Going Green with Tivo? Powering down

[cmaasfamily]

Looking around for ways to cut back on the power consumed by all the electronics that are always on, on warm standby, etc. it occured to me that the Tivo is a good candidate.

Setting aside the obvious - learning to live with one or two Tivos instead of three (:rolleyes:) - I noticed that my old Series2 records everything I ever watch within a four hour window, and I only watch it within a 90 minute window.

I could put a timer on the outlet and power down the Tivo (and TV) for 18 hours a day and not miss anything of interest.

My question: would the Tivo be happy enough and have time for connecting, indexing, etc. if it was only on for six hours a day and rebooted twice a day?

I know the savings won't be huge, but its a start. Thoughts?

[jjberger2134]

I applaud you for your green efforts, but a TiVo is not designed to be used like that. Besides missing system updates, programming updates, and shows at off hours (not a priority for you), you risk damage to the hard drive and power supply.

When you need to replace these items, you will most likely use more gas to buy and replace those items than you would have saved in electricity. Not to mention the energy used to manufacture and transport the replacement items to you or your local store.

[Binko]

It's a pretty amazing thought to have TiVO go to sleep. I think you've found a feature TiVO needs to add. There's a lot of tricks and bear traps - television buffering, making sure it gets woken up to record..... But it's probably doable. Think about it, if it could go to sleep, the fan could stop, the hard drive stop spinning..... all wear and tear, all using energy.

No, I'd never turn that thing off or unplug it. You will kill the hard drive if you did that.

[sathead]

It's a pretty amazing thought to have TiVO go to sleep. I think you've found a feature TiVO needs to add. There's a lot of tricks and bear traps - television buffering, making sure it gets woken up to record..... But it's probably doable. Think about it, if it could go to sleep, the fan could stop, the hard drive stop spinning..... all wear and tear, all using energy.

No, I'd never turn that thing off or unplug it. You will kill the hard drive if you did that.
My cable company rental Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR goes into full (S3) hibernation mode when I hit the off button.
Yes, the hard drive spins down too. It's a really nice feature- less energy consumed, less heat dissipated and less noise from a constantly spinning hard drive and fan. It wakes itself about 60 seconds before a scheduled recording is about to commence, when the recording ends... it goes back to full hibernation mode. No live buffering when the unit is in hibernation mode, if you want buffering- just turn it on first... no big deal.
If Scientific Atlanta can do it, the folks at TiVo can do it too (if they care to).

[Adam1115]

I've always wondered, assuming you don't have suggestions enabled, why it can't spin down the hard drive.

I mean, the TO DO list KNOWS if nothing is scheduled to record for say, the next 3 hours, why not spin it down...?

[ZeoTiVo]

I've always wondered, assuming you don't have suggestions enabled, why it can't spin down the hard drive.

I mean, the TO DO list KNOWS if nothing is scheduled to record for say, the next 3 hours, why not spin it down...?

thats the thing - the spinup takes way more energy than constantly spinning - it would need at least a 3 hour window to save some electricty - and spinning the drive up and down will be a lot more wear and tear than just constantly spinning and buffering live TV.

I make enough use of the live buffer as I do not have suggetions on. I do also have my TiVo's recording quite a bot during the day - so maybe there is a 3 hour window at night but I think in the long run it is just not worth it.

Now the OP might have a case with his only 6 hours a day timer. What the OP would need to do if he accepts the risk of powering the unit off and on each day is to manually connect to TiVo during the up time - you can still watch and record shows while that is going on

[BigJimOutlaw]

The "wear and tear" concerns are often overstated. Hard drives aren't quite THAT fragile. Unless they are faulty from the start, they can mange 1x/day bootups fine for years.

For every anecdotal story of premature HDD deaths, there are others of long-lasting ones.

[vman41]

thats the thing - the spinup takes way more energy than constantly spinning - it would need at least a 3 hour window to save some electricty -

The physics don't add up for that statement. A typical drive uses 8 watts or more, so in 3 hours uses at least 86400 watt-seconds of energy. To use the same amount of energy in a 20 second startup time the drive would have to draw 4320 watts. If this were the case, no one's PC could ever boot because the circuit breaker would blow getting the drive up to speed.

