PVR's

I heard on the radio recently that these Satellite and now Cable PVR's use as much Hydro in a day as a refrigerator. Unlike a computer hard drive that is only spinning while being called upon the hard drive in these units is always spinning recording everything thing your watching or not. The sat companies tell you not to unplug the units as you might miss some important updates.

What's a PVR?? (Sorry for my ineptitude! Old dog...new trick!)

I dont watch enough tv to warrant a PVR
PVR is a personal video recorder something like a vcr where it will record shows cking

First cousin and very similar to TiVo in the USA, I believe.

[quote="cking"]What's a PVR?? (Sorry for my ineptitude! Old dog...new trick!)[/quote
It's a sat receiver with a computer hard drive in it. The drive is constantly recording the channel it's on. While watching you can can miss a bit of the show and hit rewind and watch what you missed right to the end. There are ways to start watching 15 minutes into a show and then fast forwarding through the commercials then seeing it all. Leave it on overnight and watch that movie you missed at 2:00am. Just another major appliance.

I don't think they use that much hydro,my hydro bill is always the same (within a few dollars) if I have it turned on or leave it off.what uses hydro is the dryer and hot water heater.

rifraf wrote:

I don't think they use that much hydro,my hydro bill is always the same (within a few dollars) if I have it turned on or leave it off.what uses hydro is the dryer and hot water heater.

I don't have one, but I believe it was CFRB a while back that went on about them. It does make some sense though. Don't forget a "new" frig is only a few dollars a month now.

"I heard on the radio recently that these Satellite and now Cable PVR's use as much Hydro in a day as a refrigerator."
...to compare the power consumption to a refrigerator is very irrisponsible as the varibles to these appliances are all over the place... how warm it is in the house.... how often then would be opened in a daily routine etc... how old is the unit... are the coils kept clean and the list goes on. Now if it is newer, kept clean, and is never opened then the consumption is low (100 or so watts for an average between units)

An average PVR (most regular recievers use around 20ish watts) however consumes maybe 50-60 watts at worst, and besides in Windows based PC's, unless you turn the feature off, Windows keeps your hard drive spinning all day long too, (maybe cheapo pc's like Dell's, HP's etc. set a time on this option) so I don't know where they are getting thier info from

aguyinbrantford wrote:

"I heard on the radio recently that these Satellite and now Cable PVR's use as much Hydro in a day as a refrigerator."
...to compare the power consumption to a refrigerator is very irrisponsible as the varibles to these appliances are all over the place... how warm it is in the house.... how often then would be opened in a daily routine etc... how old is the unit... are the coils kept clean and the list goes on. Now if it is newer, kept clean, and is never opened then the consumption is low (100 or so watts for an average between units)

An average PVR (most regular recievers use around 20ish watts) however consumes maybe 50-60 watts at worst, and besides in Windows based PC's, unless you turn the feature off, Windows keeps your hard drive spinning all day long too, (maybe cheapo pc's like Dell's, HP's etc. set a time on this option) so I don't know where they are getting thier info from

I just looked, my Bell 3100 non PVR uses 40 watts, Googling PVR power consumption found 300 watts power consumption, I don't have one, if 300 is true then to use 7 or 8 times the hydro to have that convenience, sounds waistful. Perhaps the numbers are wrong. Would someone with a Bell 5100, 5800, 5900 look on the back and let us know. Looking up fridge power consumption on the internet showed 300-500 watts for an average one.

rifraf wrote:

I don't think they use that much hydro,my hydro bill is always the same (within a few dollars) if I have it turned on or leave it off.what uses hydro is the dryer and hot water heater.

If you just turn it off with the power button on the remote you only turn off the power light and the signal to the TV, the receiver is still on. It's still warm hours later. To truly turn it off you need to unplug it or turn off the power bar.

"Googling PVR power consumption found 300 watts power consumption," Hmm my guesses seem off, not sure what would be consuming that much more wattage over a non PVR, unless the processing power over the non PVR is that much more, simply spinning a HDD shouldn't consume that sort of multiplication alone, (I think the average HDD only consumes around 25ish watts) now that im curious I will look into a PVR that I know of to make sure. And if the 300W rating were true I believe that would be what the unit would measure under absolute maximum workload wich you would never see, at least for long periods of time.

I am glad you brought this up as I don't know a whole lot about it.

Currently I am running PVR software on my computer with my TV tuner and dual monitors and cable.

This works great for me but I am always interested in hearing about what other choices are out there and how it works.... I am funny that way.

"I am glad you brought this up as I don't know a whole lot about it.
Currently I am running PVR software on my computer with my TV tuner and dual monitors and cable.
This works great for me but I am always interested in hearing about what other choices are out there and how it works.... I am funny that way."

Actually Katzz the setup you have, although not as electrically efficient LOL, is probably the best setup and will give you more flexablity. Also because it is your PC (if you don't already have one) adding a DVD burner and you can record anything you have captured to DVD and charge your friends LOL... you know the "I'll burn those movies for you for a case of beer"

I own a top of the line watt meter for my job and I also have a starchoice DVR530 receiver which is a starchoice motorola PVR and I did a test on how many watts it consumed . 33 watts is all it uses. Thats not much at all

From my expert observations of drives whirring and fans blowing, when PVR's are off, they're pretty much off (sort-of). Yes, they are still operating, but only at minimal levels for timer-related functions. They only come on as needed for timed events.

I would be devastated if I didn't have a PVR. I am totally spoiled. Zapping through commercials is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel!