Station's weather alert graphic is burned into man's plasma TV

[matcom]

<snip>

Bryant Ayala worried Wednesday that he might never get a TV station's winter weather graphic off his new plasma television screen.

Ayala of Bondurant said he noticed Monday night that the blue frame used by WHO-TV to warn viewers about winter weather closings appeared to have been burned into his recently purchased plasma screen.

"It said Channel 13 on one side and 'School Alert' on the other. I unplugged the TV, but it was still right there," he said.

Jim Boyer, WHO's general manager, said the station hadn't received any complaints.

"We do know plasma TVs have the potential for an image to burn in, but everything we've heard is that it's the older plasmas, and it takes a fairly long time for that to happen," Boyer said.

A Web site called PlasmaTVBuyingGuide.com said that images can be burned into plasma TV screens, particularly when the image is displayed for more than a few minutes at a time. The problem is more common during the first 200 hours of use, according to the site.

Jeff Traviss , manager of Traviss Audio Video in Des Moines, said burning images into a plasma TV is rare. "They have to be left on quite a long time to do that," he said.

Traviss said one way to reverse the problem is to change the channel for several hours to an off-air station that displays snow.

http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050106/NEWS08/501060400/1001/NEWS

[XNASA]

1. Quite common.

Plasmas suck.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

2. Sounds like plasma TVs suck. n/t

[Az]

5. They initially seemed like a good idea

But there are a lot of problems with them. Not ready for prime time IMO.

[xultar]

3. So there will be a Cable HDTV channel called Snow. n/t

[kick-ass-bob]

4. God! Change the channel!

How much can he want to watch on one station??