[SOLVED] OLED TV Burn-In

PsychoPsyops

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Mar 31, 2014
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Hello,

I was wondering if it is still possible for an LG OLED TV to acquire burn-in with the OLED light at zero. The reason why I ask is because with the OLED light at zero, the tv still dims the brightness of the screen when there’s no motion detected.

Thank you.
 
Solution
I own a B6P, which was the last model year before LG re-did the pixel structure to be a bit more resistant to burn in. From what I've seen:

*) At 100 OLED light, static elements (Windows taskbar) will "burn in" (really just pixels losing brightness and having the effect of burning in) after about a year.

*) At 30 OLED light (what I've been using) my B6P held up well (aside from the above taskbar) for an additional three years. There was some evidence of panel wear, but nothing obvious unless you went looking for it.

*) After a year of Work from Home at 30 OLED light (so 5 years total), the display is basically at the end of it's life. There are now obvious areas where the display just can't drive the pixels, and as a result there...
I own a B6P, which was the last model year before LG re-did the pixel structure to be a bit more resistant to burn in. From what I've seen:

*) At 100 OLED light, static elements (Windows taskbar) will "burn in" (really just pixels losing brightness and having the effect of burning in) after about a year.

*) At 30 OLED light (what I've been using) my B6P held up well (aside from the above taskbar) for an additional three years. There was some evidence of panel wear, but nothing obvious unless you went looking for it.

*) After a year of Work from Home at 30 OLED light (so 5 years total), the display is basically at the end of it's life. There are now obvious areas where the display just can't drive the pixels, and as a result there is very uneven panel wear. I note this tends to be less noticeable in games; it's more obvious with static white backgrounds.

WFH is obviously OLEDs worst case. And I again stress models starting from the 7 series are more resistant to this type of wear.

I've also had a few games suffer temporary image retention with static elements, but those have always faded over time.

I've not used much HDR due to Windows HDR support being trash; obviously using HDR will reduce pixel lifetime sooner.

I would recommend OLED as a TV or as a dedicated gaming monitor. If you are going to do any form of word processing, however, I'd recommend staying away due to panel lifetime concerns. I also always recommend dropping the OLED light to 30 at most to try and extend panel life.
 
Solution
As long as the element is on, it's going to wear out. Even if you had a really dim square and the rest of the pixels are off, it'll eventually "burn-in", though it'll take much longer than if it were at full brightness.

Yeah, the Taskbar burning in on my B6P was my own fault, but does show how fast (relatively speaking) you can wear the pixels if you aren't moderately careful. But running at 40 (the OLED light was still higher then I thought) for nearly three years and no additional problems; it's really the year of WFH that has done most of the additional damage.

I note the wear from WFH is visible on an all-white background, but not really visible in games. Essentially, you can see the areas that can't be driven to full brightness anymore, but unless you go specifically looking for it it's not noticeable in games...yet.

I think even WFH you are OK so long as you keep the OLED light down to a reasonable (30 or under) level. Likewise, other basic steps (black desktop, turn it off when away for more then a few minutes, 5 min screensaver) help as well, but you DO need to train yourself away from the bad habits we've developed over the years.

And I stress: This is my observations on the B6P; I know later models are much more resistant to this type of wear, though I can't comment since I don't own one.
 
On an aside, I've had OLED devices for years with static elements and I haven't seen signs of burn in. Granted these were phones and PMPs so they're not on all the time, but for example on my Galaxy S10+, I've yet to see any sign of burn-in despite it showing the charging status all the time when I have it plugged in.

I imagine as long as you don't crank up the brightness, burn-in is going to be a non-issue for at least as long as you care about the display.