Cable Boxes/DVRs/PVRs Use More Power than Refridgerators

[Hack&Lube]

http://www.neowin.net/news/cable-box...in+All+News%29

Wow, I am starting to wonder how much my Shaw PVR is adding to my electricity costs. I may have to hook up a Kill-O-Watt up to it at some point to see how much power it is actually using if this report is true.

[Nage Waza]

You can borrow my meter if you want, I think we were supposed to trade ROMs as well.

[DownhillGoat]

Ummm. Am I missing something? Is there an issue in shutting it off, other than load time, which the article is saying is minutes? Pretty sure I've never waited that long. Or cared if I did, at least.

[Rathji]

I dont know why you wouldnt shut it off when you are done using it. The only reason mine doesnt get shut off some days is if it recording when I want to turn it off.

Interesting question though - if it turns on to record after I have shut if off - does it turn itself off after?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I dont know why you wouldnt shut it off when you are done using it.

Really? I don't think I have ever shut off my PVRs; except when I am going to move it or something. I have various auto tune timers set throughout the day; or the default is Discovery. That way when I want to watch TV there is always something on that I can rewind back to the begining and watch.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Really? I don't think I have ever shut off my PVRs; except when I am going to move it or something. I have various auto tune timers set throughout the day; or the default is Discovery. That way when I want to watch TV there is always something on that I can rewind back to the begining and watch.

It is the default action with my Harmony Remote to turn it off, which is aborted if something is currently recording. I never have any issue with things to watch, since during the school year I record all my shows and when I have time to sit down, there is 3 or 4 shows to catch up on fir the current season.

[sclitheroe]

At $0.20 per kW/h, that's like 25 cents a day, per the numbers they have in that article.

If you're really concerned about it, I would suggest that not drying a load of laundry once per year is probably completely sufficient to offset your PVR.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I think the point of the article is that turning it off doesn't even do anything.

Most boxes are on even when they're "off".

The problem is that the electronics run 24x7, even when not being used by the customer. Some of this is related to the fact that providers push softwareupdates in the middle of the night, while another issue is that customers expect their television to be “instant-on.” One of the biggest complaints about HD DVD and Blu-Ray way the fact that it took minutes for the machines to boot up, so having to wait for your set-top box to boot up each time would not be acceptable to most people.

By boot up I think they mean from a complete off state not just a standby state like we're used to.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I think the point of the article is that turning it off doesn't even do anything.

Most boxes are on even when they're "off".

By boot up I think they mean from a complete off state not just a standby state like we're used to.

The 'standby state' allows for program guide or system updates and allows your PVR to turn itself back on to record. It doesn't deal with receiving and decoding a video stream, writing it to a hard drive and then pushing them to the TV that is happening when Ken leaves his PVR on so he always has a show buffered to watch.

It is laughable to think that that power consumption is anywhere even close to what an 'on' PVR uses.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Rathji

The 'standby state' allows for program guide or system updates and allows your PVR to turn itself back on to record. It doesn't deal with receiving and decoding a video stream, writing it to a hard drive and then pushing them to the TV that is happening when Ken leaves his PVR on so he always has a show buffered to watch.

It is laughable to think that that power consumption is anywhere even close to what an 'on' PVR uses.

The article seems to disagree with you.

The problem is that the electronics run 24x7, even when not being used by the customer.

Obivously a PVR in use, uses more power but the article is suggesting that it doesn't matter if it is off or not, it is still using more than a fridge because it uses a lot of power in a standby state.

[You Need a Thneed]

IIRC, my old PVR used about 15 watts of power when it was powered off, when I checked it with my Kill a Watt.

At current power prices of 7 cent per KW, that's about $9 per year, to leave it plugged in 24/7/365. Of course, some of that time you will actually be watching TV.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

The article seems to disagree with you.

How so?

