# Are you worried about energy consumption?



## Hunter844 (Apr 26, 2007)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html?_r=2&hp

I ran across this article this morning. I thought it was interesting so I wanted to share it here.

I know my 211k goes into some kind of sleep mode...how "sleepy" does it actually get? I have a EHD hooked as well mind you.

I also have an old DVR that only gets standard def that I'm real sure probably runs 24/7.


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## AZ. (Mar 27, 2011)

Hunter844 said:


> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html?_r=2&hp
> 
> I ran across this article this morning. I thought it was interesting so I wanted to share it here.
> 
> ...


Im not sure of your point? Yes I would hope many understand somthing as simple as a cell phone charger is using power even when not pluged in(to your phone but in wall)! not tons, but all those little xformers do add up!

Its been talked about how wastfull our Dish stb's are,.....but there is nothing you can do about that!

Yes people should concerve, in this day and age I dont see many doing it.

Thats why I would love to see a good tax on evergy to wake up all the drones in the USA.....Atleast that money could go to a new "green" solution..


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Yep. Consider the power used by home entertainment. While most of my stuff goes into stand-by, I have a 24/7 network server, three 24/7 DVR's one with a 24/7 external drive, 24/7 modem, 24/7 router, 24/7 network switch. The usage is a constant 232 watts (NOT counting the network computer server). In North Little Rock, at 12 cents per KWH, thats a KWH every 5 hours or so, or about $20 a month of my electric bill. I personally, am scaling back to using a single DVR, with whole home networking, using CFLs, installed a more energy efficient central A/C condensing unit... but at the rate we are going, electric is going to be a major budget drain in this high tech society sooner than later.

Interesting article BTW. Got me to thinking.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

If you want to REALLY get serious about power consumption -

Start with a Killawatt (about $25-$40) . TO get a handle on your whole house - get a TED5000 ( www.theenergydetective.com ).

Yes - I have both, and I'm on an electric rate that has on peak and of peak rates, as well as a demand charge for on-peak use. I've saved over $900 on my electric in the last 20 months with that rate plan. I also have a programmable thermostat on the heat pump, and a timer on the electric water heater to keep it on off peak rates.


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## bmaigatter (Oct 1, 2008)

My Kill-a-Watt said our Vip622 DVR used 57 watts (55 watts in standby mode). So two years ago, we put our DVR on an Intermatic Heavy Duty timer (with an easy on/off override). Our DVR is typically only on between 7pm and midnight when we are home and when we tape almost all of our programs. The downside is that the DVR takes about 5 minutes to boot up and acquire signals. And I sometimes have to manually get the Guide information (which I download on TV 2 when not taping there...by going to Guide and Skip Fwd until it asks if I want to get the Guide info).


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I think I would look elsewhere to save than the DVR. It takes my Tivo's at LEAST 15 minutes to boot up, DirecTv is less time, but still annoyingly long. I am looking into ways I can shut down my server when I am not using it, but it is also an HTPC, so records shows using a receiver and several built in tuners. Fortunantly, most are when I am awake.


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## gpollock87 (Apr 13, 2011)

i have 2 722s and at about 9 cents per kwh my electric bill is always around $170 per month


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

gpollock87 said:


> i have 2 722s and at about 9 cents per kwh my electric bill is always around $170 per month


22 cents per Kwh here in the NYC suburbs.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

We debates many times about HDD spin down ...



> Mr. Wilson recalled that when he was on the California Energy Commission, he asked box makers why the hard drives were on all the time, using so much power. The answer: "Nobody asked us to use less."


And still debating ...


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## gpollock87 (Apr 13, 2011)

Steve said:


> 22 cents per Kwh here in the NYC suburbs.


dang! :eek2:


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

gpollock87 said:


> dang! :eek2:


That's all-in, including taxes.


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## gpollock87 (Apr 13, 2011)

Steve said:


> 22 cents per Kwh here in the NYC suburbs.





Steve said:


> That's all-in, including taxes.


i used 1465 kwh this past month and my bill was $159


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## coldsteel (Mar 29, 2007)

2100+ KwH in OK and $130 bill last month..


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

gpollock87 said:


> i used 1465 kwh this past month and my bill was $159





coldsteel said:


> 2100+ KwH in OK and $130 bill last month..


That's pretty sweet, considering taxes are included. As of Feb, the national average was 9.7 cents, without taxes. This report shows NY at 15.48 cents, so you can see how much I'm paying in taxes at 22 cents!