[scandia101]

Now the OP might have a case with his only 6 hours a day timer. What the OP would need to do if he accepts the risk of powering the unit off and on each day is to manually connect to TiVo during the up time - you can still watch and record shows while that is going on

No need for that. After a power loss and missed connection, the tivo will try on it's own to connect again about 40 minutes after being powered up.

...if it was only on for six hours a day and rebooted twice a day?
In your plan it would only reboot once a day.

[netsurfer]

The physics don't add up for that statement. A typical drive uses 8 watts or more, so in 3 hours uses at least 86400 watt-seconds of energy. To use the same amount of energy in a 20 second startup time the drive would have to draw 4320 watts. If this were the case, no one's PC could ever boot because the circuit breaker would blow getting the drive up to speed.

I verified your math and you are correct. Since my hard drive spins up in 10 seconds I must be drawing 8640 watts. Lets see, watts divided by voltage = amps. 8640 divided by 115 volts = 75 amps.

I will have to go to home depot to get an 80 amp breaker for my dedicated Tivo circuit. I will also need some seriously big electrical wire. Should I get 4 gauge or 2 gauge? Will running that wire right to the internal Tivo power supply void my warranty? Oh, wait a minute. I just realized I now have to massively beef up the Tivo power supply. Any suggestions? Who makes a power supply that big? Will it fit through my door or do I have to store the power supply in the basement?

[cmaasfamily]

Thanks for all the ideas. I've heard lots of discussion on drive wear and tear with startup. Most more recent info seems to suggest impact is minimal.

I think I'll give it a shot and report back in a couple of weeks. I'll start with a 12 on/ 12 off cycle that covers both by normal recording and normal watching period.

[dwit]

I'd probably be more concerned about the power supply.

To a certain extent, a hard drive is a hard drive and is designed for for daily on/off use.

The Tivo power supply is definitely not designed for such.

[netsurfer]

Thanks for all the ideas. I've heard lots of discussion on drive wear and tear with startup. Most more recent info seems to suggest impact is minimal.

I think I'll give it a shot and report back in a couple of weeks. I'll start with a 12 on/ 12 off cycle that covers both by normal recording and normal watching period.

Ok, you got me curious so I hooked my power consumption meter up to my Tivo Series 3.

For ten seconds, while the hard drive spun up it was 47 watts. Then the digital readout dropped to 39-40. Basically is hovers on 40 more than 39 so I would say power consumption is 40 watts.

40 watts times 24 hours = 960 watts x 365 days = 350,400 total watts per year.

Divide that by 1000 watts in a kilowatt hour = 350.4 kilowatt hours per year.

At the national average of 10 cents per kilowatt hour the Tivo would coast $35.04 per year to run. Shut it off for 12 hours per day and you save about $17.52 per year. IF you are at 10 cents per kilowatt hour where you live.

Had to edit this because I forgot to include this info.

Selecting STANDBY from the Tivo menu had no effect on the power consumption. The panel lights did turn off.

[AlexK777]

Ok, you got me curious so I hooked my power consumption meter up to my Tivo Series 3.

Selecting STANDBY from the Tivo menu had no effect on the power consumption. The panel lights did turn off.

Well, unless Tivo has magic panel lights, turning it to standy will reduce power consumption, just not enough to measure on your meter. It would probably be in the millamp range (as in, pennies per year).

However, for more anecdotal information on the hard drives. I work with a lot of computer in my day job, and I see hard drives fail all the time at the 3-4 year point. However, I had two series 1 Tivos, both with 2 drives in them, and they both lasted for seven years. I hardly ever hear of hard drives failing on a Tivo, even though they are the same hard drives as PCs use. I have to think that running constantly is a big difference between the Tivo and a regular PC.

[netsurfer]

thats the thing - the spin up takes way more energy than constantly spinning - it would need at least a 3 hour window to save some electricity

I think this would be the proper way to say it.

My watt/hour meter says that Tivo uses 40 watts per hour.
The OP wants to shut his Tivo down for 18 hours per day.
That saves 720 watts per day.

Because he would be using a timer to turn the Tivo back on for 6 hours per day there would be one spin up required per day.

During spin up, my measurement on my Tivo showed consumption at 47 watts per hour but that is only 7 watts per hour more than normal running, AND it was for only a 10 second duration.

In an hour there are 360 ten second segments. If we divide 7 watts by 360 we get .019444 watt.

