I thought burn-in was the worst thing that could happen to my TV — I was wrong

I thought burn-in was the worst thing that could happen to my TV — I was wrong Dave Meikleham / MakeUseOf By  Dave Meikleham Published May 31, 2026, 12:30 PM EDT Dave has a bachelor of arts degree in journalism, and has been writing professionally since 2006. Over the years he's produced content for many global brands, including IGN, PC Gamer, TechRadar and Tom's Guide. His main passions revolve around PC hardware, display tech and gaming. Dave is absolutely obsessed with cutting-edge PC technology. He's been building his own rigs since ye olden days of 2004 and has owned an embarrassing number of GPUs over that timeframe. When he’s not obsessing over frame rates, Dave can normally be found fretting over dead pixels and OLED burn-in. He first fell in love with OLED displays in 2015, and has spent the ensuing years obliterating his bank balance buying “Light Emitting Diode” screens. In his off hours, Dave can normally be found sweating unbearably over Arsenal results. He might take footba… sorry “soccer”, a little too seriously. Sign in to your MakeUseOf account Add Us On Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap I’ve owned OLED TVs since 2015. Over the past decade, I've sweated over OLED burn-in for the longest time. Thankfully, my obsessive routines have so far prevented the threat of permanent image retention. Yet when it comes to my latest TV tech defect, there’s really no hard and fast way to fix the problem. Color banding might not be nearly as well known as OLED burn-in, but for mega AV dweebs like myself, it’s an absolute thing. Color banding has semi-ruined some of my favorite PC games, yet if you know what TV settings and software measures to deploy, this defect can become a lot less offensive to your eyes. What is color banding? An explainer on this anno