This reader question came to PC Magazine's Robert Heron:

My question is about my 50-inch Vizio plasma 720p HDTV. I just got an Xbox 360 and have been playing it a lot. The other night I spent about an hour and a half playing Uno on Xbox live (no cracks about the card game please). Anyhow when I got up the next morning and switched on my set I could see the Uno cards from the game still there, faintly. I ran VIZIO's image cleaner, and it went away. How long can I safely play games on my set before I permanently ruin it? Other games, like COD4, haven't had the same effect, but the slower ones worry me.

See Robert's answer after the jump.

Robert says: If you left a static Uno hand on the screen for three days straight, it might leave a permanent mark (due to uneven pixel wear)--more so with a brand-new plasma screen with "fresh" pixels.

I always suggest running a newer plasma in its "movie" or "theater" picture mode for the first 100 to 200 hours, as this is a plasma screen's most sensitive period. Once the plasma screen has aged a bit (hopefully running full-screen video and not 4:3 material with pillar bars), that kind of afterimage is less likely to happen.

You did the right thing, though, by running the TV's image cleaner. It cycled all the pixels a few times and removed the traces of (non-permanent) after-image. You could have performed a similar function by playing a movie (full screen, not letterboxed) or tuning to an empty channel (filling the screen with snow).

For day-long gaming sessions, it is practically impossible to cause any permanent image retention ("burn-in") with a plasma display. For a weekend-long gaming bender, you may want to keep the TV in its less-intense movie mode (and don't forget to turn the console off at night!).