn in once it’s occurred.
Myth
Plasma TVs are seriously prone to burn in.
Fact
In the early days, plasma TVs were susceptible to screen burn. However, this issue has been largely eliminated thanks to greater use of built-in screen-saving systems and major phosphors improvements.
Example
You can now play computer games or watch logo-heavy channels (e.g. CNN) on a plasma TV without worrying about various static image elements being on the screen for a long period of time.
