How Many Plasma Users Experience Burn-In?
In fact, not many. Recent technologies make modern plasma displays much more resistant to permanent image retention. A research sponsored by Pioneer Electronics demonstrates that leaving a static image for 48 hours did cause a clearly visible image retention on all three of their test plasmas, but running a movie loop for 24 hours removed all signs of the after-image.
However, it is still possible to burn a plasma if it is used to display static images, such as black side bars, for extended periods of time without varying viewing material. Channel or computer game logos are also likely lo leave an after-image.
PlasmaSaver DVD helps to prevent permanent image retention by running your plasma in full-screen mode in an infinite loop. It can be also used to wash out any signs of temporary image retention caused by the prolonged display of static images.
How Do I Prevent Burn-In?
It is rather simple to prevent the burn-in effect from occurring to your plasma.
Calibrate your display. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this step. Most TVs come from the store with their brightness and contrast set way too high in order to show good in the display room. Get yourself AVIA or DVE (Digital Video Essentials) DVD, and you'll have a nicely calibrated set in less than 15 minutes.
Do not watch any 4:3 or 2.35:1 content during the first 100 hours of use. Most damage is done to the brand-new plasmas by inexperienced users. Plasmas are most susceptible to burn-in during the first 100 hours, and much more burn-in resistant after 1000 hours of use.
Restrict non-full-screen programming to 20% until 1000 hours. Plasma manufacturers also recommend limiting viewing of 4:3 or 2.35:1 programming to about 20% of overall viewing time after the first 100 hours and until 1000 hours. After that, your plasma is much less likely to take burn-in. Try watching 4:3 content in "stretched" or "fair" ("just") mode that fills the entire screen.
While your plasma is new, turn down the contrast (sometimes called "picture", which refers to white level, or the brightness of light areas of the picture). A new plasma TV is much more likely to take damage from displaying static elements such as logos or teletext. Reducing overall contrast (this controls white levels, and is called "picture" on some displays) helps reducing the possibility of those static elements to burn in.
Switch channels to avoid logo burn-in. Avoid extended viewing of broadcasts with non-transparent logos or where the screen is divided into fixed parts (such as teletext or weather reports) all the time. These logos or teletext lines may imprint into your plasma, causing burn-in.
Use grey bars instead of black. Some plasma displays allow using color bars instead of black for 4:3 programming. This may greatly reduce the burn-in effect.
Enable pixel shifting. Many plasmas offer pixel shifting, otherwise referred as "wobulation" technique, in order to reduce the effect of burn-in. Enabling this feature may decrease the effect of burn-in by "smoothing" the borders between bright and dark parts of the image. This feature alone will not prevent your display from burning in, however, because larger dark and bright parts of the screen will mostly remain where they are, thus causing an after-image with slightly blurred borders.
If your DVD player has a screen saver and auto-shutdown feature, turn it on. This helps a great deal saving you from burn-in resulting from paused movies (screen saver) or disk menus (auto-off).
If seeing early signs of image retention, run a screen saver on your plasma. New plasmas are likely to display non-permanent image retention after displaying a still image or a still element, such as a logo. Chances are great that this effect will disappear by itself after you watch a different channel (remember using full-screen "stretch" mode) for some time, or if you engage a special burn-in reduction screen saver, if your plasma has it. Please refer to your plasma documentation to find if your TV has a screen saver. Many plasmas don't have it.
Seems complicated? It is not! Here's the list once again:
While your plasma is new:
Reduce contrast
Avoid content that does not fill entire screen (leaves black bars) for the first 1000 hours
Switch channels from time to time
If seeing any signs of image retention, run a screen saver on your plasma
Always:
Use grey bars instead of black
On your plasma, keep pixel shifting enabled
On your DVD player, keep screen saver and auto-shutdown enabled
Calibrate your display to avoid unnecessary high brightness and co
Shame, you should try just helping people, instead of being such a Negative Nancy. 
