How Testing Matters: Go beyond spec sheet, define quality parameters

Every LED screen sold in India needs to pass basic electrical safety checks, like any other electronic product. Beyond that, there is no requirement to test anything else. There’s no rule saying a screen’s brightness has to match what’s on its spec sheet. No rule saying the screen has to survive Indian heat, humidity or monsoon rain without breaking down. No rule around how much power it should use over its lifetime. This is simply how the category has grown so far, testing beyond safety is optional, and left entirely up to each manufacturer.

So what does “lab testing” actually mean for a DOOH screen? In simple terms, it’s checking a screen against a set of parameters before or during production, brightness, heat tolerance, weatherproofing, power consumption, electrical safety, and how long it lasts, to confirm that what’s promised matches what’s delivered. Some manufacturers do this seriously. Others don’t do it at all. There’s currently no standard forcing anyone either way.

This series is our attempt to understand how the industry itself sees this gap. We are speaking to manufacturers to find out what they test, how they test it, and whether they think India needs a common standard. We start with Sarjan Satra, R&D Head at Xtreme Media, one of the older players in India’s outdoor LED space.

What actually gets tested?

For outdoor screens, three things matter most, according to Sarjan Satra: brightness, how hot the screen gets when running at full output, and its IP rating (how well it’s sealed against dust and water). Alongside this come basic safety checks, short circuit risk, current leakage, and one number with long-term financial impact: power consumption. “Power consumption matters a lot, because it decides what the screen costs to run for years, not just what it costs to buy,” he says.

Two more technical parameters he mentions are power factor and harmonics. In simple terms, these tell you how much of the electricity a screen draws is actually turned into light, and how much is wasted. “It tells you how much of the power going in is actually being used to produce the image, and how much just leaks away,” he explains. None of these numbers usually appear on a typical spec sheet.

Why does testing matter?

“Honestly, most clients aren’t even aware of what quality parameters they should be asking about,” says Sarjan. His reasoning is simple: a spec sheet just doesn’t say enough. “A spec sheet only shares maybe 10% of the data, if that. The details that actually matter never make it onto paper, you only find them in the lab.”

Do buyers actually ask for test reports?

Sarjan estimates that fewer than one in ten clients currently ask for a test report before buying a screen, and that even brightness, the simplest number to check, often goes unverified. “Most clients won’t even test brightness. So it becomes very easy for anyone to claim their screen does 7,000 or 8,000 nits,” he says.

In his view, this is simply a reflection of how new the category still is; most buyers haven’t yet developed the habit of asking for proof, the way they might for other big purchases.

At Xtreme Media, most testing is done in-house, brightness and temperature measurement, power testing, high-voltage and leakage current checks, all inside their own facility. The test reports are given to clients free of cost whenever asked, and the company sometimes helps clients benchmark demo units directly against other suppliers before a purchase decision.

Only the more specialised international certifications, like CE or UL-linked EMC testing, are sent to outside, NABL-accredited labs, Sarjan estimates this is around 10-20% of total testing, with the rest done in-house. Every new product or design change goes through a full round of testing, and once a screen is in regular production, batches of around 500 to 1,000 cabinets are tested before shipping.

Could testing become a trust signal?

Asked if independent certification could help buyers compare screens more confidently, Sarjan says it could, but only if it comes from a genuinely reliable source. “As long as the report comes from an impartial, NABL-certified or genuinely reputed lab, it can absolutely become a quality badge,” he says. He also flags a practical concern: in India, it’s possible for a report to be issued from a smaller lab without proper testing actually taking place, so buyers would need to check the lab’s credibility, not just the report itself.

A quick note on certifications

A few certification names come up often in this conversation, so here’s what they mean in plain terms:

• CE – A mark required to sell electronic products in Europe. It confirms the product meets EU safety and electromagnetic compatibility rules.
• FCC – The US equivalent, confirming a product doesn’t cause harmful electromagnetic interference and meets safety norms there.
• UL / ETL – Independent US safety certifications, widely recognised globally, focused mainly on fire and electrical safety risk.
• BIS – India’s own safety certification body. The relevant standard for electronics here is IS 62368, which covers general electronic product safety.
• NABL – The Indian accreditation body that certifies whether a testing lab itself is competent and trustworthy to issue valid results.

Where these certifications fall short

All of the above certifications are built around one thing: electrical and fire safety, and electromagnetic compatibility (making sure a device doesn’t interfere with other electronics). None of them test or certify how bright a screen is, how efficiently it runs, or how it performs after two years outdoors in the heat. That’s a separate, unregulated space.

Sarjan explains that Xtreme Media designs its screens keeping these international certifications in mind, but says they only cover part of what actually matters for a DOOH screen. “These standards are really built around safety and EMC, electromagnetic compatibility,” he says. “The LED display industry is still young. It hasn’t matured the way something like television has, where the standards are clearly laid out.”

Because performance parameters like brightness, thermal behaviour, and long-term power efficiency aren’t covered by any of these certifications, Sarjan says manufacturers who want to test for them have to build their own internal process to do so. At Xtreme Media, he estimates that roughly half of what they test comes from following these safety-focused international frameworks, while the other half, the performance side, is based on the company’s own experience from years of outdoor installations.

Why doesn’t India have a testing standard yet?

Sarjan puts this down mainly to timing. “LED screens have only really taken off recently. Outdoor hoardings were actually banned in some parts of India not too long ago, you wouldn’t have seen any. It’s all happened very fast since then,” he says. In his view, the industry has simply grown faster than regulation or buyer awareness could keep up with. He expects this to change over time as more people become aware of the difference between good and poor quality screens.

He also feels the first move shouldn’t necessarily come from the government. “The major manufacturers need a common platform where they can agree on a shared standard. Once that exists, compliance gets a lot easier for everyone,” he says.

Should India build its own standard, or follow global ones?

Sarjan sees this as two separate questions. Safety, he says, is already reasonably covered by India’s BIS standard. What’s missing is performance, and that gap exists everywhere, not just in India. His suggestion is that any future Indian standard should go a step further than existing global ones, and include performance benchmarks like image quality, power efficiency and long-term running cost, alongside the usual safety requirements.

What would future standards need to cover?

Sarjan’s list of essentials stays consistent through the conversation: brightness, thermal performance, IP rating, power consumption, power factor, harmonics, and basic electrical safety checks. He imagines a system where larger manufacturers self-certify using their own labs, and smaller manufacturers without that infrastructure rely on accredited third-party labs instead.

On who should enforce this, his view is that it should mostly rest with buyers rather than a regulator. “Compliance should sit with the clients themselves. It’s very hard for any regulatory body to actually enforce something like this, we’re not talking about a law, just good practice that benefits the customer,” he says. His suggestion is that buyers, or their representatives, should be able to see key tests happen in person, especially brightness and power, rather than relying only on paperwork.

Whether that approach works at scale, across a market with hundreds of manufacturers and importers of very different sizes, is a question this series will keep exploring in the instalments ahead.