Tricks of the Trade
We have mentioned that the EU has implemented a set of power usage restrictions on CE products that will essentially ban the sale of 8K and Micro-LED TVs in the EU. The European Commission seems to have rejected requests to review the ruling, which is to go into effect on March 1, 2023, which leaves little time for TV brands and other affected parties to make their case, with the commission seemingly unmoved by an such pleadings thus far. That said, TV brands are a creative lot and rarely do they decide to acquiesce to regulations without a fight, so there are those in the industry that expect TV brands to adopt a few ‘new’ tactics to allow them to meet the new regulations without inventing new technology.
The Eu regulations are based on power consumption, and in that *K TVs have 4 times the number of pixels to process for each frame, they do not meet the tighter power consumption limits, with Micro-LED TVs having similar power issues. However, when TVs are sold, the sets are typically set for the highest brightness settings to make them look as they did on the floor of the retailer (retailers always set demo sets to their ‘highest’ settings), which also sets power consumption to its highest levels. The Eu regulations specify that the power consumption of a set is measured as the set is taken ‘out-of-the-box’, so TV brands will likely change the default brightness settings for those 8K sets to be sold in the EU, to their lowest settings, allowing them to meet the new regulations. This might not sit well with consumers, who could be disappointed with the brightness being diminished relative to the store demo, but brands can make sure that a notification is made to EU consumers as to the setting and how to return it to the higher brightness once the set is brought home.
Of course this defeats the purpose of the EU rule, which is to lower overall power consumption, but that would likely mean little to brands that continue to build and promote 8K and Micro-LED TVs. Brands also have another route, and that is to remove the tuner that is available in TV sets, lowering the power consumption and essentially turning them into monitors. The tuner is the device that allows the TV to be connected to an over-the-air antenna, and while only ~30% of TV owners receive such signals, it’s a large enough percentage that it might cause those potential 8K TV customers to stick with their old TVs, although 70% of owners, those using set-top boxes or streaming systems, would not be affected.
There is an even more subtle reason why removing the tuner for EU customers is an iffy solution to the 8k dilemma, and that is that many retailers have monitors and TVs in separate product and profitability categories, with TVs the higher margin product. If the tuner is removed from a TV, it become questionable as to what category it falls in and whether the margins should be at the TV tier or the lower monitor tier, and retailers are typically not willing to allow those margins to change, which makes the ‘brightness’ scheme the more likely in the near-term.
We do understand the EU’s objective, and TV brands typically do not promote devices on the merits of their low power consumption, so little work toward reducing power is done unless it becomes a talking point or is the subject of new regulations, as will be the case in March. The one thing we are sure of is that if TV set brands see 8K or Micro-LED customers in the EU, they will find a way to meet or beat the new regulations.
The Eu regulations are based on power consumption, and in that *K TVs have 4 times the number of pixels to process for each frame, they do not meet the tighter power consumption limits, with Micro-LED TVs having similar power issues. However, when TVs are sold, the sets are typically set for the highest brightness settings to make them look as they did on the floor of the retailer (retailers always set demo sets to their ‘highest’ settings), which also sets power consumption to its highest levels. The Eu regulations specify that the power consumption of a set is measured as the set is taken ‘out-of-the-box’, so TV brands will likely change the default brightness settings for those 8K sets to be sold in the EU, to their lowest settings, allowing them to meet the new regulations. This might not sit well with consumers, who could be disappointed with the brightness being diminished relative to the store demo, but brands can make sure that a notification is made to EU consumers as to the setting and how to return it to the higher brightness once the set is brought home.
Of course this defeats the purpose of the EU rule, which is to lower overall power consumption, but that would likely mean little to brands that continue to build and promote 8K and Micro-LED TVs. Brands also have another route, and that is to remove the tuner that is available in TV sets, lowering the power consumption and essentially turning them into monitors. The tuner is the device that allows the TV to be connected to an over-the-air antenna, and while only ~30% of TV owners receive such signals, it’s a large enough percentage that it might cause those potential 8K TV customers to stick with their old TVs, although 70% of owners, those using set-top boxes or streaming systems, would not be affected.
There is an even more subtle reason why removing the tuner for EU customers is an iffy solution to the 8k dilemma, and that is that many retailers have monitors and TVs in separate product and profitability categories, with TVs the higher margin product. If the tuner is removed from a TV, it become questionable as to what category it falls in and whether the margins should be at the TV tier or the lower monitor tier, and retailers are typically not willing to allow those margins to change, which makes the ‘brightness’ scheme the more likely in the near-term.
We do understand the EU’s objective, and TV brands typically do not promote devices on the merits of their low power consumption, so little work toward reducing power is done unless it becomes a talking point or is the subject of new regulations, as will be the case in March. The one thing we are sure of is that if TV set brands see 8K or Micro-LED customers in the EU, they will find a way to meet or beat the new regulations.
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