We bought an LG OLED TV about 2 years ago. We noticed recently what appears to be ‘burn’ of text on the lower half of the screen similar in appearance to that experienced by Plasma TV sets in the past. We use subtitles when they are available on free to air channels, enjoy many SBS programs and as the volume required to combat my hearing loss is not pleasant for others in the vicinity. subtitles are a must. Have other people had this problem? Is it something discovered in testing by Choice?
Hi Bob, sorry to hear of the issue with your TV. Whilst (short term) image retention is known to occur with OLED screens, we’ve not seen burn-in in the course of our testing. Does your TV feature the Pixel Refresher and/or Screen Shift options in the Picture settings menu ? With Screen Shift turned on, the likelihood of burn-in should be greatly reduced.
Bob, you might try a wireless earphone setup - that way the other people can have the volume set as they like and you can increase the volume through the headphones to your liking. Google —> wireless headphones +TV +au
Unfortunately my LG does not offer those settings. Further we were away from for seven weeks and when we watched TV the’ burn’ was there. The TV was unplugged for the duration of holiday.
@heggiert Unfortunately this is a known problem with some LG’s . The Model G5 and G6 were notorious screen burners . Unfortunately could not find any answers to alleviate the problem .
I have had the same problem on my 55EF950T LG Oled Tv. It was terrible. We leave our tv on all day for the dogs to watch and the images of channel 7s Sunrise logo and wide band at the bottom of the screen, along with the morning show logo were stained very obviously. Fortunately we had only had the tv for 11 months so it was covered by warranty with LG, but not without a lot of grief first with them telling us to just turn the power off to reset the screen, which we do every night. After viewing the videoed evidence for a month and sending out 2 different technicians they agreed to replace the screen component, which they did in my home. No issues since with the new screen replacement, which was about 9 months ago, using the tv in the same way, so assume it was a LG OLED screen fault. Hope you have the aftermarket warranty?
Shouldn’t a big ticket item like Bob’s LG OLED TV be covered by his Australian consumer rights? So he shouldn’t need to have an aftermarket warranty?? It seems to me that the product is not fit for purpose & should be repaired/replaced.
This is a very good point. The purchase is covered under the Australian Consumer Law, and an aftermarket warranty is not required. Even where covered by a manufacturer warranty, a consumer can still choose to deal with the retailer rather than the manufacturer, especially where it is a relatively expensive product, and well within the reasonably expected life of such a product.
See also this post
I have been looking at buying a new OLED TV based on Choice’s positive reviews. However on looking at further online information on OLED TVs reveals they are subject to early failure of the OLED pixels if an image is left on the screen for extended periods as with station logos during sport or subtitles (which I use a lot due to age-related failing hearing). This results in a permanent image on the screen (“burn in”). There have been reports of this happening as early as 6 months. As I tend to hang onto my TVs for more than 10 years I am concerned about the longevity of these screens. This potential problem has not been mentioned in your tests.
Burn in has been a worry with a number of screen technologies over the years. It makes one wonder why the broadcasters continue to paste their logos on the screen 24 x 7 x 365.
Some move them around a few pixels to avoid or minimise burn, but. Once upon a time broadcasters only had to identify themselves at intervals. Has that rule changed or have the sales and marketing types taken over and ‘in your face’ is the only game they understand?
Seriously, I look out onto any vista or across any room and I do not see ABC / 7 / 9 / 10 / SBS / NITV logos unless I am in or in front of one of their facilities or advertising billboards. Imagine if the great artists did that to their canvases - what would Mona Lisa look like
I suspect that the reason they show their logos full-time is to annoy people recording the programs. It used to be that (if you had the skills and equipment) you could record a program, edit out the ads, and have a perfectly watchable, free movie. With the era of technology that automatically stops recording when ads come on, the networks want to make sure we all know who’s delivering that content.
This reminds me of something I read recently, about the average person seeing as many ads in a single day this year as they would see in an entire year 50 years ago.
Not surprising, really. I counted ads during one particularly nauseating session and there were 15, all crammed into the allocated time for ads. Its why 99.9% of my viewing is Aunty ABC, iView or streaming services. I do lapse and watch SBS as well, but the ads on there are not nearly as intrusive as on 7//9/10 networks.
I was concerned about my OLED television when I left menu options up on its screen for any length of time.
The TV’s own menu options, the menu options of any device connected to the TV (eg PVR) and so on - any static dispaly that stays there until I do something.
I asked this question of serviceman for that brand & type of TV and was told to not worry - that the length of time I was talking about (even getting up and going to another room to look something up, etc) was not significant.
But if I use my OLED TV for something like playing a digital radio channel then I use the television’s option to “turn screen” off.
Just a note that the Lifehacker article is dated 2013, prior to the rise of OLED technology. This web site is just short of an infomercial on OLED and unintentionally reinforces how fragile the supply chain might be.
So many products, especially electronics, have 1 or 2 plants that supply all the brands across a product category. A manufacturing problem, product problem, fire or earthquake affecting the plant(s), be it flat panel displays, memory chips, or whatever, and the market could get ugly quite quickly.
A much more recent assessment and directly relevant to OLED burn in risks. CNET 2018.
CNET still offers it’s support and recommendations for the technology, noting that early issues were evident on several well known mobile phone products.
Agree with reviewers re quality of OLED TVs.
HOWEVER, beware of burn-in.
It’s a common but not publicised problem with this technology.
The sales people do NOT tell you of this problem, which does NOT exist with less expensive (generally) LED/LCD TVs.
I had substantial burn-in and image retention problems with a Panasonic OLED 65" after just three years, which could not be rectified using all the suggested remedies from Panasonic and other experts.
Luckily for me, Panasonic is an outstanding company with which to deal and, after proof of purchase and seeing photos of the problem, it replaced the TV with a new one, picking up the old one and installing the new one - all free of charge.
I cannot speak more highly of the service.
Nevertheless, BEWARE of outlaying big dollars for this technology, especially as new LED/LCD technology is fast equalling OLEDs.
