What about projectors ?
Projected images – you see them everywhere – in both public and professional settings for advertising, information to large audiences as well as home cinema for entertainment or replacing the TV. Projector users demand high image quality and top performance. With this in mind, TCO Development is in the process of finalizing a TCO Certified projectors standard – the first in the world to combine performance and environmental factors for this rapidly growing product group.
An important part of thee standards development process is to talk to product users. So
we asked purchasers and end users what they demanded from a projector. Their main answers were good picture quality and low noise. Then we asked how they decided what projector to buy. The most popular answers were high contrast and luminance values. We were surprised that almost no-one we surveyed knew about the importance of matching projector choice to the intended operating environment – lighting conditions, noise levels, viewing distance from the image etc. There was also very little knowledge about the actual energy consumption of a projector, for example in comparison to a big screen TV.
To get a better understanding of what to demand from a projector, TCO Development tested some projectors for light output, contrast, noise level and energy consumption, and found that the test results and values declared in the product information didn’t correspond. The declared values were often approx 30% higher than the test results on light output and contrast.
Therefore, TCO Development decided that there is a need for a label that makes is easy to choose projectors designed for both usability and environment and that accurately reports the performance of the product. The TCO environmental impact criteria set limitations on hazardous substances and energy consumption as well as requirements for recycling. The usability criteria aim to give the user high image quality and low noise. Today image quality is related to light output measured in ANSI lumen and contrast ratio. Most users have difficulties in relating image quality to these abstract values but they know which picture size they want to have a high picture quality with. TCO Development has developed a requirement aiming to provide a good picture on a maximum projected screen size, the TCO Image Size.
We believe that the TCO certification for projectors will be a useful tool for users to choose a projector that meets their performance needs and environmental goals.