So it looks to me like the spin up uses up less than 2/100 of one watt of energy. In other words it would take 37,029 spin ups per day to offset the energy savings of 720 watts per day. 720 watts divided by .01944444 = 37,029

There are 86400 seconds in twenty four hours. So if we shut the Tivo off for 2.33 seconds that is the equivalent of one spin up, not 3 hours as you stated. That is a ratio of 4,635. You were a little off base. Just a little. Big smile.

[netsurfer]

Well, unless Tivo has magic panel lights, turning it to standy will reduce power consumption, just not enough to measure on your meter. It would probably be in the millamp range (as in, pennies per year).

However, for more anecdotal information on the hard drives. I work with a lot of computer in my day job, and I see hard drives fail all the time at the 3-4 year point. However, I had two series 1 Tivos, both with 2 drives in them, and they both lasted for seven years. I hardly ever hear of hard drives failing on a Tivo, even though they are the same hard drives as PCs use. I have to think that running constantly is a big difference between the Tivo and a regular PC.

So what purpose does standby serve?

As I understand it the fast rotational speed of the disks makes the read and write heads float on a cushion of air and never make contact with the disk. However, on spin down the heads make contact on the "landing zone"

I think that is just a zone where no data is stored, for fear of destroying it upon landing and takeoff.

Yes, no, maybe?

Heads are fragile at 1/300 th the thickness of a human hair. Protect them at all cost. Then all you have to worry about is the drive logic circuit, NOT REALLY, and the motor and bearings. Liquid sealed bearings are going to last a lot longer than 7 years in my opinion and the motor does not generate enough heat to burn out its windings.

Protect the heads and you will have hard drives that last a very long time. Unless the magnetic coating on the disk starts to fall off. That has happened before on drives about 10 years ago. They traced it to a cheap wash solution from China that made it difficult for the magnetic coating to stick to the disk.

[Mike_TV]

Not to derail the thread but as a side point Windows Vista Media Center will come out of standby a few minutes before a show starts, record the show and then put the PC back into standby/sleep mode.

I'm sure a future version of Tivo could provide similar functionality if they wanted to.

[sathead]

Back when TiVo and ReplayTV DVR's were designed, electricity was relatively cheap compared to hard drives.
If there was any doubt about the potentially harmful effects of multi drive spindowns per day, it looks like the engineers erred on the cautious side. Now that the tide has turned and electricity has quadrupled in some locations (I pay $0.25/KWHr on Long Island) and hard drives are dirt cheap... maybe it's time for TiVo to revisit the spindown/hibernation issue. Maybe make it it an option as it is on all out Windows computers. Let the user decide if he wants to enable powersaving on his box.
When My SA8300HD is hibernating- it consumes 1 Watt.

[netsurfer]

When My SA8300HD is hibernating- it consumes 1 Watt.

Does it come out of hibernation to record? Or do you have to take it out of hibernation manually?

[ZeoTiVo]

Let the user decide if he wants to enable powersaving on his box.

an option would be good as it would let the specific situation dictate the benefit.

[Adam1115]

thats the thing - the spinup takes way more energy than constantly spinning - it would need at least a 3 hour window to save some electricty - and spinning the drive up and down will be a lot more wear and tear than just constantly spinning and buffering live TV.

I make enough use of the live buffer as I do not have suggetions on. I do also have my TiVo's recording quite a bot during the day - so maybe there is a 3 hour window at night but I think in the long run it is just not worth it.

Now the OP might have a case with his only 6 hours a day timer. What the OP would need to do if he accepts the risk of powering the unit off and on each day is to manually connect to TiVo during the up time - you can still watch and record shows while that is going on

That's not true. Almost every computer by default spins down the hard drive first, then goes into standby.

TiVo could do the same thing if it knew nothing was going to record (say during the night, ALL night. Or during the day, ALL day when I have nothing recording).

So in your situation it may not be doable. It could be an option that you can enable or disable. I can see someone who doesn't record things during the night or during the day wanting this feature...

[HiDefGator]

Does it come out of hibernation to record? Or do you have to take it out of hibernation manually?

way back in the late 90's my replay would wake itself up, record the show, then go back to sleep. all by itself. a decade ago.