Initially you might assume that the main culprit is the hard drive spinning in the device, but according to the article, it only accounts for an additional 104 kilowatt-hours a year; a normal HD set-top box generates 171 kilowatt-hours a year compared to 275 kilowatt-hours a year for an HD DVR. The problem is that the electronics run 24x7, even when not being used by the customer.

104kwh or 38% of the power is consumed by the hard drive alone. Hard drive consumption when in standby is almost nothing. That's not even touching any power consumed by decoding and transmitting signals. An extremely conservative guess is probably a 50% reduction at minimum, which given what Scott pointed out is 12 cents a day.

edit: According to YNATs numbers, that's actually a reduction from 275 to 15, which actually just over 5% of what they are claiming it uses when 'on'. Which puts it, at my rough guess, at 1.5 cents a day to power it.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Rathji

How so?

The article claims that:

The problem is that the electronics run 24x7, even when not being used by the customer.

Isn't your point that this isn't true? That statement from the article would seem to be different that your opinion. It appears to me that the article is claiming that a large portion of the extra use is from standby mode.

Whether or not the PVR uses more power when in use isn't up for debate, is it?

[Hack&Lube]

You are right, while the consumption isn't costly per se, I still don't like the fact that it's such an energy inefficient machine in my house.

I cannot turn off the PVR. If I turn it off, I lose all my channels as it has to typically wait 30 min - 1 hour to connect to Shaw and redownload everything.

And I dry my clothes on a line

[jammies]

So the problem is that these devices go into a low-power mode, as they were designed to do, and drain 5% of the power they do when actually "on"? Am I getting this right?

Modern refrigerators are extremely efficient. While it's a worthwhile goal to have devices use less and less power, the comparison to a refrigerator is misleading in that they aren't really a high-draw device anymore. Your average clothes dryer uses 7-8 times as much energy as your fridge over a year; why not compare a DVR to that?

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by jammies

So the problem is that these devices go into a low-power mode, as they were designed to do, and drain 5% of the power they do when actually "on"? Am I getting this right?

Modern refrigerators are extremely efficient. While it's a worthwhile goal to have devices use less and less power, the comparison to a refrigerator is misleading in that they aren't really a high-draw device anymore. Your average clothes dryer uses 7-8 times as much energy as your fridge over a year; why not compare a DVR to that?

They could, but it wouldn't sound sensational enough. "PVR uses 1/8 the power of one drying cyle on your dryer" just wouldn't get people into enough of a tizzy to care.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

You can borrow my meter if you want, I think we were supposed to trade ROMs as well.

I may have lost my huge MAME romset when one of my Seagates decided to commit suicide. I'll try to see if I still have it.

[LockedOut]

I remember reading on AVSforum that turning your PVR off (ie. by remote and not unplugging it) only saved you a few watts. Someone had actually measured it.

[ken0042]

Well, just tested my Bell 9242 receiver. It uses 34 watts with both tuners on; and with both turned "off" it uses the same 34 watts.

Which at my current 8¢ per KW/h- that is just under $2 per month. So even if it used 1/2 the power when off; I'd still only be saving 50¢-$1 per month per receiver. Not worth my hassle.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Well, just tested my Bell 9242 receiver. It uses 34 watts with both tuners on; and with both turned "off" it uses the same 34 watts.

Which at my current 8¢ per KW/h- that is just under $2 per month. So even if it used 1/2 the power when off; I'd still only be saving 50¢-$1 per month per receiver. Not worth my hassle.

Yeah, I can believe that the 9242 uses the same wattage either on or off. I can turn it off while it's recording and it looks as if it's off, but it's still recording. I think the off setting is more like sleep mode, with a screensaver. The older non PVR receivers seem to actually turn off

I like to turn mine off as when I turn my TV on, the TV takes a moment to register with the audio receiver, transfer the audio over, turn on the receiver and than control the receiver. If the 9242 is already broadcasting, sometimes it will cause an HDMI handshake problem.