bright spot on plasma screen
 

I bought a Hitachi plasma 50" CMP5000WXU about three years ago. For
several months I have noticed a bright yellow spot (or green if
something like a golf match is on with a lot of grass) at the top of
the screen. It was very small (probably a year ago when first noticed
it) but has been getting bigger and will often cover a talking head (on
CNN) entire forehead. Especially Lou Dobbs for some reason. It need a
certain light background to be seen such as a forehead or bright sky.
1. It will go away if I turn off the screen and let it cool down and
then gradually return as it heats up over a period of perhaps 20-30
minutes. I only noticed this recently but feel it has been there from
the beginning of the problem.
2. It is not in evidence with DVD input.
3. It is only rarely at all visable with HDTV and then only very
faintly.
4. Sometimes in the same bright yellow or green image I see LIVE at the
top left of the screen just as it is seen on CNN with live broadcasts.
This appeared only recently and just gradually developed.

For reasons two and three before the others were noiced I felt it was
in the satellite broadcast and didn't call Hitachi on it. When I did
call them they acted as if I was the only person this had ever happened
to. RIGHT.
Has anyone else had this or a similar experience?
Thanks,

Bill wrote:
I bought a Hitachi plasma 50" CMP5000WXU about three years ago. For
several months I have noticed a bright yellow spot (or green if
something like a golf match is on with a lot of grass) at the top of
the screen. It was very small (probably a year ago when first noticed
it) but has been getting bigger and will often cover a talking head (on
CNN) entire forehead. Especially Lou Dobbs for some reason. It need a
certain light background to be seen such as a forehead or bright sky.
1. It will go away if I turn off the screen and let it cool down and
then gradually return as it heats up over a period of perhaps 20-30
minutes. I only noticed this recently but feel it has been there from
the beginning of the problem.
2. It is not in evidence with DVD input.
3. It is only rarely at all visable with HDTV and then only very
faintly.
4. Sometimes in the same bright yellow or green image I see LIVE at the
top left of the screen just as it is seen on CNN with live broadcasts.
This appeared only recently and just gradually developed.

For reasons two and three before the others were noiced I felt it was
in the satellite broadcast and didn't call Hitachi on it. When I did
call them they acted as if I was the only person this had ever happened
to. RIGHT.
Has anyone else had this or a similar experience?
Thanks,

Have you tried some fault isolation? Moved the satellite signal to
another input, presumably component given the age of your TV? Swapped
the input ports with your DVD to see if the problem follows it? If it
only shows up with the satellite input, contact the satellite company to
swap the box (if it is a rental)? Based on your cool down tests, the
problem is probably be in the TV electronics, but you should confirm
that. It is a weird problem, that is for sure.

Typical screen failure for a plasma is for a whole or part of a whole
horizontal line to go bad or a fixed section part of the screen to go
bad such as half of it. A growing tinted blob is not typical from what I
have read. Don't expect the CSR or the next level you might reach to
have any technical understanding of what may be wrong with your TV. You
need to talk to someone who has some technical knowledge which can take
some patience to speak to through the gauntlet of CSRs.

Alan F