TV product surveys: new ratings and new tests

With the announcement of the autumn-winter 2009/2010 collection upon us, we have just recast our TV evaluation table. Now is also the time to introduce you to our test protocol in more detail.

By developing a capacity to read more and more types of audio, photo and video files, televisions are orientating themselves towards multimedia. We have therefore expanded our panel of tests to include a larger sample of multimedia files. This also presented us with the opportunity to reformat our evaluation table so as to bring it in line with reader expectations and, above all, to make it tougher on the quality of products tested. Indeed, you could say that in 2008/09 the great majority of TVs scored 4 stars while any exceptional models got a 5-star rating. The next rung down were entry-level TVs at 3 stars.

The new rating system must be more severe. In particular design and build must be very impressive to obtain the maximum score. When manufactuers announce HD compatibiltiy with all types of formats, we also expect the results in practice to measure up, something we’re still a good deal away from.
We've also calmed down on image quality ratings, making a four star score now much more difficult to attain. 5 star ratings will continue to be reserved for models that we’d recommend with our eyes closed.

Current product survey ratings have been updated and our test protocols are outlined in a new article: How do we test TVs?