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## gpollock87 (Apr 13, 2011)

coldsteel said:


> 2100+ KwH in OK and $130 bill last month..


nice!


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## bmaigatter (Oct 1, 2008)

Davenlr said:


> I think I would look elsewhere to save than the DVR.


Well, everything adds up. And as the article says, a DVR uses more than our energy efficient 21 cf fridge, which is pretty substantial.

A helpful suggestion: turning down the backlight on an LCD TV will save you quite a bit of energy. Our 46" Sony LCD non-LED TV uses 10 watts more for each and every notch we raise our backlight. The "best picture" setting for the backlight is 2, and we run the backlight at 0. I raised the brightness to compensate. The TV uses just 87 watts with the backlight at 0. My wife says she doesn't notice that it is dimmer.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

709KwH, $56.30 (net of about .08/KwH including fees and taxes)

$9 Monthly charge plus $0.06/KwH


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Are you worried about energy consumption? No, though I do monitor it.

Come to my part of California where you can enjoy the redwoods and bankruptcy from utility bills. Here's my version of an electric life:








Sure its 1,352 Kwh at "only" $0.289 average, but that $390.84-before-taxes bill would have been $130.82 in 2001 when I decided my financial resources were adequate to retire.:eek2:

Yeah, I've tried a timer on our electric hot water heater and refrigerators. Saved about $50 a month. But when my wife wanted hot water to wash clothes and it wasn't the right time on the timer plus the frozen shrimp had obviously partially defrosted...well, let's just say it wasn't worth $50. After all, we have a spa (hot tub) that costs that much to keep running.

Sorry, grandkids, about the paltry inheritance and crappy environment.:shrug:

OH, and to be relevant to the forum, no I'm not worried about my 722 and 612 and all that other home theater stuff that consumes power all the time. Aware, yes, worried no.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

This comes up every now and then...

ALL devices should be designed with power consumption in mind... but there does come a point when people don't want to sacrifice performance for power consumption.

Also... my Dish receivers are low on the scale of what drives up my power bill.

My central air (summer or winter, for cool or heat) is typically singularly responsible for $100-$200 of the bill depending on how deep we are into the extreme temperatures and how much it needs to run.

My last bill was about $200... at least half of that was my central air now that we are into good summer heat. 

The next big consumers are the large appliances like your refrigerator that runs all the time... and your washer/dryer/stove which you may run a lot. You might do laundry once or twice a week depending on the size of your family... and you might use your stove 1-2 times a day.

Once you factor in all of those... what's left is everything else in your house... and most people honestly will not shave much off their bills by cutting those small corners.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Stewart Vernon said:


> This comes up every now and then...
> 
> ALL devices should be designed with power consumption in mind... but there does come a point when people don't want to sacrifice performance for power consumption...


Unfortunately true. It's a shame, tho, because as that NYTimes.com article points out:

_These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day, even when not in active use. The recent study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that *the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States - and that 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded.* That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months._


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Yep, if someone could design an efficient compressor design, the US electric consumption would plummet.
I looked into using solar panels to do nothing but run the compressor on the A/C during the hot part of the day, and the cost was just way to high. None of the alternative green options are affordable for anyone with an average income.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

Davenlr said:


> Yep, if someone could design an efficient compressor design, the US electric consumption would plummet.
> I looked into using solar panels to do nothing but run the compressor on the A/C during the hot part of the day, and the cost was just way to high. None of the alternative green options are affordable for anyone with an average income.


They already have it it's called the scroll compressor.

I had my brother-in-law who has his own AC business decide what to put in our home in 1990.His answer was a split system which uses 40% less electricity,my SEER rating in my unit is 12.0 which in 1990 was a decent rating,because you have to figure in the payback figure(how many years to makeup the savings versus cost?).Now you can get 12.0 SEER and higher in a all outdoor system,of course the split systems are even higher rated now.


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## jsk (Dec 27, 2006)

I'm looking into Solar City that Google just dumped a boatload of money into. If this pans out, it should save some money, but I'm still skeptical at this point. I also just bought new appliances too that are energy efficient. That should more than offset the energy usage from the DVR


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Besides the cost... you have a lot of HOAs against solar panels. Even if I got rich tomorrow, my HOA forbids solar panels... so I would have to move before I could put them in...


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

I still love (OK, hate) the story out of California where the guy installed solar panels, but made his neighbor cut down the trees that were blocking sun from the panels.

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Home/2008/0318/p20s01-lihc.html


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

No not concerned about energy consumption.

To add I do use the new bulbs because they last longer.


