Regarding plasma break in, I've done nothing with my 65" S60 and have encountered zero image retention. Out of the box all I did was put it in Cinema, kill the sharpness, kill the HDMI content optimization, tweak the low cuts to eliminate any excessive "noise" in blacks, and turn off overscan for my 1080P sources. I'm perfectly happy with the picture coming from a calibrated Kuro. My viewing habits include football all day on Sundays (and now Saturdays; includes the full games aired on Fox with the bright logo/ticker) and plenty of gaming with static HUDs. (ex: just rallied through Bioshock again including one 5-6 hour block)
I've now owned several plasmas and some are definitely better at combatting image retention than others. My previously owned Kuro was pretty much bulletproof with IR (only problem was when I didn't personally use it for over a month and all my girlfriend watched on it was Comedy Central in that period) and so far I've had no worries with the S60. However, I used to own a Panasonic PE8U (holiday model) and a PZ85U that were about on-par with IR handling. After playing Uncharted or Gears of War on either, the bright white ammo HUDs would be visible on white/bright backgrounds for a few hours. I also owned a Panasonic G10 that was the absolute worst when it came to IR handling. I remember playing one of the Forza games where the white track HUD would be extremely visible on the white results screen that immediately followed a race. After a night of watching television, it would still be there on white/bright backgrounds. That thing was an IR magnet for as long as I owned it and -- given the rising blacks problem from that year -- was the absolute worst television I've ever owned. Worth noting: my brother has a Samsung B series plasma that still gets IR from channel logos and my aunt has a 2012 Samsung plasma that I'm fairly certain has the USA logo burned in. (if not, it's certainly one of the worst examples of IR I've ever seen -- they were running it in torched vivid mode when I first watched it, FYI) In addition I have observed no IR on my friends 64" F8500 Samsung but have noticed that another friend's 65" ZT60 does get IR from sports tickers and game HUDs fairly quickly -- but it also fades fairly quickly so it's not a huge annoyance.
At any rate, I think it's silly to have to babysit a TV. Just adjust it to your liking (and readjust as it breaks in) and enjoy. If it's not meeting your needs, exchange it for a different TV. I've done the hundred hours of slides thing with my PZ85 and G10. Both still were exponentially worse with IR than both my Kuro and S60 that I ran out of the box in optimum settings from day one. The only benefit to the slides is if you're going to be copying someone else's white balance adjustments and they have followed the same break in procedure. (i.e. D-Nice's posted settings)
I know this has been asked, but what technology do we have to look forward to, and what will be the best choice in plasma in the year ahead?
OLED is the technology to watch for most. As manufacturers invest, it should be interesting to see who can work out the kinks. (much like the solving of many of plasma and LCD's pitfalls) Yield rate, mura effect, blue pixel lifespan, and even burn-in/image retention are all still concerns with OLED right now.
Only two manufacturers will be producing plasmas in 2014: LG and Samsung. If you simply want cheap, LG will have you covered. Other than that, they really don't do anything beyond provide sufficient performance. Black levels have historically been the worst of the plasma manufacturers and they haven't actually made any advancements in picture quality in years.
It's heavily rumored that Samsung will be putting out a cheaper F8500 (will be called something else entirely) without all the extra garbage that nobody uses (ex. built in camera) this year. THAT will be the one to watch if it comes to fruition. They should have a new flagship plasma as well, but there's no information on what improvements -- if any -- it will make to actual picture quality. I'm sure it will have the latest "smart" claptrap if that's your thing, however.
You got the better TV