[fallingwater]

I'd probably be more concerned about the power supply (being) designed for for daily on/off use.

The Tivo power supply is definitely not designed for such.

Huh? If TiVo's power supply can't handle a daily on-off cycle indefinitely there's something really wrong!

ReplayTV offers an option to power down its HDD when in standby. Of course ReplayTV actually has a standby while TiVo just pretends. Perhaps its time for TiVo to consider offering an energy saving change in the normal way it operates.

[HiDefGator]

The other thing to keep in mind is there are 4 million active Tivo's today. If we could only get each one to shutdown for a few hours a day, the savings might save a (insert your favorite animal) someday.

[netsurfer]

way back in the late 90's my replay would wake itself up, record the show, then go back to sleep. all by itself. a decade ago.

Wow, that must be torture on the hard drive. All those spin downs and start ups with the heads touching the landing zone on the disk.

[fallingwater]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5923611#post5923611

[Adam1115]

Wow, that must be torture on the hard drive. All those spin downs and start ups with the heads touching the landing zone on the disk.

Most hard drives are rated for 50,000 start-stop cycles.

If it starts and stops 10 times a day, you wouldn't have to worry for about 15 years.

I guess if you define that as 'torture'.... :rolleyes:

[classicsat]

FWIW, I turn my computers on/off at least once a day, and still work. The HDDs are nearly 4 years old.

[yunlin12]

Another issue is if as reported, Tivo is going towards a instance message model to communicate about downloads, or scheduling recordings remotely through the web, then Tivo would have to be on to respond to these IM. Maybe they can figure out a way for Tivo to wake up to such IM.

[dwit]

Huh? If TiVo's power supply can't handle a daily on-off cycle indefinitely there's something really wrong!

ReplayTV offers an option to power down its HDD when in standby. Of course ReplayTV actually has a standby while TiVo just pretends. Perhaps its time for TiVo to consider offering an energy saving change in the normal way it operates.

Fact of the matter is, Tivo wasn't designed that way, ie, no on/off.

Perhaps there was a time when Replay should have considered a change in the way it operated.;)

[Langree]

I like my live buffer running all the time, my SA shuts the drive down due to inactivity, and every so often it'll do it when I'm watching just because I haven't touched the remote.

[Adam1115]

Fact of the matter is, Tivo wasn't designed that way, ie, no on/off.

Nobody disputes that, but SHOULD it be designed to save power...? Sure, why not?

[Langree]

Nobody disputes that, but SHOULD it be designed to save power...? Sure, why not?

I stopped putting my DirecTivo into stand by because it stopped buffering, if they ever do this I hope they make it optional.

[dwit]

Nobody disputes that, but SHOULD it be designed to save power...? Sure, why not?

The thread started out asking about Tivo's present capabilities.

[wkearney]

I like my live buffer running all the time, my SA shuts the drive down due to inactivity, and every so often it'll do it when I'm watching just because I haven't touched the remote.

And I like the fact that I can power up the TV at any time and KNOW there will be 30 minutes in the buffer from whatever's running live on the tuners.

My TV times itself out every two hours if it doesn't detect any signals from it's remote. This is a bit annoying as it meanwhile ignores any other IR signals (like to the Tivo) as a gauge of activity.

I could see some value in having a user-configurable inactivity range. Sort of like being able to set a cell phone to silent mode at night. But a lot of programs I record are done at night, often as a result of the 2nd showing of a program while something else was on during prime-time. Heh, I guess my Tivo's most idle time would be 9am-5pm!

[BobCamp1]

Huh? If TiVo's power supply can't handle a daily on-off cycle indefinitely there's something really wrong!


Yes, something is really wrong. The S2 power supplies are way under spec'd and probably can't handle too many power ups, especially if the hard drive has been replaced. I don't know if the S3 and HD power supplies are better, but I think they are since the hard drives have since gotten bigger.

Don't put the Tivo on a timer. If the hard drive's heads aren't in the safe zone when power is shut off, you can corrupt that file or destroy that specific area on the HD. It just happened to my kid's computer over the weekend (my two year old found the switch on the power strip). Windows now says those sectors are bad and the file that was there was corrupted, and it was part of the registry hive. The PC had problems booting until I fixed it. It rarely happens, which is why Tivo doesn't have a power-off menu feature, but you increase the odds of this happening by 200 times if you power it off daily. It's not worth the extra $20 / year in electricity.

