Hit Hollywood with a Carbon tax
That’s interesting.
I’ve got a kill-a-watt
I’ll have to plug it in and see for myself.
Department of Energy Plans to Regulate Refrigerators
Build more power plants....technology is eating up all the juice.
Put how else will my cats stay warm they love to sleep on those things
No. It would be pretty easy to design it so that it takes very little power to just watch the clock and then spin up the hard disk and high speed encoding hardware when it is scheduled to record.
ome of this is related to the fact that providers push software updates in the middle of the night, while another issue is that customers expect their television to be “instant-on.”
Ditto. Checking the network is very low power. Also, it doesn't need to check constantly. Once an hour should be vastly more than enough.
The problem with my old ReplayTV is that even when it is "off" all that happens is the output is shut off. It still is constantly recording what it is tuned to, so I can turn on the box and say "That looks interesting. I think I'll rewind an hour to see how it started." That functionality means it is using 42 watts constantly whether it is "on" or "off". That's 368 kilowatts-hours a year (and the same amount for the downstairs one). Just being able to turn off live recording and a good stand by mode could save a lot of power.
What are these “cable box” and “DVR” things?
Not to worry - Ozero will save the earth by mandating only one channel with reruns of Obama speeches all day so you can tune in any time and don’t need a DVR.
There’s something worthy of recording on TV these days?
...a normal HD set-top box generates 171 kilowatt-hours a year compared to 275 kilowatt-hours a year for an HD DVR.Buy a few more and you can power your entire house with them. :=)
This is horse hockey. Where’s his numbers?
On the other hand, if you open the refrigerator door in order to cool your house, you will use lots of electricity.
At least the fridge shuts off once in a while.
Your AC adapters (transformers) run 24/7. You can put them all on power strips and shut them off when you’re not using them.
The Dept. of Energy lists a small, 16 cubic foot refrigerator at 725 killowatt-hours.
Our dvr only turns on about a minute before it records. Also have set top boxes that are only on when we turn them on.
I figured this out sometime ago when I upgraded my cable box. When it is turned on then it puts out a ton of heat. I turn it off when I am not using it, and it is cool when it is off...So it uses much less power then.