Caring For And Troubleshooting My New TV
What is "screen burn" and how can I avoid it?
Screen burn is a condition where a still image gets etched permanently into your TV. It only occurs with plasma TVs. It also used to occur with CRT TVs, the old fashioned kind of TVs. The best way to avoid it is not to leave a still image on your screen for any longer than two to three hours. We don't recommend using plasma TVs as a computer monitor, because it's pretty typical that you get up, walk away from your computer screen, and if you forget, you can actually burn that page onto your TV screen forever.
What is "aspect ratio"?
Aspect ratio describes the ratio of the height to the width of the image that's on the screen. Traditional TV, standard definition TV had a 4:3 aspect ratio which made it fairly square. The newer types of TV's are 16:9 the HD ratio, 16:9 aspect ratio which makes it more rectanglular. Where this becomes important is when you're veiwiing content on your TV, if you're veiwing older material it will stretch to fill the screen. If you want to avoid the stretch, you'll select viewing the content in 4:3 aspect ratio and you'll see bars either on the sides or on the top and bottom of that picture.
What is "pixelation"?
Pixelation occurs when you get a bad inbound signal from your TV company or satellite. If the satellite dish moves slightly, the signal will drop and that will end up displaying on your TV as a series of weird squares popping all over the screen. Sometimes there are audio artifacts like popping and hissing or scrambling of the audio itself. That means that your signal has gotten weak. Now, occasionally it's temporary, could be a signal from the cable company got jumbled. Generally it's symptomatic of a bigger problem. If it continues for a longer period of time, more than a few minutes, you should contact your service provider and have them send out a tech to fix the problem.
Why does the picture on my TV look "stretched" and how can I fix it?
You picture on you high definition TV my look all stretched out because you view standard definition content. It was filmed in a different resolution or a different aspect ratio 4-3. What's happening is your TV is stretching the picture to fill the whole screen. You really have two choices: One is to select that you want to watch it in its original aspect, which would give you the proper ratio so things wouldn't stretch, but you'd see bars on the side or the top or the bottom of the TV. Other than that you can select another one of the aspect ratio formats that are typically available on flat screen TVs like full, which tries to maintain the ratio as best as it can. You will lose some detail around the sides because what it's doing is blowing up the picture slightly to fill the whole screen.
Why might the picture on my TV look distorted?
If the edges of your TV picture look distorted there could be several issues there. One is you may have bad electricity in your house. In other words it's a little bit low, or a little bit high, or there's some interference on the line. A symptom of that would be waves through the line or strange colours appearing, coming and going. That could be resolved by getting a higher grade electrical filter put on, or a surge protector put on your TV. Other times it could be with how the TV was set up. You can actually move the picture on your TV slightly up, slightly down, slightly to the sides. If the TV picture is not centred correctly on your TV, sometimes you'll get artifacts from the video processing that appear on the far edge of the picture. You wouldn't normally see those, but if the TV isn't centred; the actual image isn't centred on the screen, then you might see those. If you have a pixel on your TV that gets stuck and won't change colour, you may have a case for going back to the place you bought it from, or to the manufacturer, and getting a replacement. However, it all depends on what's in the warranty policy. You need to read that very carefully, because dead pixels are generally written up in the warranty and there is a standard that each manufacturer uses in determining when its a defect or when it's just part of the manufacturing process.
How do I clean my new TV?
When you're cleaning your new TV, never, ever, ever use a commercial cleaning product like Windex or any type of solvent on that screen. It will fog the screen; in other words, make it less transparent and you'll never be able to get that out again. When you're cleaning your screen, wipe it down with a lens polishing cloth, an eyeglass polishing cloth. You can use a paper towel with a minor, minor amount of dishwashing soap and water to get any kind of dirt off the screen. But never use anything abrasive, and never use a commercial cleaner on your TV.
