ANSI lumens are dead!

The ANSI lumen is gone, but strangely no one is talking about it.

According to American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the specifications relating to the measurement of lumens* were officially retired on July 25, 2003, due to lack of technical support.
In an effort to provide the industry with a reliable standard, ANSI is pushing the projector industry to use the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) lumen. It would appear, however, that manufacturers don't want to switch because so many people have become familiar with the term "ANSI Lumen" despite a widespread misunderstanding of what the term actually means.

Although at the time of this writing the IEC standards** are still in draft form, it would appear that the testing procedures are virtually identical to the ANSI standard. Basically, an IEC lumen is synonymous with an ANSI lumen.

When comparing projectors, be careful that you are matching apples to apples. It is common to see one projector from a manufacturer listed at x ANSI lumens and another projector from the same manufacturer listed at x Center lumens. These are not the same.

ANSI lumens is a light reading from 9 sections of the screen averaged into a single reading. Center lumens is just that - the reading of lumens at the center point of the screen. Because there is no standard for a "center lumen", it could be a light meter held directly in front of a projector with no lens in it. (side note: Rumor has it that this is how the Barco 5000 got its name. A light meter was held directly in front of the barrel with no lens and it measured 5000 lumens.)