Is NBC trying to burn everybody's Plasmas?

[VeniceDre]

Anyone in Los Angeles been watching NBC HD tonight? There's a bright white box in the lower right corner with the time and weather in it... I noticed it while watching Dateline and it's continued during L&O Criminal Intent. It's even there during commercial breaks. Is this some new thing that NBC is pushing? I'm worried about the image retention.

[CoriBright]

It's your local because it's not showing here in Vegas. Just the normal slightly transparent/slightly opaque peacock bottom left.

[VeniceDre]

It went through the entire episode of Criminal Intent but dropped off after the first three minutes of SVU, hopefully it won't return... very high contrast.

[geopig]

Gotta love that. As if we need constant weather reports here in LA. We only get weather 20 days a year and they can't even get those reports right more than 50% of the time.

[CousCous]

Here in Indiana all of the local affiliates have been keeping a ticker at the bottom of the screen to show school/work delays. We've had a lot of bad weather and it's messing a lot of stuff up. I still wish they'd keep it off the screen during primetime. When they have the tickers running they scale everything back down to 480p and burn-in is an issue.

Kind of a similar problem I suppose.. I thought about calling them or sending them emails about it.

[Earl Bonovich]

It is your local affiliate that ads that.

And for what it is worth... I have had my plasma for 3+ years now... with NBC and other stations that do this. And I don't have burn in.

With late generation model plasmas it is very difficult to get burn in.
Image rentention yes, but actual burn-in... very difficult.

[Nick]

When I get those annoying crawls, bugs and other superfluous on-screen clutter, I
occasionally hit the zoom button once or twice to clear the offending graphics off
the periphery of my screen. Call me a rebel, but I happen to believe that every sq.
inch of my valuable wide-screen real-estate belongs to me and not to the networks
and broadcasters.

When the NGC was first launched, their trademark bug was a bright, intense yellow.
I emailed them about the potential for burn-in and not only did they reply, but soon
afterward they visibly reduced the intensity of their classic rectangular bug, and they
even gave it that cutesy little rotational effect..

I suppose the moral to this story is...if bugs bug you, contact the offending entity,
particularly in the case of local broadcasters who tend to be more responsive to
viewer comments.

[VeniceDre]

It is your local affiliate that ads that.

And for what it is worth... I have had my plasma for 3+ years now... with NBC and other stations that do this. And I don't have burn in.

With late generation model plasmas it is very difficult to get burn in.
Image rentention yes, but actual burn-in... very difficult.

How's it going Earl,

I've got a client who watches CNBC all the time and he burns in his plasma every year cause he just leaves it on... He's got the ticker and the CNBC logo burned in to the set (looks pink) He just replaces the set every year... must be nice. I've actually burned in the Fox news logo on another set during the gulf war since there were no commercial breaks the first few days. Had my contrast set low and everything.

I can't believe they would do that with the time and weather during prime time never seen it before on any of the networks here in Los Angeles.

[DonCorleone]

Yeah, I mean in this day of higher tech TV's, it surprises me that any of them do it. Fox News swirls theirs, but I don't think that makes it any better.

[Earl Bonovich]

How's it going Earl,

I've got a client who watches CNBC all the time and he burns in his plasma every year cause he just leaves it on... He's got the ticker and the CNBC logo burned in to the set (looks pink) He just replaces the set every year... must be nice. I've actually burned in the Fox news logo on another set during the gulf war since there were no commercial breaks the first few days. Had my contrast set low and everything.

I can't believe they would do that with the time and weather during prime time never seen it before on any of the networks here in Los Angeles.

Well... just like that, that would be one of the ways to do it.

But since the Gulf War starting, they have continue to progress with the technology.

On my plasma, I have an ORBIT mode. Shifts evrything by a few pixels.
So even though it seems to be in the same place it is not.

Actually... if you watch the SD broadcasts, they have been doing it for a while on some channels.... it just appears that the LA affiliate out there, must have upgraded their HD equipment to do the overlays for the HD.

[Terry K]

In my market here in Missouri, the local NBC is too damn cheap to put in the overlay equipment so they just switch everything back to 480 when they have run incessive hours of school closings (You know this is 2007, why can't they do it over hd?)

The local CBS and FOX just went HD and they BOTH have the ability to do the overlay, much to the happiness of HD Viewers.

[kenglish]

Maybe the local NBC is just "too damn poor" to buy the equipment ;) . Not every market can charge top dollar for their local ads.

There was something that happened on NBC-HD a couple of nights ago, that put a large box on the right side of the screen. NBC admitted it was a problem on their end.....it might be something with the stuff that controls their NameDropper graphics equipment. That's the system that adds "bugs" to the network programming (at the local station) and adds time and temperature to things like the Today show.