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## BillJ (May 5, 2005)

I use CFL bulbs and will switch to LED bulbs eventually but I'm not going to start unplugging everything and rebooting when I want to use the computer or watch TV. Manufacturers are working to reduce standby draw where possible but if you have hard drives spinning and cooling required there's only so much you can do.

Sometimes I think this conservation discussion is a bit like the advice I constantly see to never cut more than 1" off the top of my lawn. Great in theory but who has time to mow every other day? And if you did imagaine the pollution and energy consumption from that.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

gpollock87 said:


> i have 2 722s and at about 9 cents per kwh my electric bill is always around $170 per month


Hmmm. 9 cents! TVA effect?


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## gpollock87 (Apr 13, 2011)

Laxguy said:


> Hmmm. 9 cents! TVA effect?


yep


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Of course I am worried about energy consumption. I'm more worried about energy production. Using less, or using it smartly, is important, but I think the ideal future is one where electricity is generated so easily and cheaply that you don't have to worry about it.


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## yogi (Feb 8, 2006)

The study says

_The views and findings expressed herein are solely those
of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the
EPA_.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

SayWhat? said:


> I still love (OK, hate) the story out of California where the guy installed solar panels, but made his neighbor cut down the trees that were blocking sun from the panels.


Sounds like simply a pissing contest, with ecological trappings a sidelight (pun intended) that made it "news". Both guys sound like db's.


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## Hunter844 (Apr 26, 2007)

Davenlr said:


> Yep, if someone could design an efficient compressor design, the US electric consumption would plummet.
> I looked into using solar panels to do nothing but run the compressor on the A/C during the hot part of the day, and the cost was just way to high. None of the alternative green options are affordable for anyone with an average income.


Dave,

Lennox has a system that features a solar panel as an option, but I don't know who much energy savings you can expect. The downfall is I imagine the install cost vs. actual ROI don't add up. Think north of $13 grand, but I'm just guessing.

I do highly recommend making sure whoever quotes the work does their homework. A lot of times contractors will simply quote the capacity that already exists in the home instead of doing a proper load calculation. This is important because of lot of times home owners do improvements over the years to their home that changes these load factors so the reality is you may not need a 3 ton as example...might be more like a 2.5 ton.

And for the record the next generation of compressor technology is already in practice in what are called "ductless mini-splits". They are known as Inverter compressors. Ducted Air to Air systems are now starting to toy with implementing the technology but we're probably another 5 years away from seeing it become mainstream...Copeland Scroll is just too good a design drop in favor of R&D Inverter tech which also require a lot of power filters, control boards, power inverters and the like.


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## samhevener (Feb 23, 2006)

It would be nice to see a chart on the monthly power usage of each of it's receivers using the average on/off times.


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## pfred (Feb 8, 2009)

Steve said:


> That's pretty sweet, considering taxes are included. As of Feb, the national average was 9.7 cents, without taxes. This report shows NY at 15.48 cents, so you can see how much I'm paying in taxes at 22 cents!


Wow! Some of those midwest states are getting off cheap! I wonder why. Is it taxes, or is cow manure a good, cheap source of electricity?

(Sorry, couldn't post the link. It says I need 5 posts to post a link)


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## davejacobson (Mar 14, 2005)

Most of us care about energy consumption.If you want to enjoy modern equipment you end up using alot of energy. Low cost production is the key. Here is coal country our rates are .07 cents off peak can be down to .03. Coal is not as dirty as its made out to be and is cheap and plentiful. A new clean coal plant would be nice but the regulators would rather see high prices not cheap energy.Looking at the US energy policy I think that is true for all energy across the board.


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## jsk (Dec 27, 2006)

SayWhat? said:


> I still love (OK, hate) the story out of California where the guy installed solar panels, but made his neighbor cut down the trees that were blocking sun from the panels.
> 
> http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Home/2008/0318/p20s01-lihc.html


So if you are in California and want to ensure you will continue to have a view of the Southern sky for satellite, then install a solar panel.


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## olds403 (Nov 20, 2007)

davejacobson said:


> Most of us care about energy consumption.If you want to enjoy modern equipment you end up using alot of energy. Low cost production is the key. Here is coal country our rates are .07 cents off peak can be down to .03. Coal is not as dirty as its made out to be and is cheap and plentiful. A new clean coal plant would be nice but the regulators would rather see high prices not cheap energy.Looking at the US energy policy I think that is true for all energy across the board.


