First of all: this thread is not meant to create mass hysteria, shit on OLED technology or whatever. I'm just sharing my experience on what happened to my set and hopefully will help others to avoid this issue.
Last Christmas I spent at my parents'. They have an OLED C7 and I noticed a massive burned in bar at the bottom of their TV while playing RDR2, when looking at the map. The huge ass bar was probably produced by those fucking static info bars they put on every news/talkshow/almost everything these days .This one was purchased by the end of 2017 so it's barely a year old OLED panel and it's already fucked up beyond repair. Still under warranty, my dad will try to get a replacement but I don't have too much faith in that since LG will most likely reply with a "it's your fault for watching TV on it".
It's very difficult to take a picture of it but I guess you can see it more or less. Huge bar and then a circle on the right.
So, old people right? They don't know how to take care of their electronics. But what about my LG C6?
I've been pretty happy with this TV since I purchased it. I didn't baby it too much, but always took care not to leave static images, turn it off as soon as no one was watching it, always watch varied content and avoid static UI elements, etc and it's been great. But seeing what happened to my parents' I wondered wether mine was completely ok or not.
Turns out my TV is perfectly fine... except for two small rectangles which have been burned in at the bottom right of the panel. These pictures were super difficult to take and it's way more apparent when you see them in person. In fact I spotted them from a distance of like 20 feet during a commercial which turned the entire screen orange, so they're definitely not 'invisible' by any means.
In case you don't know what these are, the spots match the Youtube app buttons. The Youtube app already preinstalled in the TV. So I've basically caused burn in on my TV by using the default Youtube app LG put on the damn thing. Gee, thanks LG, maybe next time just hide those icons?
Before anyone goes "but why did you leave the Youtube app open for so long lmao" I did not. The effect is cumulative and since I watch Youtube every day on My TV it doesn't matter if the buttons are only visible for 5 minutes between 2 hours worth of videos. Since the buttons are always in the same exact spot, they age that particular area of the screen much faster that anything else. OLED doesn't like yellow or orange colors too much, they'll degrade your set at the speed of sound it seems. I've already cycled the TV, pixel refresh and everything. They're there for good.
The Youtube app looks something like this, and you can see the culprits down there:
After finding out about these issues I looked it up online and yeah, there's quite a few people out there getting burned in OLEDs for no good reason
So. My TV is still great. OLED looks amazing. Those two spots won't bother me too much. But burn in is definitely a real issue, and OLED tvs seem to be more problematic than what we were told three years ago. While the technology is great, these problems make me think OLED is not the 'definitive' tech by any means. It's a very specific product for a very specific use that not many will be able to take advantage of without fucking them up due to normal use. And LG should be called out for that, their stance from the beginning was "these may have image retention, but it goes away quickly and you should not worry". Well, years later it's burn in, it doesn't go away and it's not my fault.
If you want to see if your OLED is a victim of "search" and "close guide" or any other UI elements, just watch a full screen orange/red/light yellow image (you can look for those "10 hours of red color" on Youtube).
Hopefully you won't find any spots on yours!
Last Christmas I spent at my parents'. They have an OLED C7 and I noticed a massive burned in bar at the bottom of their TV while playing RDR2, when looking at the map. The huge ass bar was probably produced by those fucking static info bars they put on every news/talkshow/almost everything these days .This one was purchased by the end of 2017 so it's barely a year old OLED panel and it's already fucked up beyond repair. Still under warranty, my dad will try to get a replacement but I don't have too much faith in that since LG will most likely reply with a "it's your fault for watching TV on it".
It's very difficult to take a picture of it but I guess you can see it more or less. Huge bar and then a circle on the right.
So, old people right? They don't know how to take care of their electronics. But what about my LG C6?
I've been pretty happy with this TV since I purchased it. I didn't baby it too much, but always took care not to leave static images, turn it off as soon as no one was watching it, always watch varied content and avoid static UI elements, etc and it's been great. But seeing what happened to my parents' I wondered wether mine was completely ok or not.
Turns out my TV is perfectly fine... except for two small rectangles which have been burned in at the bottom right of the panel. These pictures were super difficult to take and it's way more apparent when you see them in person. In fact I spotted them from a distance of like 20 feet during a commercial which turned the entire screen orange, so they're definitely not 'invisible' by any means.
In case you don't know what these are, the spots match the Youtube app buttons. The Youtube app already preinstalled in the TV. So I've basically caused burn in on my TV by using the default Youtube app LG put on the damn thing. Gee, thanks LG, maybe next time just hide those icons?
Before anyone goes "but why did you leave the Youtube app open for so long lmao" I did not. The effect is cumulative and since I watch Youtube every day on My TV it doesn't matter if the buttons are only visible for 5 minutes between 2 hours worth of videos. Since the buttons are always in the same exact spot, they age that particular area of the screen much faster that anything else. OLED doesn't like yellow or orange colors too much, they'll degrade your set at the speed of sound it seems. I've already cycled the TV, pixel refresh and everything. They're there for good.
The Youtube app looks something like this, and you can see the culprits down there:
After finding out about these issues I looked it up online and yeah, there's quite a few people out there getting burned in OLEDs for no good reason
So. My TV is still great. OLED looks amazing. Those two spots won't bother me too much. But burn in is definitely a real issue, and OLED tvs seem to be more problematic than what we were told three years ago. While the technology is great, these problems make me think OLED is not the 'definitive' tech by any means. It's a very specific product for a very specific use that not many will be able to take advantage of without fucking them up due to normal use. And LG should be called out for that, their stance from the beginning was "these may have image retention, but it goes away quickly and you should not worry". Well, years later it's burn in, it doesn't go away and it's not my fault.
If you want to see if your OLED is a victim of "search" and "close guide" or any other UI elements, just watch a full screen orange/red/light yellow image (you can look for those "10 hours of red color" on Youtube).
Hopefully you won't find any spots on yours!
