Your Set-Top Box Is Murdering Your Electric Bill. Here's What You Can Do

Reruns actually use more energy than a giant refrigerator? The problem is that modern DVRs and other set-top boxes aren't regular one-function appliances; they're just specialized computers, with a different exterior. They house energy-sucking hard drives, modern processors, HD video cards, and all kinds of other components you'd find in a regular computer. Except when you're not using a computer, you shut it down (at least, we hope you do). Not so for set-top boxes.

The NRDC found that "Today’s set-top boxes operate at near full power even when the consumer is neither watching nor recording a show," and that set-top boxes are only in use about a third of the time they're running. It raises the question: Why don't people just shut down their boxes when not in use? The answer is in two parts: First, they don't realize they should, and second, set-top boxes take awhile to start up--like a computer (which is what they are), rather than the instant-on of a TV. Customers are not accustomed to waiting a few minutes for their TV to be available, and so leave the boxes on all the time, which in turn means the cable providers don't have any motivation to reduce startup time, let alone make them more efficient.

Official DCX3400 Owners Thread - Digital Forum

Thought I would start a thread resources of the Motorola DCX3400 PVR from Shaw. So far, the device works very cool compared to the Aspen Pace. The cabinet top home theater is no longer hot when the camera is turned on or off. With Aspen, she was hot 24 hours a day, even with the unit "off". In addition, the channel change is much faster than previous PVR from Shaw. 1) FireWire connection to a PC seems to be established if you add a few lines clear to the INF file (the usual driver package that we use every STB) search for DCT-3416 and copy / paste lines matching " DCX-34xx. .. no DCX-3400).