How long does it take to get burn-in when watching widescreen content on a CRT TV?

[CRTguy]

Originally Posted by vol.2

I would honestly just not do letterboxed on a CRT at all. I use mine exclusively for games and old TV shows for exactly that reason.

They have a limited enough lifespan as it is and I wouldn't want to do anything to hasten that.

I agree. Some users on the CRTgaming subreddit are claiming that they have operated their 4:3 PC CRT monitors using a widescreen resolution for hundreds of hours with no burn-in. One user even claimed they operated the monitor using a widescreen resolution for 1000 hours with no burn-in. I am very skeptical of this. Maybe PC CRT monitors aren't as prone to burn-in? I remember that when I was younger, my friend was playing a Playstation 1 game that had in icon in the corner of the screen as part of the game and after playing the game on his CRT for an entire day, that icon was burned into the screen and his parents were pissed. Granted, I had a 27" Toshiba CRT from 1994 that I used to watch widescreen movies on in the early 2000s and I never noticed burn-in. I probably watched 30-40 widescreen movies on that TV. I also never noticed any widescreen burn-in on my PC CRT monitors in the 2000s and on one monitor I must have watched about 100 widescreen movies. I'm still going to err on the side of caution but it's interesting. I probably won't worry if it's just a few widescreen movies on my current CRTs but I won't do much more than that.