Buy a More Efficient Television
No need to super-size
In general, televisions consume more energy to operate, ship, and manufacture as they get bigger, so buy a television no larger than you need or than fits comfortably in the room where you intend to use it. [LINK TO CALCULATOR] Much of the energy consumers thought they might save by moving from an old picture-tube model to a new high-definition TV is being traded for larger screen size, so pay particular attention to size first.
Start with an LCD
Most televisions sold today are either LCD, plasma, CRT (cathode-ray tube, or picture tube), or rear projection. Generally speaking, LCD models use less energy than the other types, but the variation can be huge from one model to the next, depending on size, screen brightness, and setup. CRT televisions are rapidly disappearing from the market. Rear projection models are also declining in popularity, in part because they tend to be thicker than LCD and plasma TVs. Rear projection (and front projection) displays can be fairly energy efficient for their screen size, but it’s important to ensure that the resulting picture will be bright enough (see additional discussion of screen brightness below). Plasma TVs tend to use more energy than LCD TVs of a similar size, which is why no plasmas made our current product list. The newest plasma TVs are finding ways to consume significantly less energy than plasma TVs sold just a few years ago, but LCDs have also improved dramatically, maintaining their efficiency lead over plasmas.
Look for LED backlighting
LED backlighting, particularly with local dimming, is often more energy efficient than standard cold cathode fluorescent (LCD) backlighting. Hot cathode fluorescent lighting (HCFL) can also be a good efficiency choice.
Look for energy-saving features
Automatic brightness control, if available and enabled, helps to ensure that televisions operate at the appropriate brightness for the room lighting conditions, saving energy.
Some televisions have an auto power-down or motion sensing technology that can help ensure the screen switches off automatically if no signal is present or if no motion has been detected in the room for a period of time. These features generally help save energy and are worth considering.
Some televisions promote an “eco-mode” that may offer additional power savings, but the performance of televisions in that mode is not always high enough to ensure customer satisfaction.
Consider all the angles
The best new LCD television technologies offer outstanding color, high refresh rates, excellent “real world” contrast ratios, and many other features, while using far less energy than televisions of the same size made only a few years ago. The only performance area that we think still serves special consideration, depending on your viewing conditions, is off-axis brightness.
If you tend to watch television in small groups and the TV faces directly toward you (horizontally and vertically), off-axis brightness doesn’t matter much. If, on the other hand, your TV is intended to be viewed from a wide range of angles (left, right, above, and below the screen), off-axis brightness could be important to you. This can occur in very wide rooms with many different seating positions (like in a bar or airport), or in a large living room or bonus room where some people may be watching in the middle of the room and some off to the side. If that is the case for you, we recommend looking at your top television choices in person to make sure they look good to you head-on and from the side. Plasma, OLED, CRTs, and some types of LCDs all tend to have very good off-axis brightness. Other types of LCDs and rear projection TVs can have poor off-axis brightness. If that’s important to you, check it out in person before making your final purchase decision.
Dim the room rather than buying a super-bright television
This is one of the most challenging issues with TVs right now. Manufacturers often market screen brightness or luminance numbers and encourage people to buy the brightest possible model. However, buying a brighter TV only makes sense if you intend to operate it in a very brightly lit room. And if you do, it will usually consume significantly more energy than it would on a less bright setting.
Our research and the work of the Imaging Science Foundation has shown that one of the best ways to ensure maximum picture quality is to make sure that the dark parts of the screen are as dark as possible. This creates the maximum possible difference (a factor of thousands) between the bright parts of the screen and the dark parts of the screen. This is a “real-world” contrast ratio that you can see and appreciate with the kinds of programming you like to watch in your own home. In this kind of setting, a screen brightness of about 125 to 175 candelas per square meter (cd/m2 ) looks great. Anything more than that (some TVs claim a screen brightness of 500 cd/m2 or more) doesn’t gain you much in a dark room.
Manufacturers often quote contrast ratio or “dynamic contrast ratio” numbers of hundreds of thousands or even millions to 1 in their specification sheets. These numbers are fairly meaningless, given the wide differences in how they are measured. For more information, see http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/feature/contrast-ratio-shoot+out-everyone-loses-259495.php.
If your TV is operating in a fairly dark room and is calibrated properly, it will generally look better than a TV that is operating in a bright room and set to run very brightly. The colors will appear more natural, and more detail will be apparent in the darkest and brightest parts of the image. For more information, see http://www.efficientproducts.org/product.php?productID=12.
The opposite is also true, however. Some manufacturers set their televisions to operate very dimly when measured for ENERGY STAR certification purposes. This makes their energy use lower than it really will be when you use it under reasonable conditions. We are currently conducting additional testing to help resolve this issue and will be making recommendations shortly to ensure screen brightness is properly accounted for – stay tuned!
Keep an eye on emerging technology
A new kind of LED, called organic LED or OLED, is just coming to market. OLED TVs may be a good efficiency option in the future as the technology matures, but so far only one model is available for sale in the US, and it is still quite small and expensive. As more OLEDs are introduced, we will consider them for TopTen.