But yes, it would be a nice feature to add, especially if Tivo is supposed to be a high-end DVR.

[scroos]

How about just subtracting the fuel that you would have burned going to the video store or the movies and call it a day? It's probably an annual net savings.

There seems to be no end to the existential guilt in all of this "Green" crap. My Tivo brings me enjoyment and time savings....Yay! But it uses electricity....Boo!

*Yawn*

OO

[cmaasfamily]

How about just subtracting the fuel that you would have burned going to the video store or the movies and call it a day? It's probably an annual net savings.

There seems to be no end to the existential guilt in all of this "Green" crap. My Tivo brings me enjoyment and time savings....Yay! But it uses electricity....Boo!

*Yawn*

OO

To clarify, as I am the OP... if I were having some sort of guilt ridden existential "Green" crap crisis as you put it, I wouldn't have three Tivo's would I? I'd recycle two of them and be asking if anyone knew how to hook my remaining one up to stationary bike so I could pedal it to get the hard drive to spin. My Tivo's bring me enjoyment and time savings too. The one in my gym only records late night shows and I only watch them when I work out in the morning. Otherwise it does nothing useful. I have no interest in shutting off the S3 in the den or the HD in the bedroom because usage patterns are different and less predictable.

My view is that waste is waste whether it is energy, food, government spending, or whatever. Call it a pet peeve. If I stand in my kitchen at night I have four appliances telling me what time it is (Really Mr. Coffee, did I even ask you?) and lots of other things shining at me (especially if the laptop, Ipod, Blackberry, and Nintendo are charging). It looks like a Christmas display of LED's telling me they are alive. Does it waste energy? Yes. But more than that, its just gratuitious, pointless and stupid, IMO.

[mattack]

No, I'd never turn that thing off or unplug it. You will kill the hard drive if you did that.

yeah, right.

I turn off all of my computers every night, and my Toshiba XS-32 (hard drive/DVD recorder) powers down the hard drive after a few minutes of activity (it's a user settable preference).
I have had hard drives go bad -- in a Tivo ironically.

I will put up with the increased wear and tear for the power savings..

[mattack]

thats the thing - the spinup takes way more energy than constantly spinning - it would need at least a 3 hour window to save some electricty

Can you give a citation for that 3 hour window? That sounds TOTALLY bogus.

[HiDefGator]

Don't put the Tivo on a timer. If the hard drive's heads aren't in the safe zone when power is shut off, you can corrupt that file or destroy that specific area on the HD.

That may have been true 10 years ago. All modern drives pull the head completely off the platters when they lose power. Doesn't matter where it is when the power goes.

[fallingwater]

Fact of the matter is, Tivo wasn't designed that way, ie, no on/off.

True. S3's 'Standby' doesn't do anything except play possom. S2's Standby at least acts like a DVR/TV switch.

Perhaps there was a time when Replay should have considered a change in the way it operated.;)

ReplayTV got Standby right;

ReplayTV's Standby kills the recording buffer which otherwise can get quite long, while leaving recording functions unaltered. TiVo's buffer is so short that Standby would make little difference.

IMHO, the reason that TiVo doesn't offer true Standby is Suggestions. I believe TiVo keeps track of and anonymously aggregates the thumb ratings associated with Suggestions and sells such statistics. Suggestion recording is already a user option; perhaps now is a good time for true Standby to be a user option?

[dylanemcgregor]

My view is that waste is waste whether it is energy, food, government spending, or whatever. Call it a pet peeve. If I stand in my kitchen at night I have four appliances telling me what time it is (Really Mr. Coffee, did I even ask you?) and lots of other things shining at me (especially if the laptop, Ipod, Blackberry, and Nintendo are charging). It looks like a Christmas display of LED's telling me they are alive. Does it waste energy? Yes. But more than that, its just gratuitious, pointless and stupid, IMO.

:up: +1 and all that...

