Future-proofing my OLED

[Maxiaid]

At the end of the day, if you genuinely need to worry about your monitor being permanently damaged by simply using it to, you know, display things, it's not a monitor worth owning.

Exactly. All this paranoid stressing takes the joy from owning an OLED. If you don't want to deal with any of this just get yourself a decent LCD panel. It's not worth buying expensive technology if it's gonna bring you more worries than pleasure.

 

[Thimblewad]

@Maxiaid

I agree.

Most people probably won't ever hear about the "burn-in issues" and just use these displays and enjoy them while they last.

The point of this thread was not to ask if burn-in was a thing (or start a war). I am well aware what OLEDs are and that the degradation of the organic material is inevitable. My question was mostly oriented on how to prolong the life of the screen without experiencing extreme picture retention in a very short time period, for example <2 years.

As many people here in the thread and elsewhere online have mentioned, 8-hours of "work" per day, every single day, with simply shutting off the display when it's not being used can make these displays last for years, without stressing yourself too much about it (especially these latest models).

No matter which display type you choose, there are drawbacks. TN? Shit colors and viewing angles. IPS? Some models have terrible back-light bleed. VA? Ghosting. OLED? Burn-in.

My own conclusion from all this? If you're planning on using your display for 10+ hours every day with mostly static images, or you need your display to be on most of the time, avoid OLED. If you use your PC for gaming, movies, YT, work, a bit of everything and if you at least turn it off while not using it, you should be fine.

I will not be taking any drastic measures to "prevent" burn-in and will keep using the monitor as I was using my previous IPS(LG 34GL750B), with the exception of having a shorter display off time (3 minutes). The screen care settings will be left as they were from the factory, brightness is set from 0 at night to a max. of 85% when my room is fully lit during the day (and that's only because the thing is so damn bright).

Will report back after some time, when I maybe(or maybe not) start noticing stuff being burned on my screen

 

[Endymio]

@Maxiaid

My own conclusion from all this? If you're planning on using your display for 10+ hours every day with mostly static images, or you need your display to be on most of the time, avoid OLED.

LG is now quoting a 100,000 hour half-life for their panels. (time to half brightness). That's on par for lifespan of other components in the display.

To correct one misapprehension. The "pixel cleaning" these panels do is NOT preventative care, like brushing your teeth or changing the oil in your car. What I mean is that, even if you ran the monitor 50K hours without ever doing them, you'd have some visible artifacting ... but if you then ran those routines ONCE, the panel would be no different than if you'd ran them continually the entire time. That's excepting the extra wear-and-tear the long clean cycle does (the short clean, AFAIK, has no stressor component).

 

[R-T-B]

Best way to future proof OLED is by not getting OLED.

If you are happy with a suboptimal picture sure.

I agree though if it's going to make you worry, pass. Nothing is worth that.

 

[Maxiaid]

The point of this thread was not to ask if burn-in was a thing (or start a war).

From a forum full of big-headed nerds with strong opinions and an engineer complex like most of us are, not starting a war was probably too much to ask for.

 

[INSTG8R]

It's weird most of you talking about Brightness when I couldn't honestly tell you what mines at because I have run my QD-OLED at out of the box settings except for turning up the Dark Equalizer(has 3 levels so I have it at 3)Other than then using the Win Calibration Tool I haven't made any adjustments, I run it at HDR400(Always on) and 144Hz so I can have true 10Bit colour.
I just checked and the defualt brightness is 76 I would have had no idea had it not been a topic of this discussion.
I run a relatively black Wallpaper, I don't hide my Taskbar, My desktop is covered in Icons. I just have it go into Standby after 10min. The Pixel Refresh is totally hands off I only know it¨s doing if I happen to catch the light blinking Green.

 

[JustBenching]

LG is now quoting a 100,000 hour half-life for their panels. (time to half brightness). That's on par for lifespan of other components in the display.

To correct one misapprehension. The "pixel cleaning" these panels do is NOT preventative care, like brushing your teeth or changing the oil in your car. What I mean is that, even if you ran the monitor 50K hours without ever doing them, you'd have some visible artifacting ... but if you then ran those routines ONCE, the panel would be no different than if you'd ran them continually the entire time. That's excepting the extra wear-and-tear the long clean cycle does (the short clean, AFAIK, has no stressor component).

The pixel refresh (it's the one that runs every 4 hours) isn't done for the subpixels, it's done for the TFT layer. It basically recalibrates the transistors, it has nothing to do with the oled or with burn in. It's the long cleaning cycle (pixel cleaning on LG) that deals with the actual oleds burn in.

 

[INSTG8R]

The pixel refresh (it's the one that runs every 4 hours) isn't done for the subpixels, it's done for the TFT layer. It basically recalibrates the transistors, it has nothing to do with the oled or with burn in. It's the long cleaning cycle (pixel cleaning on LG) that deals with the actual oleds burn in.

Yes on my Alienware it’s every 1500hrs for “Panel Refresh” I have already done one I think maybe a month ago? I mean these days I’m mainly gaming in VR and have the option to not have anything output on my screen so it’s just black so the pixels are basically “off” but it still counts as time ”displaying” but for me it’s perfect for no pointless extra wear and tear.

