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Samsung TV

The European union has announced that information technology will investigate multiple reports that Samsung's LCD panels crook on energy efficiency by detecting when standardized tests are run and adjusting dynamic brightness levels in order to obfuscate their actual console use. Samsung has denied any wrongdoing — while the company acknowledges that power use can vary significantly by content, information technology claims that the observed differences are caused past general free energy efficiency measures rather than any attempt to obfuscate a exam. The Eu is unlikely to have any company'due south word on such topics in the nigh-future, even so — not after the recent VW scandal that's rocked the motorcar industry.

Samsung'due south hardware was tested by the European union's ComplianTV grouping, which institute that Samsung'due south "motion lighting" feature reduced ability consumption under internationally accustomed test conditions, simply not when goggle box sets were deployed in normal employ. A 2d Swedish group plant evidence of additional cheating. "The Swedish Energy Agency's Testlab has come up across televisions that clearly recognize the standard picture (IEC) used for testing… These displays immediately lower their energy use past adjusting the brightness of the display when the standard film is being run. This is a style of avoiding the market place surveillance government and should be addressed by the commission."

Unfortunately, there's a confounding variable in all of this. Samsung may or may non be cheating on these standardized tests, but power consumption in an LCD panel can absolutely vary depending on what you're doing with it. In his recent LCD vs. OLED shootout, Dr. Soneira posted ability efficiency figures from multiple types of content betwixt Samsung and LG displays:

PowerConsumption

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What'due south tricky nearly this situation is that it's possible for all sets of claims to be true. Samsung claims that its motion lighting feature is meant to reduce power consumption in certain types of content, the EU is investigating claims that Samsung cheats, and information technology's obvious that different types of content produce very unlike levels of free energy consumption. What this will come downwardly to is whether Samsung and other Telly manufacturers are challenge to hit efficiency targets in specific types of content that they don't actually deliver, and whether the TVs operate in the same mode when displaying standard content as with test content.

To some extent, this illustrates the problem with trying to create formal metrics for measuring performance. On the ane hand, you want to take a unified ready of tests that any organisation tin can deploy to test common hardware. Designing custom benchmarks or sequences is extremely time-consuming, and there's always the chance that y'all may miss some type of content that ought to have been measured, but wasn't. As TVs go more sophisticated, yet, they take gained the ability to detect and obfuscate certain kinds of tests.

These results likewise highlight the dangers of allowing companies to self-test and report the efficiency of their own hardware. Allowing the fox to guard the henhouse may save dollars in the short run, merely it'south an inevitable recipe for long-term trouble.