[gonzotek]

To clarify, as I am the OP... if I were having some sort of guilt ridden existential "Green" crap crisis as you put it, I wouldn't have three Tivo's would I? I'd recycle two of them and be asking if anyone knew how to hook my remaining one up to stationary bike so I could pedal it to get the hard drive to spin. My Tivo's bring me enjoyment and time savings too. The one in my gym only records late night shows and I only watch them when I work out in the morning. Otherwise it does nothing useful. I have no interest in shutting off the S3 in the den or the HD in the bedroom because usage patterns are different and less predictable.Are your S3 and HD tuners free for late night recordings, or are they generally otherwise occupied? If they're free, you could do away with the gym tivo altogether and run a cable from one of the other two to the gym tv, and use a remote transceiver rig to control it from the gym (assuming of course no other household member would need the same machine at the same time). OR, you could keep the gym tivo and only turn it on long enough to MRV the shows from the S3 or HD. Just some food for thought. Either should buy back some more watt-hours for you.

[rainwater]

Nobody disputes that, but SHOULD it be designed to save power...? Sure, why not?

TiVos are already designed to have low power consumption.

[ZeoTiVo]

how to hook my remaining one up to stationary bike so I could pedal it to get the hard drive to spin.

yah - but then you have to deal with the carbon dioxide and methane produced while exercising vigorously :p

it seems though that a real standby mode that spun down the hard drive would be just the thing for you. You can elect to have suggestions on or off as well to effect when the TiVo would need to wake up to record something

[mattack]

TiVos are already designed to have low power consumption.

Using 40 watts (or whatever) is not low -- which could be *a couple* to use just enough to turn on when scheduled recordings are about to record.

[rainwater]

Using 40 watts (or whatever) is not low

Try running a Windows Media Center then :)

[sathead]

Does it come out of hibernation to record? Or do you have to take it out of hibernation manually?
It (my SA8300HD) wakes it self up, does it's recording chore, then goes back to sleep without any human involvement. If it needs to do a guide or maintenance update- it wakes up (usually midnight- sharp), does it's chores then goes back into hibernation when done- again, all unattended.
Very efficient.


BTW- drive spindown in the ReplayTV's existed only on the original Showstopper units. There was an un-documented back door "clawfoot portal" where you you could disable drive spindown if you desired. On later models 4000/5000 and 5500 series- the default was drive spinning 24/7/365- a hack still existed for spindown enable, but was non-functional. You could enable the spindown option via the "clawfoot portal"- but it did nothing on those models.

[acvthree]

My view is that waste is waste whether it is energy, food, government spending, or whatever. Call it a pet peeve. If I stand in my kitchen at night I have four appliances telling me what time it is (Really Mr. Coffee, did I even ask you?) and lots of other things shining at me (especially if the laptop, Ipod, Blackberry, and Nintendo are charging). It looks like a Christmas display of LED's telling me they are alive. Does it waste energy? Yes. But more than that, its just gratuitious, pointless and stupid, IMO.

I think your view is pretty accurate. Wall warts alone...

A study sponsored by the German Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt) showed that leakage in German homes and offices cost over $2 billion annually. That comprises about 10 percent of total electricity consumption in Germany. The amount of energy wasted (20 terawatt-hours) is far more than the total power requirement of 14 terawatt-hours for the entire city of Berlin annually. Worse, total carbon dioxide emissions associated with this wasted energy are over 10 million metric tons.

[sathead]

The savings derived from “Energy Star” and “Green” electrical appliances can be considerable once you take your whole house, not just single appliances into account.

Suppose you have three TiVo’s, and as we know they run at full power 24/7/365. We know they draw about 40 watts each. Combined, all three consume about 2.88kWh per day. Electricity is about $0.25 per kWh where I live. The three TiVo’s would cost me about $0.72 per day to run, which totals $262 per year!

Now, suppose you have three Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR’s. We know they also draw about 40 watts each when active. When not active- they hibernate, my Kilowatt meter shows about 1 watt draw when the SA8300HD in is hibernation mode. Let’s say the SA8300HD is “on” in full power mode 6 hour per day and in hibernation mode the other 18 hrs. Combined, all three consume about 0.774 kWh per day. Electricity is about $0.25 per kWh where I live. The three SA8300HD’s would cost me about $0.193 per day to run, which totals $70 per year!

I’d say there’s a substantial difference between spending $262 on electricity to run three TiVo’s for a year compared to $70 to run three Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR’s for a year.

