We have two televisions. We have an old JVC that’s lasted me probably fifteen years now with few problems, although every once in a while the color goes funny on it for no obvious reason. And we have a small Sony HD set, although we don’t pay for HD channels. The only real difference between them, aside from their aspect ratios, is that the Sony takes about twenty seconds to power up. I find this annoying, as I do not expect to have to wait for my television to turn on. I expect that from a computer, but it’s also something I hate about computers, and it’s why I almost never power my computer down. I basically only power down when I’m having some performance issue. What can I say? I’m an impatient person.
Now, the New York Times is reporting that cable set-top boxes use as much energy annually as the state of Maryland. For most models, turning them off does not significantly reduce the amount of power they draw, which can be as much as a refrigerator or air conditioning unit. If you unplug the unit it can take minutes, or reportedly an hour in some cases, for the boxes to reboot completely. The cable companies do not want to make people wait for their teevee, plus they like to have the boxes on so they can upload and download information to/from them.
Some European boxes have standby and deep sleep modes that save energy, but these units are slow to power up.
So, I’m pissed off to learn how much power these boxes use, and there isn’t anything I can do about it right now except to unplug the units when I’m not using the television. And I’m a person who doesn’t want to wait twenty seconds.
I can probably be convinced that the hassle is worth the money saved and conservation achieved, but we definitely need a better system. Politically, no one wants to be responsible for making people wait a minute or more for their television to come on. So, this will be solved through some technological means.
