Anyone have this problem with their plasma TV?

[Woochifer]

I love my 50" Panasonic Viera but had an issue the other night that really ticked me off. I was watching the Flyers/Habs game on the Versus high-def channel when their feed got all messed up and remained that way for nearly the entire second period. I changed channels just to be sure it wasn't a Comcast issue, and it wasn't. It was watchable to some extent, but there were vertical lines running across the screen and other interference interference, ruining my viewing experience. At one point the video froze for about 10 seconds although the audio was fine, then my screen went black. I changed the channel but got nothing on any channel, so I shut it off

Sounds like a processor issue, or an issue with the feed itself from Comcast. Lot of things could cause what you're describing, and the problem could originate from the box or the TV itself. Nothing to do with whether the TV's a plasma or what not.

I went upstairs to another TV and was able to watch everything, including the game on their non hi-def station, so it wasn't a cable problem, but could have been the cable high-def box or the TV.

If the upstairs TV is using an analog output then it's completely different. Even if it's a digital cable feed, you're still using a different cable box.

The next morning, I turned it on and everything worked fine, which was a relief, but I'm wondering if my plasma has some sort of protective mechanism that shuts it down if there is some problem with the video feed? Does that make sense? In retrospect, I wish I had popped in a DVD to see if I got a picture, but I was in a hurry because I didn't want to miss the game.

The only shut off mechanism active by default on the Panny is when the TV detects no signal for a period of time. But, the non-signal shut down has a countdown clock that alerts you two minutes before the shut down occurs. There's also a non-action shut down that occurs if you have a stationary image on screen for a long time. But, that mode is not active by default.

A bad signal will simply give you a bad picture or no picture at all. Trying out a DVD would have cleared up whether you had an issue with the cable signal or box.

FWIW, I've had nothing like you describe with my Panny. But, then again I subscribe to Directv.