[fallingwater]

BTW- drive spindown in the ReplayTV's existed only on the original Showstopper units. There was an un-documented back door "clawfoot portal" where you you could disable drive spindown if you desired. On later models 4000/5000 and 5500 series- the default was drive spinning 24/7/365- a hack still existed for spindown enable, but was non-functional. You could enable the spindown option via the "clawfoot portal"- but it did nothing on those models.

The above statement is not quite true. I just tested the 'Enable' and then 'Disable Disk Spindown' Clawfoot Portal commands using RTV4532 and both commands are perfectly functional. My RTV5040 is not currently connected so I can't test how its Spindown works.

Scroll way down in the FAQs link below to explore how 'Disk Spindown' functions for RTV4XXX's and 5XXX's. (But notice that uncertainty still rules! :eek: )

http://www.replayfaqs.com/4DCGI/Detail_FAQ_Display?ID=135

RTV40XX's are identical to RTV45XX's except that 45XX's required service activation. RTV50XX's retained Commercial Advance while 55XX's dropped it; otherwise they're identical.

The RTV50XX series is considered to be the high point of ReplayTV. It retained CA but employs a different method of setting recording priorities somewhat similiar to TiVo's.

The earliest RTV20XX's (but not Showstoppers) strip out Macrovision completely, BTW.

[sathead]

The above statement is not quite true. I just tested the 'Enable' and then 'Disable Disk Spindown' Clawfoot Portal commands using RTV4532 and both commands are perfectly functional. My RTV5040 is not currently connected so I can't test how its Spindown works.
I still have a functioning 5040 that my wife uses every day... the spindown does not work on that model Replay- 100% certain- I've tried it as recently as two months ago when I replaced it's original drive with a new Seagate DB35 series drive. I wish it did spindown.
I sold my 4504 several years ago, but I do recall trying the spindown option when I first got it- I was never able to get it working on the 4504??


Fallingwater- do you have a Kill-a-watt meter you could hook up to the Replay when it's in spindown mode? I'd love to see how low the power consumption goes.

[fallingwater]

I thought that Disk Spindown might not work on RTV5XXX's after reading the FAQ so I set my 5040 up for test and can confirm that it doesn't! I've got several 4532's and it works on all. I wonder if the issue is being confused by some users inadvertantly entering "Disc Spindown" instead of "Disk Spindown"?

ReplayTV made major changes when developing 5XXX. Most notably it wasn't compatible with 45XX for streaming and SonicBlue made its costly offer to swap one for the other if a user had one or more of each. The 5XXX retained CA but was otherwise greatly influenced by TiVo and even included an ergonomic remote reminiscent of Sony's TiVo. Evidently it lost the capability for Clawfoot Portal initiated disk spindown!

I don't have a Kill-a-watt meter. I too am curious about power consumption in standby w/HDD spindown.

[fallingwater]

Fallingwater- do you have a Kill-a-watt meter you could hook up to the Replay when it's in spindown mode? I'd love to see how low the power consumption goes.

I Googled Kill-a-watt meter and found the deal below. For $20 and free shipping it's worth getting so I ordered one.

Will post in a week or so with the results!

http://www.supermediastore.com/kilwateldet1.html

[sathead]

I Googled Kill-a-watt meter and found the deal below. For $20 and free shipping it's worth getting so I ordered one.

Will post in a week or so with the results!

http://www.supermediastore.com/kilwateldet1.html
It's a very useful instrument. I've modified several common habbits since I got the kill-a- watt meter- including the running time of my pool pump, the off season usage of our "extra" refrigerator out in the shed, and air conditioner usage.

Should be interesting to see the ReplayTV energy consumption figures with the disk spun down and while "awake".

[Adam1115]

TiVos are already designed to have low power consumption.

So is a lightbulb, but I still turn it off when I'm not using it...

[fallingwater]

It's a very useful instrument. I've modified several common habbits since I got the kill-a- watt meter- including the running time of my pool pump, the off season usage of our "extra" refrigerator out in the shed, and air conditioner usage.

Should be interesting to see the ReplayTV energy consumption figures with the disk spun down and while "awake".

The 'Power Consumption?' thread now has complete figures for S3/HD TiVos. http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=381090

Using the Kill-A-Watt meter I just tested a ReplayTV 4532 with disk spindown enabled and a TiVo '540' S2 and got the following surprising results:

RTV4532 33 watts when on and 26 watts when in Standby with disk at rest.