I agree completely. They were planning to build a new coal plant locally but caved to environmental pressure and decided to build a natural gas plant instead which will cost more to build and result in higher electric rates.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

"decided to build a natural gas plant instead"
Your kids and grand-kids will say thank for it - clean air is priceless.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

olds403 said:


> I agree completely. They were planning to build a new coal plant locally but caved to environmental pressure and decided to build a natural gas plant instead which will cost more to build and result in higher electric rates.


That's not likely- the part about the plant being more expensive. Higher rates, yeah, prolly, but halfway clean burning coal plants have a lot more "plant" to them than gas fired ones. Some one on the PUC or at the company is lying.


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## archer75 (Oct 13, 2006)

Energy is cheap here. I have about 7 computers in this house. 2 are always on 24/7. I have both the Dish 722 and a Tivo Premiere that are always on. 

When the home theater is on there is also a receiver and projector on too. Kitchen lights are 5 flood lights that are on for many hours a day. 

And two kids always leaving lights on.

Our electric bill is about $80/month. We are on equal pay so that amount is a monthly average of our usage for one year.

I did swap out most lights in the house with CFL. The entire upstairs and the downstairs except for the 5 flood lights in the kitchen and dining/entry chandeliers(hardly ever on). It didn't do squat for our electric bill.

Edit - Also forgot the Central air in the summer and a house plastered with Christmas lights in the winter.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

archer75 said:


> Energy is cheap here. I have about 7 computers in this house. 2 are always on 24/7. I have both the Dish 722 and a Tivo Premiere that are always on.
> 
> When the home theater is on there is also a receiver and projector on too. Kitchen lights are 5 flood lights that are on for many hours a day.
> 
> ...


Who is your electric company????


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## archer75 (Oct 13, 2006)

phrelin said:


> Who is your electric company????


Portland General Electric.


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

I don't generally pay that much attention, being in eastern Texas in the summer is expensive for the AC no matter what. We are paying $0.118 a kWh which looks to be not too bad from what I'm reading in this thread. I just paid the June bill a few minutes ago for 3590 kWh. Average daily high temperature for the period was 95. A bit hotter than normal.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Is it true there are no EnergyStar compliant receivers from Dish/Echostar? 

By the way, the new round of stringent EnergyStar ratings hit in September for set top boxes.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Tom Robertson said:


> Is it true there are no EnergyStar compliant receivers from Dish/Echostar?


I think it would be difficult for Dish to make EnergyStar compliant DVRs, and provide the level of service (timers from standby and fast startup from standby) that most demand.

I would think that they could make their non-DVRs compliant, though.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Version 3 of the EnergyStar ratings, which go into effect Sept. 1, look very hard to meet.

Given that DIRECTV has some receivers and DVRs that meet the Version 2 reqs, and Dish uses some very similar components, I was surprised by Dish's absence on the list. (Hence my asking if I missed something.) 

Cheers,
Tom


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I haven't looked at the exact specs... I was just basing on what we know about the Dish receivers not really using less power in standby than when fully engaged for their DVRs.

The only way for them to go to lower power would be to spin down the hard drive and perhaps there is a "standby" mode then for the CPU... but if Dish does that, then it would take longer to power up in the morning when you want to watch something... and when it needs to kick-in for an update or fire a timer, then it would have to do that well in advance too...

At the moment, I'm not thinking of an easy way to have everything powered down AND provide the instant access that most of us have become accustomed to when we are ready to watch TV.


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## Hunter844 (Apr 26, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I think it would be difficult for Dish to make EnergyStar compliant DVRs, and provide the level of service (timers from standby and fast startup from standby) that most demand.
> 
> I would think that they could make their non-DVRs compliant, though.


What about going with a solid state drive vs. disc? Would that make much of a difference? I realize that would be expensive but just a thought.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Hunter844 said:


> What about going with a solid state drive vs. disc? Would that make much of a difference? I realize that would be expensive but just a thought.


That's one option... but the expense probably wouldn't make it an attractive one, since rates would have to go up to account for it... and customers will balk about that.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

With SSDs running $1/GB and hard drives running $50/TB SSDs won't be in $200-400 DVRs anytime soon.

Cheers,
Tom


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## upsss (Apr 1, 2011)

Stewart Vernon said:


> The only way for them to go to lower power would be to spin down the hard drive and perhaps there is a "standby" mode then for the CPU... but if Dish does that, then it would take longer to power up in the morning when you want to watch something... and when it needs to kick-in for an update or fire a timer, then it would have to do that well in advance too...


