Can ESD do damage to a modern TV's when powered on?

[Taiyaki]

This winter its been so deadly cold and dry I've had multiple experiences of my 4k TV (in this case a Sony A90J) screen flashing white for a quarter of a second when I stand up stand up. I sit about 6ft away from the TV but the static seems to go through the Sennheiser HD800S headphones I use as I feel it from there. This seems to always happen while the blu ray player is also powered on (Panasonic UB820).

Last night however we had a record cold blast and it was around -15 celsius outside. Inside as dry as 20 or so in humidity (and that's with the Venta humidifier on!) and this happened:

When I stood up I felt this noticeable static pop and the TV picture just went black (with the footage and audio stopped) for about 2 or 3 seconds, before resuming playback of the movie. I'm not sure it was the TV itself as the issue might have been the blu ray player (just guessing the ESD might have reached it via the HDMI ports through the tv through the headphones).

I was really worried that perhaps I had done harm to internal components of either the TV or the blu ray player (or both), but I would imagine considering they are all modern electronics that they would have parts intended to protect against such issues.

I did a quick search online regarding this kind of occurrence but all I could find were potentially uneducated guesses from responders with no background in electronics on some Q&A sites or Reddit pages.

Does anyone with knowledge or understanding of modern electronics and ESD have an opinion on whether this is a serious concern or whether I'm just over worrying? Any replies would be appreciated, and thank you.

[Taiyaki]

I may have narrowed it down to the blu ray player. When I’m on a video game I don’t think I’m seeing the white flash on my tv when I feel the static pop on the headphones. The UB820 is made of a plastic case so maybe the static electricity gets inside? Hope I didn’t do damage.

[Lord of Pirates]

Is everything on the same outlet? How are the headphones hooked up?

[Taiyaki]

Is everything on the same outlet? How are the headphones hooked up?

Yes all on the same outlet (a grounded surge protector).

The headphones go into a Beyerdynamics device that simulates virtual surround via digital coax from the TV. So my guess is the static went from the headphones into the beyerdynamics device then out into the digital coaxial, and into the tv. It might have then gone into the hdmi and into the blu ray player which was running with a disc inside.

Was pretty frightening considering all I did was stand up. The entire room is carpet and the chair has some fabric on it so I guess I built up static due to the extreme dryness we had that day.

The Beyerdynamics device is incredibly well built. I bought it off ebay for a few hundreds bucks but apparently at retail this device was sold for something really high like 1000 dollars. Feels like a tank with a very strong external metal casing, and I assume they take into account this kind of possibility seeing that apparently headphones can carry through ESD. The TV should in principle have protections too I hope?

[Lord of Pirates]

Have you tried isolating devices one by one?

[Taiyaki]

I can’t reproduce the effect because that day we had a cold wave and record low temperatures and record low humidity. If I try shuffling my feet and acclimating static I can get some very light sparks when touching the beyerdynamics device but I think it just gets drawn into the case in the same way any typical discharge goes. Haven’t been able to recreate the discharge through the headphones.

[Taiyaki]

Ok well assuming the following is correct and also applies to TV's I guess I might have just been over-worrying (from an older thread at the avsforums):

"Today most AVRs are tested for ESD....
The ESD (electro static discharge) may be as high as 5KV but no current, however they will often push the unit to shutdown.
This is very common in car audio electronics, that's why they will have a reset button..
Inside the CE product, memory and CPU chips don't like the ESD charge but today most CE products are designed to handle this without any issues just requires rebooting the product..
Just my $0.02... "

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/touche ... t-60441862