A new customer called recently about a problem he was having with a new 50″ Samsung plasma TV. He had it installed in a dedicated theater room and it was putting out so much heat that they had to leave the door to the theater open and put a fan in the door to stay comfortable. He said he couldn’t hold his hand on top of the TV for more than 30 seconds.
That is very unusual. These TVs consume about 480 watts when operating, but I didn’t think that was enough to heat up a room. I stopped by to check it out. The Contrast control determines how bright the brightest areas of the screen are, and to some extent how much energy the TV consumes. This is usually turned up pretty high from the factory so it will look “brighter” in a showroom display compared to the competition.
On this TV the Contrast control was turned up to 95 out of 100 on all the inputs. I changed the Picture mode to Movie and then calibrated the Contrast control with a 100/95/90 IRE test pattern by turning it down until the 100 IRE patch just started to dim.
We ran it for almost an hour after that and the room never warmed up. I could hold my hand on top of the TV indefinitely; it wasn’t very hot at all. The picture looked better too. Problem solved and I have another happy customer with a lower energy bill!
