This month Epson announced an end to its litigation against VAVA. Epson says it has reached a settlement with VAVA for its recent lawsuit highlighting deceptive advertising practices for the VAVA 4K Ultra Short Throw Laser TV. This settlement is great news for consumers all over the world looking to purchase projectors.
Here at Projector Reviews, we have pointed out in several articles Epson's focused efforts toward highlighting and stopping deceptive advertising practices by other projector manufacturers to ensure consumers are aware of precisely what they are buying.
As we discussed in our article "Lux vs. Lumens: Brightness Standards Matter," projector buyers need to be cautious of misleading measurement claims often listed as "Lux,” "LED lumens," or "Lamp Brightness." These are not internationally recognized on-screen light output performance standards and are often very misleading.
As a reminder, Epson has been fighting this fight for some time, working to establish recognized and consistent processes for determining any projector's light output. VAVA is only the latest company to run afoul of Epson in its ongoing efforts to create a fair marketplace with accurate consumer information. They intend to establish consistent lumens rating standards for projectors. Epson has been laser-focused on this issue for years. So far, Epson's efforts on behalf of consumers have borne fruit on several fronts, including a settlement agreement with Philips and Screeneo Innovation. The parties agreed that all future Philips NeoPix projectors designed, manufactured, and sold by Screeneo would use industry-standard specifications.
In 2019, Epson also settled with Curtis International Ltd. and Technicolor in its lawsuit, alleging that the companies falsely advertised the lumens of projectors manufactured and sold under the RCA and ONN (Walmart) brand names.
In 2020 Epson filed lawsuits against Vankyo, GooDee, Bomaker, and WiMiUS, asserting that by using Lux as a projector's brightness descriptor rather than the accepted ANSI or similar ISO 21118 lumens standards, consumers could not compare projectors or accurately calculate the brightness of the image they would see on their screen.
Epson filed a lawsuit against VAVA in 2021 for their promotion of the VAVA 4K Ultra Short Throw Laser TV as either a 2,500 or 6,000 lumens claim. Epson asserted through third-party testing that both VAVA's lumens claims were inaccurate. Testing showed that the VAVA projector's ANSI lumens came in well under 2,500 lumens.
The initial complaint was made as part of Epson's longstanding efforts to ensure the implementation of standards across brands to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions.
Under the settlement terms, VAVA agreed to correct quoted lumens from the previously misstated 6,000 or 2,500 lumens to 1,800 lumens across varying online and in-store retail venues. This correction reflected more accurate brightness claims, which benefited consumers.
Mike Isgrig, Vice President, Consumer Sales and Marketing, Epson America:
"The results of the settlement help to validate Epson's concerted efforts to ensure that consumers have access to accurate performance claims using industry-recognized standards,"
"VAVA's actions to correct lumens claims across marketing and promotion vehicles is a step in the right direction to helping provide shoppers accurate performance information."
Epson cautions shoppers to be wary of misleading metrics listed as "Lux," "LED lumens," or "Lamp Brightness" that fail to follow industry-standard measurements and therefore materially impact a consumer's ability to compare the performance of projectors. Measurement for projectors is defined by internationally recognized standards groups, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Committee for Display Metrology (ICDM). The ICDM publishes the Information Display Measurement Standards (IDMS), where the methodology for measuring projector color brightness and white brightness separately are fully defined. The ISO standard which defines projector measurement methodology is ISO21118:2020. There is zero ambiguity regarding how projectors are correctly measured and compared when these standards are followed.
This is not the first fight for consistent standards, and it won't be the last. Standards battles have been taking place for more than two centuries. In the 1800s, there were battles over size standards for railroad rail gauge. In more recent times, the CCD and CMOS industries fought to establish consistent standards for sensor performance ratings allowing consumers to know how many pixels were being used to create captured images vs. listing total pixels on a sensor. There have also been industry efforts to create a consistent measurement of imaging sensor size. There are even standards for technology such as the IEEE standards published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Mike Isgrig, Vice President, Consumer Sales and Marketing, Epson America:
"Consumers are better off when companies accurately represent key performance claims, helping them to purchase products that meet their viewing expectations, and that is ultimately our goal,"
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