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I'm buying an HDTV for the living room, to watch movies and play on the PS3. Earlier, console gaming on Plasma TVs was a bad idea because of burn-in, refresh rates, and/or display quality for console/computer output.

Is this still a problem? Does anyone here play on a Plasma TV, and is the experience lacking or problematic in any way?

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    Seems like the burn-in may have possibly been an issue with older, but not newer plasmas. Neither Sony or Microsoft have any support articles that I saw specifically referencing problems plasma TVs. I know my brother-in-law has his PS3 hooked up to a plasma, but he is a very casual player. I don't really have a definitive answer for you, but I did find this article about burn-in: plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-burnin.html
    – Doozer Blake
    Commented Aug 13, 2011 at 12:44
  • i am curious as to why you chose a plasma over an lcd or lcd/led. I am going to buy an HDTV myself and I am super confused.
    – Rohan Monga
    Commented Aug 14, 2011 at 5:10
  • Thanks Blake, I found another article on that website and then turned out a lot of information on the website was useful despite the spammy sounding domain. And @bronzebead, I chose Plasma because I need a large size, for which Plasma is cheaper and has better picture quality (according to CNET and other sources), has real blacks, thus a high contrast ratio. It also has a larger viewing angle, but can be reflective because of the glossy screens.
    – Neil
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 10:20

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I have a plasma TV which was bought in January 2006 (5 1/2 years old at time of posting). I have used it regularly with a PS3 for 3 years. When I first got the TV I was concerned about burn-in so I was really watching out for it. I found that after playing a game with a HUD of some kind you could see some ghosting if you switched to something dark, e.g. a night scene in a movie. However as soon as something bright was displayed then the ghosting would be completely gone. I had actually forgotten that it was any kind of problem until I read this question!

Besides that very minor problem, I haven't found the experience lacking or problematic at all.

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Here is a CNET article on burn-in I came across while looking at this same question.
Quite curiously, it is dated exactly around the time this question was asked here :-)
CNET Article question: Is plasma HDTV burn-in a problem?, Geoffrey Morrison , August 15, 2011

Here's the most important fact about image persistence: unless you're overtly negligent, it's easily reversible. With what magic, you ask? Easy, just watch TV. Yep, that's it. Just go back to your regularly scheduled programming (full-screen, non-letterboxed television) and it will go away by itself. Just due to being used, the phosphors will get back in line. Depending on the severity of the image persistence, it may take a few minutes or a few hours to go away.

Modern plasmas have better phosphors that are less likely to "burn" in the first place. They also include features designed to lessen the chance for image persistence or remove it if it occurs. An orbiter function moves the image around the screen by a few pixels. Hardly noticeable, but it minimizes some aspects of burn-in. Full white or rapidly changing colored patterns excite the phosphors evenly, greatly reducing the time it takes to remove the effects of image persistence

All that being said, I looked up a bit on pixel orbiter and found that people are not too impressed with that either. I'd still like to know if there are any good references on if and exactly-how this helps, and do most recent plasma TV models have this feature.

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