8K TVs aren’t a massive part of the market right now, and a new EU energy regulation may stop them dead in their tracks. Like 4K TVs, 8K TVs are hotly debated on the internet, with some insisting that the human eye cannot see beyond a specific resolution and others insisting it can. That’s an argument for another time.
Having reviewed 8K TVs and 4K TVs, I feel the technology is legitimate, but according to the EU, it also uses too much energy. The sale of 8K TVs could be banned entirely in the EU if the governing body’s new Energy Efficiency Index goes into play on March 2023.
According to the 8K Association, “Unless something changes, March 2023 will spell trouble for the emerging 8K industry with the 8K EU Regulatory Ruling. That’s when new EU power consumption regulations are set to go into effect. The power consumption limits on 8K TVs (and microLED-based displays) are set so low that essentially none of these devices will pass.”
My friend Caleb Dension at Digital Trends wrote this; “I spoke to Chris Chinnock, who heads up the 8K Association and recently penned a paper on this topic. He points out that an 8K TV panel has four times the pixels of a 4K TV panel. And because of the way LCD panels work, it is significantly harder to pass light through the tiny aperture of those tiny pixels. The harder it is to pass light, the harder you have to push, and that means increasing the brightness of the TV’s backlight system, which, as you can imagine, requires a lot more power.”
“Because 8K TVs necessarily need far more power just to be as bright as 4K TVs — let alone a bit brighter, as is expected of the premium TV category — significantly reducing 8K TV power consumption would require reinventing the LCD panel as we’ve known it for decades. That can’t happen overnight — if it can happen at all.”
While this situation seems like it will only affect the EU, there is a domino effect that will reach Canada and the US. This EU regulation will likely kill 8K TVs for everyone, not just those in the EU.
Flatpanels HD has an excellent, more in-depth write-up on the situation, and Digital Trends has an excellent faster breakdown, so be sure to check both of those articles out!
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