[mythtv-users] Who's going to be the first?

David Rees drees76 at gmail.com
Thu Sep 2 01:53:57 UTC 2010


On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 5:42 PM, Gabe Rubin <gaberubin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 5:41 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:
>> One major problem with that approach: requires leaving the myth box on
>> all the time, which I've stopped doing. Why have such a power-hungry
>> system on 24/7 if it doesn't need to be? The power supply even on the
>> ASRock ION330 HT box I've got is 65W. The new AppleTV draws 6W. Heck,
>> I might get two of them, and replace the older one I already have,
>> just for the power savings. :)
>
> That makes sense.  I have a single combined FE/BE, so it pretty much
> has to be on all the time.

No, it doesn't - my combined system is off for 12-18 hours/day.  Most
of the programming I watch comes on around 9pm-12pm which also is
typically when I watch recordings.

So it wakes up on it's own 10-15 minutes ahead of a recording, updates
the schedule if it needs to, records any shows, then turns itself off
for the night.

Works great, and cuts the power use of my entertainment system in
half.  I even plugged the Myth into one of those smart strips that
turns off all the peripherals so vampire loads are cut, too (another
20w or so).

My combined system draws about 60w when idle - so cutting power on
time in half saves at least 20 kWh/month.  Maybe not much, but that's
$2-$6/month (depending on your electricity rates) is better than
wasting it.  If your system draws more, even better if you can get it
to turn off.

-Dave


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