Samsung Has Found A Solution To Its 8K TV Power Problems. Here’s How It Works
After months of uncertainty surrounding their ability to meet new EU TV power consumption regulations, Samsung has finally confirmed that it will still be launching a range of 8K TVs in 2023. The measures the brand has had to introduce to its latest 8K TVs to make them viable for the EU market, though, include compromises that won’t sit well with the sort of uncompromising AV fans likely to be buying an 8K TV.
The problems for Samsung’s 2023 8K TV range (the brand has long been 8K resolution’s most vocal and prolific advocate) began around the time of the IFA technology show in Berlin last September. The time had come round for EU to reassess the power consumption regulations it applies to the TV industry, and as part of this reassessment it had reduced permissible power consumption to a level so low that it appeared that Samsung’s relatively power-hungry 8K TVs simply wouldn’t be able to meet the new targets. Meaning that Samsung wouldn’t be able to sell the TVs in the EU (unless, perhaps, they were converted to monitors).
Samsung – not unreasonably, it seems to me – lobbied the EU about giving 8K TVs special dispensation within its new TV power regulations, but the Commission refused to budge.
This left Samsung faced with the prospect of either canning all of its already well-developed 2023 8K TV plans for Europe, or finding a way of working round the EU’s new commandments. Not surprisingly Samsung opted for the latter course – but AV fans need to know that the work around has a significant impact on the new 8K TVs’ out of the box picture quality.
Essentially Samsung has had to ship its new 8K TVs with their brightness set substantially lower in their default, out of the box picture preset than their screens are capable of delivering. Not only that, but the brightness settings for these default low power consumption modes have had to be locked in, so that end users can’t adjust them.
Some of Samsung’s 2023 8K models will apparently also need to set their local dimming systems to Low rather than Standard to stay within the EU’s power requirements.
The exact brightness settings Samsung’s new QN700C, QN800C and QN900C 8K TV ranges will need to use out of the box varies from model to model, based on how innately bright their screens are. So an example of the 2023 Samsung 8K TV menu settings we were shown in a presentation showed brightness locked to level 15, while an actual demonstration we were shown on what I think was a QN900C showed brightness locked to just level 8.
To put these default 8K TV brightness settings into some sort of context, the maximum setting on Samsung 8K TVs is 50.
This really highlights just how heavily the default settings are compromising the new 8K TVs’ potential brightness performance.
Samsung claims to have approached the brightness-compromised default picture presets in as holistic a way as possible, working to ensure that the picture still looks as balanced and vibrant as it can. Nonetheless, the extent to which the pictures of Samsung’s 2023 8K TVs are ‘hobbled’ out of the box is hardly ideal given the importance of brightness to the high dynamic range pictures now so beloved of AV fans. Nor does it help Samsung’s long-running approach of selling its 8K TVs on the idea that they provide lots of other premium picture quality features – including high brightness – beyond their 8K resolution.
Fortunately there’s some good news to go alongside the new power limiting pain. First, the EU’s power diktats don’t prevent anyone who buys one of Samsung’s new 8K TVs from switching away from the out of the box settings. Simply switch to a different picture preset and check that the TV’s eco settings are turned off and you will be able to see the TV running in something much more like its full high brightness glory.
In fact, Samsung has crucially added an Eco picture preset alongside its customary Dynamic, Standard, Movie and Filmmaker Mode presets, and it’s this clearly named preset that the new 8K TVs default to, rather than a compromised version of the brand’s typical and popular Standard default mode.
You can adjust the brightness setting of all the non Eco modes at will, too – so it really is possible to experience everything Samsung’s 2023 8K screens are capable of without having to put too much effort in.
Of course, it’s well known that many households don’t touch their picture settings once they’ve got their TV set up, raising the prospect of many Samsung 8K buyers in 2023 watching their new TVs in their brightness-limited default modes with no idea of what their expensive new screens are actually capable of. However, Samsung told me that the issue of picture preset selection will be raised during the new 8K TVs’ initial installation process, making end users aware of the Eco mode situation and enabling them to explore alternatives to it during the one time that even the most technophobic users will be engaged with their TV’s set up options.
One final wrinkle to add here is that I haven’t yet got 100% confirmation from Samsung on whether the process for meeting the new EU regulations only applies to its 8K TVs sold in Europe. Given, though, that a) Samsung was keen to talk up its green credentials when discussing the solution to its 8K power consumption problem and b) I’ve also spotted the new Eco mode on Samsung’s new and highly efficient S95C QD OLED TVs, I suspect that the out of the box Eco mode approach for Samsung’s 2023 8K TVs will apply globally. I have a question in with Samsung on this point, though, and will update this story when I get a conclusive answer.
The saga of Samsung’s 8K TVs and the latest legislative push for ever more stringent energy consumption limits brings to the fore like never before a tension between picture quality and green concerns that’s actually been around since the last days of plasma screen technology – and which may become a much more widespread issue/debate in the years to come. The whole situation also doesn’t exactly enhance 8K’s image in an TV marketplace that already seemed hesitant – to say the least – to embrace the next level in resolution.
Maybe in the end, though, provided it’s always left as easy to tweak your way round a bright new TV’s power-limited out of the box settings as it appears to be with Samsung’s 2023 8K TVs, then in the end the choice of how to balance picture quality and power consumption/eco considerations actually remains where it perhaps always should be: In the hands of the individual consumer.