Not accurate, a typical 3.5" HD draws ONLY about 20% of the total power consumption of a Dish DVR. You need to conserve power everywhere else, LNB, CPU, Video drivers, etc.

If they switch to 2.5" HD drives (laptop type, although a little more expensive) they would consume only about 5% of the total power. To save even more power, you can completely turn them off in standby and practically turn them on instantaneously. Laptops can do it, why not Dish? Unfortunately, until now Dish and everyone else didn't care about power consumption and consumers were kept in the dark!


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## olds403 (Nov 20, 2007)

Would you really want your DVR to have to acquire a signal every time it had to record something or everytime you turned it on?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

olds403 said:


> Would you really want your DVR to have to acquire a signal every time it had to record something or everytime you turned it on?


The acquiring process itself require 10-30 seconds, FYI.


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## upsss (Apr 1, 2011)

olds403 said:


> Would you really want your DVR to have to acquire a signal every time it had to record something or everytime you turned it on?


The DVR doesn't *have* to acquire a signal every time it needs to record something!


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

upsss said:


> The DVR doesn't *have* to acquire a signal every time it needs to record something!


Seems like it would need to acquire the signal it is going to record whether it be OTA or satellite. (Or even internet for VOD.) 

Cheers,
Tom


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## olds403 (Nov 20, 2007)

upsss said:


> The DVR doesn't *have* to acquire a signal every time it needs to record something!


How is it going to record a program if the LNB's are powered down and it is not receiving a signal of the show you want to record? I think a signal is necessary, can you record a show during a really bad thunderstorm and the signal is blocked?


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## koralis (Aug 10, 2005)

I'm annoyed by the dish recievers... when "off" they should be idling the decoiding hardware and spinning down the hard drive. Keep enough juice to let you keep track of time to come back online when it needs to record, etc.


It's a major hog for no good reason other than lazyness.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

koralis said:


> I'm annoyed by the dish recievers... when "off" they should be idling the decoiding hardware and spinning down the hard drive. Keep enough juice to let you keep track of time to come back online when it needs to record, etc.
> 
> It's a major hog for no good reason other than lazyness.


Depending on how the company does things, there are a couple of reasons to keep the system operating at a higher level than, say, a PC.

The satellite receiver needs to continuously listen to the satellite data streams for updates and authorizations. DIRECTV, the company I know the best, sends guide data constantly so the receivers and DVRs can have the most up-to-date information--which becomes important when a change in a schedule occurs that the user would want to record.

Also the authorizations to access the video streams are sent via satellite. If a receiver misses too many of those the box has to stop decoding the signals which is very inconvenient for everyone around.

Also there are other features that some require listening to the satellites.

Now, having said that, there might be some opportunities to power down some components and subsystems. Those opportunities might take quite a bit of research and development to implement. It is not laziness, just a lot of work that won't be paid for by anyone. Few people are willing to pay more for TV service because the company designed more efficient system.

Sure some people would, but not enough to pay for the costs. Right now "We save you the most energy" is not a viable marketing strategy. People would rather hear "we cost you the least" and/or "we have the most channels for the least cost."

So it will take time. Some companies will do this slowly because it is a good thing to do. But no one will do it as a major emphasis project. Ain't good business.

Cheers,
Tom


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

As noted... many of the possible ways to save power by shutting down the hard drive, CPU, power to LNBs, etc. will result in loss of some features while in standby and longer startup times to record something or to watch Live TV.

Also, some improvements would require costs that most customers wouldn't be willing to pay.

Meanwhile, all the talk about the power consumption of the Dish DVR really is given the wrong priority, in my opinion. Yes, all devices should be developed for the most efficiency that they can... I agree there...

But, there are many other devices in your home that you can save far more power without waiting.

Set your thermostat a degree or two warmer/cooler (depending on the season) and you will save way more than your DVR is costing you. The same can be done with your refrigerator or freezer as well.

Run only large loads of laundry so you are getting the most from a dryer cycle... OR even better, hang your clothes to dry naturally instead of using the dryer at all!

You can set your hot water heater down a notch (if it is an electric one) and save a little there... and only run your stove when necessary in the summer. Your stove not only uses energy to work but heats up the house in the summer that forces your central air to work harder to cool.

There are a lot worse offenders of power waste in your home than the Dish DVR.


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## upsss (Apr 1, 2011)

With all due respect, all you guy talking about "Acquiring Signals" have no clue what you are talking about. None of you have ever designed any Radio/Satellite communication equipment.

