Secondary cost of cable and satellite HD & HDPVR boxes

[fergy]

Interesting article o the secondary cost of cable and satellite SD, HD & HDPVR boxes - guzzlers and sippers.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...r.html?ref=rss

"a typical household set-up with an HD receiver and an HD-DVR consumes an average of 446 kilowatt hours per year — more than the 416 kilowatts per year used by a standard-sized, energy-efficient refrigerator," (21 cubic foot)

"The devices draw about two thirds of that power when they're not in use because they consume electricity at nearly the same rate while sitting idle as they do when displaying or recording video content"

(typical) "Hitting the on/off button merely dims the clock or display and instead of having your DVR consume 35 W when on, it consumed 34 W,"

------------------
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/settopboxes.pdf
From the study:

"European IPTV HD-DVRs
demonstrated impressively low On mode power levels of
less than 10 watts."

"The data below include
two of these video streaming devices, the most efficient of
which was AppleTV, which drew just 3 watts in On mode
and less than 1 watt in Sleep mode."

[DarkCanuck]

But if I turn it off, my PVR won't record.

I guess if times get tough I'll unplug the fridge.

[cwb27]

Known it for years..

Cable boxes run hot, alllllll the time.

Heat = energy

[rf134a]

Bell's units consume a constant 38w or 48w regardless of the mode. Strange enough, some FTA boxes consume as little as 10w on and 1w off. Echostar hasn't innovated in their boxes in forever.

[don242]

This bugs me as well. The Bell PVR consumes 32w whether it is on or off. The biggest electricity user in the house for any appliance or electronics that run constantly.

[ozymandias]

Crap. No wonder my electricity bill is so high (I've got three Rogers HD-PVRs and one normal digital box). Too bad Rogers doesn't allow networking. Time to return one or two boxes back.

[PuppetDoctor]

I always noticed that the HD PVR always ran hot even when off, and I have another three regular digital cable boxes in the house (one is an HD box). I didn't realize though it used up so much electricity but unfortunately it is not possible to unplug it because the PVR won't record and rebooting any digital cable box takes to long. Its about as long as warming up one of those old televisions.

[WontonTiger]

Another indicator of why Monopolies do not force innovation. It would be nice if we could choose our Cable Box or PVR.

Rucking Fogers and Fell.

[jumbojones]

Interesting, might be why I've seen a dip in my hydro since I got rid of cogeco and went OTA.

[Therion]

I realized this myself when I was testing my components for consumption a few years ago. I noticed the Rogers box consumes the same amount whether it is on or off (40watts or so). So I stopped turning it off... since I already had to replace one remote for a new one because the power button stopped working.
BTW, receivers are power hogs if they're on, as well. My largish Denon 3802 draws somewhere in the 50W range when it is on (but not actually doing anything). It's better for the electronics to leave it on all the time, but that's a lot of wasted juice. I'm hoping the new receiver I'm planning on getting soon has some sort of power management feature.

[fergy]

Rogers is moving all customers to digital so no more analogue and everyone will require a Rogers set top box/descramber of some sort for every TV. Because they have to be registered with Rogers I guess you can't switch them off with a power bar? Do they have to be re-registered? We've only ever subscribed to the analogue extended basic.

http://forums.redflagdeals.com/roger...012-a-1135971/

If we decided to stay with Rogers we would probably choose the "free rental" basic Cisco DTA50 Digital Transport boxes. But if the universal boxes don't support the TV's here then that's quite problematic.

Found the manual for the DTA50 remote. No code for Auria
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/vide.../4030042_B.pdf

It's time to look for a good UHF/VHF antenna. For the heck of it maybe I'll try making an easy one.
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=186

[ofdoom]

Does anyone know how much power the new shaw Gateway uses? I'm tempted to put it on a timer power bar along with the modem/router to all be switched of while we sleep, that would mean not trying to record anything in the middle of the night.

If I knew the power consumption that would help in convincing my wife its worthwhile.

[rf134a]

Rogers is moving all customers to digital so no more analogue and everyone will require a Rogers set top box/descramber of some sort for every TV. Because they have to be registered with Rogers I guess you can't switch them off with a power bar? Do they have to be re-registered? We've only ever subscribed to the analogue extended basic.

I believe the Shaw boxes require re-provisioning if they're not connected for 48 hours, so you might want to check with Rogers to see if they have the same policy. Then, stick a timer to turn on 1 hour before you get home and turn off 1 hour after you normally go to sleep. That'll give it time to turn off/boot/whatever. A simple $2 timer from Dollarama is the cheapest solution.

[vitaminJ]

My old system was 3 rogers sd boxes that drew 16 watts on and 15 watts "off," which was pretty poor.
My new Bell Aliant IPTV system including 3 sd/hd boxes including 1 PVR and 3 supporting boxes including a wireless router draw a total of 60-odd watts all the time, not nearly as much as i feared.