 

[Vayra86]

This conversation has started to circle around and it's not really productive IMO, you don't really need to adopt these crazy countermeasures like aggressively hiding black backgrounds, taskbars, icons, it's already been discussed ad aeternum here. I'll just oversimplify it to the extreme:

At the end of the day, if you genuinely need to worry about your monitor being permanently damaged by simply using it to, you know, display things, it's not a monitor worth owning.

and OLED is anything but that! Honestly, just enjoy it. It'll take good care of you as long as you take good care of it. If anyone's curious, this is how my desktop usually looks like:

View attachment 392393

Colorful, pretty, organized - and my OLED isn't complaining. All I do is turn it off when I'm not using it, and avoid going ham on the brightness (thus preventing the panel from operating under heat stress) - that's it. 5005 hours as of this post - zero image retention.

You think you don't have image retention but all I see is waifu pics

 

[Dr. Dro]

From a forum full of big-headed nerds with strong opinions and an engineer complex like most of us are, not starting a war was probably too much to ask for.

You just made my sig.

LG is now quoting a 100,000 hour half-life for their panels. (time to half brightness). That's on par for lifespan of other components in the display.

To correct one misapprehension. The "pixel cleaning" these panels do is NOT preventative care, like brushing your teeth or changing the oil in your car. What I mean is that, even if you ran the monitor 50K hours without ever doing them, you'd have some visible artifacting ... but if you then ran those routines ONCE, the panel would be no different than if you'd ran them continually the entire time. That's excepting the extra wear-and-tear the long clean cycle does (the short clean, AFAIK, has no stressor component).

This is a pretty interesting bit of information, no wonder, then. Running it at minimum brightness is probably have my screen make it to the 100k hour mark while retaining a significant amount of its useful life

 

[Chomiq]

Instead of display going to standby after 10 minutes just use blank screensaver after 3 min of inactivity. That way you should have more control over pixel refresh cycles (I don't know if they trigger during standby).

 

[INSTG8R]

Instead of display going to standby after 10 minutes just use blank screensaver after 3 min of inactivity. That way you should have more control over pixel refresh cycles (I don't know if they trigger during standby).

In my case it does trigger in standby it offered me the choice to be notified or just “do it” so that’s what I’m doing.

 

[Endymio]

The pixel refresh (it's the one that runs every 4 hours) isn't done for the subpixels, it's done for the TFT layer. It basically recalibrates the transistors, it has nothing to do with the oled or with burn in. It's the long cleaning cycle (pixel cleaning on LG) that deals with the actual oleds burn in.

Not quite. The short cycle (technically called "RS compensation") is to remove image sticking caused by TFT threshold shifting, one of the two forms of burn-in. The long cycle "JB compensation" is *also* a recalibration of the TFTs, but to compensate for uneven wear of the organics. I'm told that the newer LG OLED.EX panels perform longer-cycle recalibration not with direct voltage testing, but with an AI-based approach that doesn't cause panel wear -- I don't have one of these so I can't comment.

In any case, my point was simply that neither of these routines increases panel longevity; you don't need to run them like a maintenance cycle on your auto.

 

[JustBenching]

Not quite. The short cycle (technically called "RS compensation") is to remove image sticking caused by TFT threshold shifting, one of the two forms of burn-in. The long cycle "JB compensation" is *also* a recalibration of the TFTs, but to compensate for uneven wear of the organics. I'm told that the newer LG OLED.EX panels perform longer-cycle recalibration not with direct voltage testing, but with an AI-based approach that doesn't cause panel wear -- I don't have one of these so I can't comment.

In any case, my point was simply that neither of these routines increases panel longevity; you don't need to run them like a maintenance cycle on your auto.

Yeah they don't reduce burn in, just the likelihood of the user noticing it

 

[Maxiaid]

Yeah they don't reduce burn in, just the likelihood of the user noticing it

Which ultimately is the only thing that matters.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I have a LG C3 42" OLED. I would never run OLED Brightness or Black Level that high. 85 is more appropriate for Contrast. I tend to run OLED Brightness and Black Level at 50. I recommend Filmmaker mode with it's Dynamic Tone mapping, it makes dark scenes more detailed.

I also have yet to do a pixel cleaning since buying my TV well over a year ago. The reason being is these sets do an automatic pixel cleaning every 2000 hrs of use. Pixel cleaning uses a slight voltage boost, which can be hard on the screen if you do it too much.

My screen still looks fine. I also recommend adhering to the no more than 10 hrs on per day rule, as that is the amount of use per day their estimated 11 yr lifespan is based on. To stay well within that I do all my morning net surfing on my laptop.

 

[Bill_Bright]

and if you at least turn it off while not using it, you should be fine.

You don't even have to turn it off. Just let it go to sleep (into stand-by). In fact, that may be better anyway as during standby is when much preventative maintenance features kick in anyway.

I have a LG C3 42" OLED. I would never run OLED Brightness or Black Level that high. 85 is more appropriate for Contrast. I tend to run OLED Brightness and Black Level at 50.

Every environment (TV room) is different. So settings for one person may not work for anyone else.

I also have yet to do a pixel cleaning since buying my TV well over a year ago. The reason being is these sets do an automatic pixel cleaning every 2000 hrs of use. Pixel cleaning uses a slight voltage boost, which can be hard on the screen if you do it too much.

I'm not sure what the default interval is for my LG OLED but it does do a pixel refresh automatically. I have never "seen" a need to initiate it automatically.

I also recommend adhering to the no more than 10 hrs on per day rule

What rule? Got a link?

If there is such a rule, IMO, it is just to get the couch potatoes off their ass.

as that is the amount of use per day their estimated 11 yr lifespan is based on.

Ummm, no it isn't.

11 years is right but LG reports 100,000 hours (and that was in 2016). So that would be closer to 30 years at 10hour/day.

24/7 will get you about 11 years.