All this talk about "Acquiring Signal" is a nonsense phrase peddled by the satellite companies. To receive any Radio signal there is no need to "Acquire" it; if it is being transited, it will be received any time you tune a receiver to the transmitted frequency. The *ONLY* time you would need to perform this process what Dish calls "Acquiring Signal" is when you plug in the power cord of the receiver.


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## olds403 (Nov 20, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> There are a lot worse offenders of power waste in your home than the Dish DVR.


Hallelujah!


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Running the receiver in the winter costs you nothing (and may actually save you some money). The electric used by the receiver is turned into heat at 100% efficiency. This heat warms your home which means your furnace that runs at less then 100% efficiency is used less.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

upsss said:


> With all due respect, all you guy talking about "Acquiring Signals" have no clue what you are talking about. None of you have ever designed any Radio/Satellite communication equipment.
> 
> All this talk about "Acquiring Signal" is a nonsense phrase peddled by the satellite companies. To receive any Radio signal there is no need to "Acquire" it; if it is being transited, it will be received any time you tune a receiver to the transmitted frequency. The *ONLY* time you would need to perform this process what Dish calls "Acquiring Signal" is when you plug in the power cord to the receiver.


While that is generally true for omni-directional antennae, it is _not_ the case with directional antennae, particularly a highly-directional parabolic dish antenna.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

HobbyTalk said:


> Running the receiver in the winter costs you nothing (and may actually save you some money). The electric used by the receiver is turned into heat at 100% efficiency. This heat warms your home which means your furnace that runs at less then 100% efficiency is used less.


But it's summer in the N. hemisphere...... and some people zone their houses, so what you say is true only for those rooms which are used/heated.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

HobbyTalk said:


> Running the receiver in the winter costs you nothing (and may actually save you some money). The electric used by the receiver is turned into heat at 100% efficiency. This heat warms your home which means your furnace that runs at less then 100% efficiency is used less.


That's another way of looking at it too... The money you may save in the winter will at least partially offset the extra expense in the summer... so all other things being equal, the heating effect beneficial in the winter might be offset by the detrimental effect in the summer.

That said... it still should be a small part of people's electric bills compared to all their other devices.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Stewart Vernon said:


> That's another way of looking at it too... The money you may save in the winter will at least partially offset the extra expense in the summer... so all other things being equal, the heating effect beneficial in the winter might be offset by the detrimental effect in the summer.
> 
> That said... it still should be a small part of people's electric bills compared to all their other devices.


But that may not be the point for some of us! If we each had truly energy efficient devices, and powered down those which could be safely, we'd save tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, several Megawatts hourly nationwide, etc. It's not about the $ savings or energy savings per individual for some, at any rate.


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## olds403 (Nov 20, 2007)

Don't get me started on the CO2 propaganda.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Laxguy said:


> But that may not be the point for some of us! If we each had truly energy efficient devices, and powered down those which could be safely, we'd save tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, several Megawatts hourly nationwide, etc. It's not about the $ savings or energy savings per individual for some, at any rate.


I still wager there would be other more egregious offenders than the Dish DVRs.

I grant you that this is a Dish forum, so we discuss Dish things... but I would be looking into my other larger, energy-consuming, waste-producing appliances long before I got to my Dish DVR.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Yes, there are devices that cost more to run. And as you point out, the expense can be adjusted. But when they run 24/7, they produce some benefit to the user. The same can not be said for satellite receivers. They should not cost as much to keep idle as they do when running full blast.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

How 'bout if we toss in the Plasma/LED debate? Say for a 42", which is better on power when in use? Standby?


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

klang said:


> I don't generally pay that much attention, being in eastern Texas in the summer is expensive for the AC no matter what. We are paying $0.118 a kWh which looks to be not too bad from what I'm reading in this thread. I just paid the June bill a few minutes ago for 3590 kWh. Average daily high temperature for the period was 95. A bit hotter than normal.


Who's your provider? Just curious. I'm in Kingwood and use Mega Energy. On the bill I just opened they tell me I averaged $0.0945 this last month.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

BobaBird said:


> Yes, there are devices that cost more to run. And as you point out, the expense can be adjusted. But when they run 24/7, they produce some benefit to the user. The same can not be said for satellite receivers. They should not cost as much to keep idle as they do when running full blast.


Should not? Completely agree. Satellite receivers should back off their power usage.

But who is to pay Dish/DIRECTV/Motorola, etc. for the development costs to change how things work.

With satellite, there is a lot of work involved to change the how things work so they work in an environment where things are not powered up all the time.

