Screen Stain

[billyshears]

I heard a tale - from the olden days - that leaving a still image on a television or computer screen would "burn" a stain onto the screen. Is this true and, if so, how long would it take?

[rojash]

Yes, it's true - that's why screen savers were invented.
How long it takes depends on a lot of things, but back in the days of DOS when people would leave a menu on their screen most of the day, I would often visit clients where the menu was readable with the machine turned off. Basically the phospors fade with use over time. If the image is constantly changing, the fading is distributed over most of the screen, but with a constant image, the brightest parts of the image will eventually get burned into the phosphor coating.

[billyshears]

So if - for example - I left digital radio on my tv screen for the whole day (with its info band across the screen) it would cause an "imprint"?

[Ethel]

Not with today's screens.

[rojash]

If it's a CRTscreen and the band is unchanging, and you haven't set your monitor to power down after a certain length of time, then yes, it would eventually leave a mark. CRT screen technology has barely changed at all over the last twenty years.

But surely you have your monitor set to power down after a period of inactivity?