The New VW?

I guess we can look forward to a spate of reports like this. Yesterday Edie reported that some Samsung televisions appear to be less efficient in "real life" mode than in tests. Are they set up to "game" the tests? Samsung have provided a fairly robust response arguing that their "motion lighting" feature (which dims the screen in response to various forms of real-world content) is an "out of the box" setting, not something that specifically detects test conditions, and that the lower test readings are just an artifact of the test conditions. The implication is that the test conditions are a poor substitute for real-life. Various industry sources, however, are suggesting that some TVs really do have "defeat" devices installed that recognise the standard test film. The report notes that TVs typically account for 10% of household electricity consumption. This one could run and run (but not necessarily on diesel).