How to check if your OLED TV has burn-in?

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How to check if your OLED TV has burn-in?
How to check if your OLED TV has burn-in?

Samsung might be all about OLED in smartphone displays, but it’s steered away from using those types of screens for its TVs, instead harnessing LCD and QLED tech.

As part of its efforts to remind people that OLED can be susceptible to burn-in, it has released a super-helpful and not at all borne out of self-interest way to check your screen for the problem.

Its YouTube video points out the types of visual vomit you should be on the lookout for when checking for burn-in discoloration of pixels caused by static images. It includes a 10-second static display of red that fills the TV and should make burnt-in parts of the screen more obvious.

How to check if your OLED TV has burn-in?
How to check if your OLED TV has burn-in?

Use the video to your advantage

Samsung has released a video on its YouTube page which shows OLED TV owners how to check for “burn-in” on their displays. The video displays a red rectangle while music plays, and users are then given examples of how to spot burn-in on the display.

In the video, the burn-in manifests as vague black shapes over the red background. Burn-in is the “permanent image retention” caused by leaving a static image on a screen for a long period of time.

OLED TVs are susceptible to this due to the way their pixels self-illuminate to display images. The Samsung video then goes on to state that OLED TV users with burn-in can purchase a “burn-in free” Samsung QLED TV.

Samsung’s QLED TVs – which use LED backlighting – compete against LG’s OLED TVs in the premium TV market space. Both manufacturers have released models that support 8K resolutions.

Know the difference

Confused between Samsung’s QLED and Premium UHD? No need no more because we’re here to explain it to you.

LED-backlit 4K UHD TVs, including Samsung’s new QLED line at Best Buy, are technically really still LCD TVs with a higher resolution and are taking the name 4K UHD or 4K Ultra HD. 4K LCD TV is a more appropriate name.

OLED TVs will always have OLED in the title due to the panel being self-lit by Organic Light-Emitting Diodes and not using an LCD panel.

Points out the things going on

The OLED burn-in issue isn’t quite so clear-cut in practice or as widespread as Samsung might have you believe.

Testing by Engadget editors and others has found that those displays can be pretty robust. Features such as pixel/screen shift which moves the entire image by a pixel every now and again and logo luminance reduction, which dims static parts of the picture, like a network logo or scorecard in a sports game help diminish the likelihood of burn-in too.

What to do if this happens?

If your screen does have burn-in, it’s likely noticeable enough without you having to look at a solid color on the TV for 10 seconds. Samsung’s also more than happy to sell you one of the QLED screens it claims are free from the burn-in blight. It’s had its own troubles with OLED displays elsewhere though — it used that tech in its Galaxy Fold screens.

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