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EXCLUSIVE: 8K TV Energy & Netflix 4K Streaming ‘A Real Concern’ In OZ

As Australia battles climate change issues, serious questions are being raised by the power usage of large screen 8K TVs and how much power is used watching 4K streamed content.

TV brands who will this year launch a range of large screen 8K TV’s including 85″ & 90″ models are facing claims that these display monsters suck up a large amount of energy with the latest Samsung 82″ 8K TV only getting a one-star energy label according to specifications outlined on the Harvey Norman web site.

According to Australia’s Energy Rating agency, by law, every television that is sold or supplied within Australia and New Zealand must meet a minimum level of energy efficiency.

An online comparison tool shows Samsung’s new Q Series televisions all received a one-star energy rating.

The 65″ 8K model uses more than double the amount of energy as Samsung’s Series 7 65″ 4K TV, which received a five-star energy rating.

Each television in a store must also display an Energy Rating Label.

The Energy Rating Label tells you how much energy the television uses per year and gives you a star rating that allows you to compare its efficiency to televisions of the same size.

Prior to entering the Australian market, manufacturers conduct testing and provide reports of these tests to the regulator.

A range of these products are then tested annually to ensure the manufacturer’s claims stack up.

A spokesperson for the Department of Environment and Energy said the regulator uses “an intelligence led, risk based program of check testing and market surveillance”.

“Any products check tested that then fail the check testing process, may have their product registration cancelled and subsequent enforcement actions may be undertaken such as enforceable undertakings or the issuing of infringement notices.”

It’s also been revealed that consumers watching one feature-length film online via streaming sites such as Stan, Netflix or Amazon Prime requires the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle for 60 cups of tea.

The launch of large screen 8K TV’s and the growth in demand for streaming content is putting a strain on power resources and becoming a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions claim observers.

‘We found that streaming a two-hour high-definition film on Netflix equates to boiling over 10 kettles of water,’ Mike Hazas, a researcher at Lancaster University, told The Times.

Researchers have revealed he average household kettle makes six cups of tea or coffee and uses approximately one Kilowatt hour (kWh) of energy per boil.

To ascertain how much power was being used by TV viewers researchers tracked the online usage of a range of people, including pensioners, students and teenagers.

The replaced the router of the 20 people in the study that they recruited and tracked how many megabytes of data was used for a month on all devices per person and per household.

They found streaming was the dominant form of entertainment, beating out traditional broadcast and other mediums, such as DVD and Blu-ray.

‘Our findings show a significant behavioural shift towards streaming as a default, with traditional broadcast TV or DVDs becoming obsolete,’ said Kelly Widdicks from Lancaster University.

The vast amounts of data consumption stems, primarily, from the way the internet beams its content through various locations before it is viewed.

A video watched online is sent to physical computer centres belonging to the company and then directed back to the user, wherever they are in the world.

Often, this can involve a consumer having their demand sent to the US before it is beamed back to them. This happens every time a new user views the video.



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