Cheers,
Tom


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I still wager there would be other more egregious offenders than the Dish DVRs.
> 
> I grant you that this is a Dish forum, so we discuss Dish things... but I would be looking into my other larger, energy-consuming, waste-producing appliances long before I got to my Dish DVR.


Like - my heat pump, electric water heaters (main tank and kitchen tankless), pool pump, washer / electric dryer, Refrigerator, freezer...

I AM watching my use...


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

"olguy" said:


> Who's your provider? Just curious. I'm in Kingwood and use Mega Energy. On the bill I just opened they tell me I averaged $0.0945 this last month.


Reliant. Last year I signed up for a two year plan that is supposed to include 20% wind power. It was a small reduction from what I was paying.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Another side to this debate is...

Until there is a DVR that draws less power in standby from Dish... choose not to have one if you think it is costing you too much electricity.

I wouldn't buy a Porsche or a large SUV and then gripe about the poor gas mileage all the time... and say "why don't they make a better one"... Of course, why don't they... but until they do, choose to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Stuart et al-

I was making a general comment re electricity usage, not aiming at any sat. company. I am a mild offender myself.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Laxguy said:


> I was making a general comment re electricity usage, not aiming at any sat. company. I am a mild offender myself.


I'm sure there are times I miss turning off a light when I should... and I definitely am having air conditioner issues that IF I could afford to fix would be better... and sometimes I leave my computer on longer than I need to.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Other than lights, most of my stuff stays on all the time. I'm too forgetful to turn it off and lazy to turn it on. I even leave a lot of low wattage lights on, usually one in each room I use often. I hate walking in to a dark room.

I know they say electronics should be turned off to minimize the risk of surges and power glitches, but as long as they're plugged in they're vulnerable no matter if they're on or off. So unless you want to turn them all off and unplug them (or turn off a power strip), they could still get popped.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

No, I'm not worried about electrical usage, there are enough environmentalist wackoos out there who save enough so I can use as much as I want!


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## koralis (Aug 10, 2005)

Stewart Vernon said:


> At the moment, I'm not thinking of an easy way to have everything powered down AND provide the instant access that most of us have become accustomed to when we are ready to watch TV.


The "in between" way is to spin down the drive, and put the CPU in a low-frequency/power state. Disable picture decoding circuits, etc.

Drives spin up in a few seconds and CPUs can go from low-power to full basically instantly. If there are no timers that need to run, and the reciever isn't "ON" then it's pointless for the circuitry to be running full blast.

Drive and CPU may be doable with a firmware update (depending on whether the CPU they use supports it.) signal processing/recording probably not. It would require some relays to cut power, and maybe some extra initialization on restart.

Of course, Dish doesn't want to do that... they are CONSTANTLY downloading "On Demand" movies to you so that it's available if you want to give them the cash. Maybe once Dish has their networking stuff worked out better they'll be willing to cut their customers a break on their power bill. (It'd be nice if dish would let us turn off these things in the preferences for customers that truely don't want it, but that's as likely as Dish allowing us to use all of our hard drive space for our own recordings.)


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

If you remember, a PVR501 does spin-down - geez, no problems relates to that !

BTW, that FVOD [push type] taking night time, between 11pm and 8am.

[You had the knowledge, I see; adding to that: let ask how A Kindle's battery run that long ? No one other ebook can race like it. ]


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

koralis said:


> The "in between" way is to spin down the drive, and put the CPU in a low-frequency/power state. Disable picture decoding circuits, etc.


What about people who want to Sling remotely? That's another consideration.



koralis said:


> Drives spin up in a few seconds and CPUs can go from low-power to full basically instantly. If there are no timers that need to run, and the reciever isn't "ON" then it's pointless for the circuitry to be running full blast.


Maybe... but it is more than a "few seconds" to fully boot the receiver from a cold start. If you want to test that out, hit the reset button on your receiver... that's quite a bit of a wait for a reset, which is essentially what you would be talking about doing if you shut everything into a true low-power cycle.

Could it be done? Yes.

Would it impact usability? Yes.

I see lots of complaints about how long it takes to turn on various things... Blu-ray players, for example, take a lot of heat for taking so long to come on as compared to DVD players. IF Dish did anything that impacted the immediate usability, you can bet people would complain.



koralis said:


> Of course, Dish doesn't want to do that... they are CONSTANTLY downloading "On Demand" movies to you so that it's available if you want to give them the cash.


The VOD plus the nightly EPG updates and periodic firmware updates necessitate a couple of things... the receiver being in a ready-state... and power being provided to the LNBs and switches.