TiVo's '540' S2 whether on or in Standby drew 18 watts.

Both v/a (apparent power) reads were approx. half again as much. (Roughly, watts x 1.5 equaled v/a.)

[Adam1115]

The 'Power Consumption?' thread now has complete figures for S3/HD TiVos. http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=381090


So 40 watts normal, 38 in standby.

Not bad, but considering it runs 24 hours a day, not insignificant either....

[Adam1115]

Due to a disagreement with pepco, I'm on a measure everything kick...

Stock Tivo HD
Reordering Season Passes: 38w
Normal usage: 36w
Tuned to two channels I don't receive: 34w
Standby: 33w
Avg over 24 hours, normal usage: 35.932w
Current Cost: $3.78/Month

Stock S3
Reordering Season Passes: 40w
Normal usage: 40w
Tuned to two channels I don't receive: 39w
Standby: 38w
Avg over 24 hours, normal usage: 40.358w
Current Cost: $4.41/Month

Except I haven't measured the external esata drive yet...

-Ken

.

[MighTiVo]

I would love to see TiVo go green with a software update.

5 TiVos in my house, an average of far less than 10 total hours recorded per day.
If they all slept when not recording that would equal a savings of over $200 per year.

[MighTiVo]

It's a very useful instrument. I've modified several common habbits since I got the kill-a- watt meter- including the running time of my pool pump, the off season usage of our "extra" refrigerator out in the shed, and air conditioner usage.

Should be interesting to see the ReplayTV energy consumption figures with the disk spun down and while "awake".


An easy "close" estimate you can use is $1/year/watt run 24x7 so a 40watt TiVo averages about $40/year (plus or minus as your local electrical costs vary from a 10cent per kwh average cost)

[lessd]

An easy "close" estimate you can use is $1/year/watt run 24x7 so a 40watt TiVo averages about $40/year (plus or minus as your local electrical costs vary from a 10cent per kwh average cost)

In Hartford CT the cost is over $0.18/KWH so each watt cost $1.58/year. My series 3 uses 51 watts (with a 1 Tb drive WD green) so that over $80/year. I have the unit on a timer that turns it off at 4am and back on at 4PM, never had any problem now that the 30 sec skip does not go away.

[Phrehdd]

TIVO does need to get on the bandwagon for energy conservation. Perhaps not in their present models but future models.

The easiest way to go would be to have the OS in flash and a hard drive for recording. With this setup, drives could be spun down and minimal power used. As well, TIVO out to consider going to "slots" for 7200rpm laptop drives. One would purchase the unit driveless or with a drive. Then select "approved" drives to "build" their system. There should be TWO slots available to really make this of value. Laptop drives are reaching 500 gigs in the 5400rpm and we can expect soon 7200rpm laptop drives at near that capacity soon. Laptop drives consume less energy than 3.5" drives. TIVO in turn would reduce manufacturing down to 1 model as it is now "adaptable" and can be put in standby mode with minimal power requirements during non channel or record use.

Green isn't just about less power but about not having to throw entire systems away when a part fails. This is often the case in non-modular systems like the TIVO (yes one can send for repair or "swap" but the notion still holds true).

- Phrehdd

[DrewS3]

Another waste of electricity is having to run a windows PC running Tivo Desktop to let tivo view your photos or play your music. This typically uses >150 watts.

Tivo should support upnp as a upnp client. There are many low power NAS devices that will stream music and photos via upnp while using less than 40 watts.

[ciper]

Can someone measure the power draw of a Tivo with the hard drive unplugged?

[lafos]

Another waste of electricity is having to run a windows PC running Tivo Desktop to let tivo view your photos or play your music. This typically uses >150 watts.

Tivo should support upnp as a upnp client. There are many low power NAS devices that will stream music and photos via upnp while using less than 40 watts.

I recently set up a Windows Home Server box using an old Compaq AMD system. The dual core processor is overkill for the server, but I could shove four SATA drives in the case. I bought the OS from Newegg.

Using the AMD power save settings on the CPU and spinning down the drives gets me to ~40 watts idle power, and during backups or transfers, it pulls about 100 watts. There's an add-in service for WHS that is a TiVo server. The WHS shows up in my NPL and it can also handle photos and music.