Got a new TV - 46" Samsung 5000 series
 

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1392150188

This weekend found a deal on the TV I've been keeping an eye on, the Samsung UN46C5000. Unless the energy star list has been updated since I created a list of efficient TVs, it is currently the lowest power usage 46" TV you can buy with a max power usage of 60W. Thats less than my old tube 27" TV used to use, and its gigantic by compairison. I have yet to use it a ton, but I'll probably write up a review for it after a while.

Amazon.com : Samsung UN46C5000 46-Inch 1080p 60 Hz LED HDTV (Black) : Led Televisions : Electronics

Wow, 60W is amazing! Maybe it can go lower if the lighting is adjusted?
Our 37" LCD is a space heater at 160W:(
Congrats on the find:)

Yeah, the TV does have a few power saving options. It has the light sensor on it to detect room brightness and it adjusts screen brightness accordingly. I have also turned down the brightness via an 'eco option' that saves more power. I really have to hook up the kill a watt to see what kind of power its actually using though. If its 60W max, I'm pretty sure I'm under that.

I just did some quick testing. With a medium lit room, the TV was consuming 46-48W depending mostly on brightness. I'm quite happy with that, but I'll see if it can't be tweaked a little.

Unfortunately, the Energy Star rating uses whatever picture settings the television ships with. So EnergyStar is primarily measuring what the default brightness setting is, which is of little use to anyone.

My hunch is that a 46" TV can draw much more than 60W at max brightness... either that or max brightness isn't very bright. That's just the laws of physics, which require that 5/6ths of the light generated by the backlight is turned to heat before it even reaches the matrix. More brightness is lost to the space between the pixels, then in the pixels themselves. Color LCD displays are one of those instances where output energy is, at best, a few percent of input energy.

In any case, I do like Samsungs: http://ecorenovator.org/forum/applia...html#post10299

when testing my 32" I found that the audio volume made more of a difference in power use then the backlight brightness. Also I saw that the different types of tuners used different amounts of power. The tuner for my antenna drawing roughly 10 watts more on the analog channels then on the digital channels. this could have been due to the screen working harder to display the analog signal or due to the tuber it's self.

The wattage on the back of a device is typically the max it will run after any initial in-rush currents(capacitors, backlight strikes, etc.).

Does this TV advertise LED backlighting?

Usually the only controllable aspect of power consumption in an LCD display is how much power is consumed in the backlight usually its the brightness or white level settings or in some cases they just change it around and call them by whatever energy saving name they feel is most marketable.

48 watts sure is much less than the 230 watts that my 1080p projector is rated for that I use to watch movies. If only I had the throw distance to produce the 300 inch screen would the wattage make the most efficient sense. I wonder how the neighbors would react if I projected a movie on the back of the house at night.

It depends on if your neighbors are invited to join you or not!
I have one of the palm size Aaxa micro projectors that draws 15 watts, it's good for about 60" (80" if you have a good screen) image altho you need a dim lit room or reduce the image size, this is not a problem for me because only watch movies at night.
I'm a big fan of the projector because it frees up space and makes my living room a multi use room rather then a "TV room".

It's hard to invite neighbors to something that you think they might disapprove of ahead of time. I've got a different projector that uses less power, 6 watts runs off of an LED but its colors are off-hue toward the outside of the image and the resolution appears to be half of 480p but it wasn't too bad to watch movies on but after getting a taste of a large image(about 50" or so), I dug in for something I felt wouldn't disappoint and got a power monster, incredibly bright though even with a large size screen. I also went with the projector because of the free space issue because the room shape isn't ideal for one that sits on the floor and it was much cheaper than any 1080P LCD 50+ inches that I've ever seen.

Pretty sweet though for the 42", 48 watts is great.

I messed with it a bit more this weekend. There is an eco setting that was set to low. I think it pretty much controls brightness. With it on medium power drops to ~36W and on high it drops to ~24W. However, at high its really too dim to be real usable. I have kept it on medium and we'll see how that works out.

I'm a big fan of products that give you settings that are too high/low to be useful to everybody.

You have options for making the dimmest setting more usable. You could wait for sundown, install dark thermal curtains, and/or install the television in a recessed fixture. Or just burn the extra 12W. It's still a very efficient television. I'm impressed that they made a 46" that's that much more efficient than their inexpensive 40" that I have.

I definitely agree. Its always nice to have 'too much' adjustment instead of not enough!

I'll have to check out what the high setting is like at night with the lights off or something.

Speaking of eco settings - Our LCD has an option which dims the backlight if the image on the screen is black (or close to black). I doubt it happens often enough to make a noticeable dent in energy consumption, but I guess every bit counts.

Such a setting gives you blacker blacks, which is hard to achieve with an LCD. I love dynamic backlighting.

The joy of blacks with TVs, get better black = plasma = insane energy consumption or worse black = LCD = better energy consumption ....

I gave up on the TV dilemma and just focused on insulation, windows, and now solar :)

I also have a Samsung 5000 series lcd tv , only in the 40" size , without all the energy savings labels and buttons. It does how ever have all of the needed controls to adjust its wattage consumption from a high of around 200w to a low slightly below 50 watts.
I use it with the back lighting on 2 (out of 10) with the contrast set near full and brightness as high as possible without making the blacks too bright. It consumes 50w with those settings. If I feel like a real bright experience say for a darkly recorded movie i will switch it over to dynamic mode with the back lighting on 8 , later i switch it back as not only does it consume unnecessary electricity it strains my eyes.

The kill-a-watt meter paid for it self with just the tv adjustments i made using it. I found the back lighting setting 3 had a large wattage increase from the 2 setting, yet provided little to no noticeable effect with the picture brightness.

My 40" Vizio M401i-A3 has excellent blacks - it has dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000,000:1. Uses ~45W typically, with video only. The sound is over an AV receiver and speakers. Weighs about 23 pounds.

I did a firmware update on the Samsung tv today and its picture quality improved ( imo) with better blacks and a overall crisper look.

it was easy enough to do oddly it changed the power profile somewhat.