As others have noted... even if you shut the receiver down, you don't want the LNBs and switches powered down because that would prevent all communication from Dish to the receiver and would make timers almost impossible to fire on time unless you turn everything on an hour in advance... which defeats some of the purpose of cycling down.



koralis said:


> Maybe once Dish has their networking stuff worked out better they'll be willing to cut their customers a break on their power bill. (It'd be nice if dish would let us turn off these things in the preferences for customers that truely don't want it, but that's as likely as Dish allowing us to use all of our hard drive space for our own recordings.)


I still say this is really not a big deal. Power consumption could be better, but my Dish receivers are very much the minority of my power bill. You can do far more meaningful things elsewhere in your home that will more dramatically reduce the cost of your bill than anything Dish can do for their receivers.

If that small amount of power compared to other devices is breaking the bank OR ruining the environment... then EVERYTHING else really needs to go.

I don't see people petitioning for low-power refrigerators, dryers, water heaters, central air, etc. etc... so picking on the lower end of your power consumption won't do much at the end of the day.

People here are usually talking about $10 or less of a $150 or more power bill because of their Dish receiver.

I've posted before... my lowest months are the couple of months each year where I don't have to run heat or cooling... and those are by far the cheapest months... the rest of the year I more than double my power consumption of everything else just with the central air running.

Worrying about my Dish receiver is way down on the list.

And of course... the big problem is with the Dish DVRs... since they never really go into an "off" mode... the solution is truly simple... don't have a DVR. I wouldn't by an SUV and then complain about the gas mileage all the time... I would buy something that got better mileage and sacrifice the features of the SUV if that was most important to me... otherwise I'd just take it as part of my decision to have something neat and spiffy.


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## russ9 (Jan 28, 2004)

I checked out my 722k, it runs a fairly consistent 45 watts. Not that bad.


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## koralis (Aug 10, 2005)

Stewart Vernon said:


> What about people who want to Sling remotely? That's another consideration.


the remote slingers would "turn on" the unit just like the TV remote does.



> Maybe... but it is more than a "few seconds" to fully boot the receiver from a cold start. If you want to test that out, hit the reset button on your receiver... that's quite a bit of a wait for a reset, which is essentially what you would be talking about doing if you shut everything into a true low-power cycle.


We're not talking about a full reboot. We're talking about low power mode where everything is kept active in ram and maintained for near-instant resumption. It's called Standby mode.



> The VOD plus the nightly EPG updates and periodic firmware updates necessitate a couple of things... the receiver being in a ready-state... and power being provided to the LNBs and switches.


Sure. And all of that is predictable and can be programmed in to power up if need be just like a timer.



> I still say this is really not a big deal. Power consumption could be better, but my Dish receivers are very much the minority of my power bill. You can do far more meaningful things elsewhere in your home that will more dramatically reduce the cost of your bill than anything Dish can do for their receivers.


That dish reciever gets HOT. It's that much more AC, etc, etc, for no real reason.



> I don't see people petitioning for low-power refrigerators, dryers, water heaters, central air, etc. etc... so picking on the lower end of your power consumption won't do much at the end of the day.


These other units exist. Customers can buy them. Dish doesn't provide a low power DVR as an alternative.



> People here are usually talking about $10 or less of a $150 or more power bill because of their Dish receiver.


Totally beside the point, but if you really want to go there... that's an extra $10 a month that's effectively a Dish surcharge? People get ticked off about a $5 reciever fee.



> And of course... the big problem is with the Dish DVRs... since they never really go into an "off" mode... the solution is truly simple... don't have a DVR. I wouldn't by an SUV and then complain about the gas mileage all the time... I would buy something that got better mileage and sacrifice the features of the SUV if that was most important to me... otherwise I'd just take it as part of my decision to have something neat and spiffy.


Cop-out. I'm not threatening to leave dish. I'm not demanding improvements. I am, however, calling Dish either lazy, or having a complete disregard for their customer's money. The latter seems the most likely... they like the side effects of wasting electricity. Hey... it's not their electricity and cooling bills, why should they care?

The Dish DVR is a computer. Computers go into low power mode automatically, and have for years. Dish is actively keeping it from doing so. That really sucks and isn't consumer-friendly. Unless more people raise a stink, it will never change. You don't care. That's fine. Some people also subscribe to the Everything Pack. I don't as I consider it a waste of money... the money is providing a service that I don't value. I feel the same about the always-full-speed DVR, but there isn't an alternative. I'm pushing for an alternative.


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