Sky 'auto standby' to roll out from today

In article , "For example:
John Smith" writes
Sean Black wrote:
In article . com, Ed
writes
SKY is to introduce technology that automatically switches digital
boxes to standby mode overnight - slashing energy bills by
£7.5MILLION a year.

The boxes will go to "sleep" after 11pm if they detect they have not
been used for two hours.

The technology will be transmitted to Sky HD boxes from today and to
all Sky+ boxes from April - a total of more than two million. Sky
said Auto Standby could save enough energy to light all the homes in
Wolverhampton for a year. It could also cut UK carbon emissions by
32,000 tons a year.

It can be turned off in the menu, so that's what I'll be doing, I'll
decide when I want my box switched off. I don't want it ****ing up my
recordings, by firstly having an onscreen warning for three minutes,
before switching itself off.

You think it'll warn of shutdown DURING a recording ?
Surely recording counts as user-activity ?
Can't do any harm, as a spinning HDD is noisy and wasteful.
Lower electricity bills can't be so bad - albeit 50p.


I doubt it'd shut down if it's recording itself (although I suppose you
can never be sure with any new Sky software :-) ) I was thinking more
when I am recording to an external device, TiVo, DVD Recorder etc...
--
Sean Black

On Mar 20, 11:52 am, "Mark Carver" wrote:
On Mar 20, 11:39 am, "Steve Bosman" wrote:

[1] I tend to put the box into standby before I go to bed anyway
(maybe 5 days out of 7).

You only go to bed 5 days out of 7 ?

I think you know what I mean

"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
SKY is to introduce technology that automatically switches digital
boxes to standby mode overnight - slashing energy bills by £7.5MILLION
a year.

A lot of bull**** if you ask me !

"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
SKY is to introduce technology that automatically switches digital
slashing energy bills by £7.5MILLION
a year.

Its about time they slashed their subscription charges, the robbing
ba**ards!

On Mar 20, 12:39 pm, "RobertJM"
wrote:
The box still records if you put it in standby, don't see it making any
difference that way.

I'm not worrying about recording. Films are one of the few types of
programmes I find myself watching late at night and I usually don't
record them. Around 10 I see something interesting is coming on and
switch over to it. If the autostandby becomes an issue I'll just have
to ensure I start films recording and start watching them through the
sky+ planner after a short delay.

The only thing that worries me is another software update, I'm sure this is
what causes my recordings to sometimes disappear!

fortunately that has never happened to me. I have had some scrambled
programmes before (the contents of some programmes got mixed
together), but I don't think they were update related.

"Mark Carver" wrote in message
ps.com...
On Mar 20, 10:20 am, "Ed" wrote:

I dont think there is much benefit turning off a regular box. It uses
almost no power. It is the hard disk in the plus and HD boxes that is
constantly turning as it buffers that uses the power.

No *less* power in standby I think you mean :-)

ISTR when I had Sky+ the HDD spun continuously whether the box was on
or standby, I assume that's now changed ?


Quite. It saves very little power on a standard dogibox. Plus standby
would **** with the auto-switch planner. Makes sense for sky+ as they are
designed to work in standby.

"Beck" wrote in message
...

"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
SKY is to introduce technology that automatically switches digital
boxes to standby mode overnight - slashing energy bills by £7.5MILLION
a year.
The boxes will go to "sleep" after 11pm if they detect they have not
been used for two hours.
The technology will be transmitted to Sky HD boxes from today and to
all Sky+ boxes from April - a total of more than two million. Sky said
Auto Standby could save enough energy to light all the homes in
Wolverhampton for a year. It could also cut UK carbon emissions by
32,000 tons a year.

Great idea. The amount of difference between on and standby may not be
much, but collectively with all the thousands of boxes it will make a
difference.
Hope they brace themselves for zillions of support calls from people
saying their sky is shutting off overnight though.

Actually on a + box it cuts the power significantly, turning off the HDD and
the fan. I remember someone hooking it up to a meter and posting the
results.

"RobertJM" wrote in message
...

"Steve Bosman" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Mar 20, 9:49 am, "Ed" wrote:
The boxes will go to "sleep" after 11pm if they detect they have not
been used for two hours.


In principle I agree with this change [1], but I'd like to know how it
copes with the situation of watching a long(ish) film (i.e. longer
than 2 hours) that ends after 11pm. I would hope for, but don't expect
to get, software clever enough to go into standby after the last
selected programme finishes.

Steve

[1] I tend to put the box into standby before I go to bed anyway
(maybe 5 days out of 7).

The box still records if you put it in standby, don't see it making any
difference that way.
The only thing that worries me is another software update, I'm sure this
is what causes my recordings to sometimes disappear!


Well it is likely to be part of the major update when anytime launches.
(even non-PVR3 boxes will need an update to tell it to ignore anytime
flags).

On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:52:36 GMT, "steeler" wrote:

|!
|!"Mark Carver" wrote in message
oups.com...
|! On Mar 20, 10:20 am, "Ed" wrote:
|!
|! I dont think there is much benefit turning off a regular box. It uses
|! almost no power. It is the hard disk in the plus and HD boxes that is
|! constantly turning as it buffers that uses the power.
|!
|! No *less* power in standby I think you mean :-)
|!
|! ISTR when I had Sky+ the HDD spun continuously whether the box was on
|! or standby, I assume that's now changed ?
|!
|!
|!Quite. It saves very little power on a standard dogibox. Plus standby
|!would **** with the auto-switch planner. Makes sense for sky+ as they are
|!designed to work in standby.

If there were rules to say that " the standby current taken by any device
using Infra Red controls must be less than 1 watt", that would cure the
problem and not be difficult or expensive to do.
--
Dave Fawthrop sf hyphenologist.co.uk 165 *Free* SF ebooks.
165 Sci Fi books on CDROM, from Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page Completely Free to any
address in the UK. Contact me on the *above* email address.

"John Russell" wrote in message
...

Yes, but a lot of people probably keep them running during the day
anyway.
You mean some people just turn the TV off (sorry put it in standby) and
forget about the digibox?
So it's of no benefit to those of us who already put the box in standby
whenever we stop watching?
Why make such a big thing of this when the problem is the fact that even
in standby some power is still consummed? The Goverment has asked the
industry to look and minimisng the power thats' required in standby, not
just introducing Auto Standby.


The power saving even in standby is worthwhile. It is true though that it
is only useful in stopping the idiots who never switch the box off (it is
not just that they are too lazy to press a button, more that it never occurs
to them).

As for the TV - I never switch min off - but then it only uses 3W in
standby.