LG ​OLED TV suffers burn-in from 4,000 hour test

An OLED TV burn-in test on LG Electronics' models that mimicked casual viewing patterns have shown signs of burn-in after clocking-in 4,000 hours

Rtings have been playing different kind of contents on six units of 2017 C7 OLED TV models since January. The TVs are turned on for 5 hours and turned off for 1 hour. It repeats this cycle 4 times a day, the reviews site explains.

Five of the TVs were set in 200nit brightness while one was set at maximum. Two TVs that played CNN, one at maximum brightness, had the logo and static bar clearly burnt-in while another that played gaming title FIFA18 had the FIFA logo slightly burnt-in. Another which played regular channels like NBC had no permanent image retention and another that played sports channel also didn't suffer the problem.

The South Korean tech giant has previously said its OLED TVs can last 30,000 hours, which equals 10 years of use with an average daily viewing of eight hours, without burn-ins.

The company's OLED TVs have a pixel refresher feature which moves static images to prevent burn-in but Rting's test showed that it had minimal effect and caused uniformity issues. The test is ongoing and further results will be announced in a couple of months.

Earlier this year, LG's 2018 OLED TVs at Incheon International Airport in South Korea that showed flight schedules had signs of burn-in after only a couple of months. The models were switched with LCD ones due to the issue.

LG's OLED TV shown at SID Display Week in May also showed signs of burn-in.

Burn-in refers to permanent image retention usually caused by leaving a static image on the screen for a long period of time. The images are "burnt-in" and are visible, like stains, when playing other content.

LG is currently pushing its OLED TVs as its flagship premium TV models and affiliate LG Display supplies its panels to Sony.

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