[Shop-talk] Trickle Chargers - operating Costs

[Marcus Pless]

I don't know about a DirecTV DVR , but my original "14 hour" Tivo is always 
"on" because it's always recording one of the following three, 24/7: 

   1) something that I've told it to record 
   2) a Tivo suggestion (something it thinks I might want to watch)
   3) a constant, sliding 30 minute window (which is how it allows
      one to "pause" live TV)

Unless I put it in standby it's always on and the hard drive is always 
spinning. As computers go it's pretty low powered; I know that the cooling 
fan seldom, if ever, comes on. I just  had it apart yesterday to add a
network card and I was amazed at how clean it was inside, considering that
it hasn't been opened in years. Everytime I look inside my desktop computer 
there's a new shag carpet growing in there that needs to get blasted out.
I think my Tivo's CPU is somewhere between a 60-90MHz PowerPC.

--Marcus



On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, PJ McGarvey wrote:
>
> Makes me wonder what kind of power my DirecTV Tivo DVR uses as well. Anyone
> know?
> 
> I'll have Verizon FiOS HD TV in a couple weeks myself...
> 
> The only downside to switching off a DVR when you're not watching TV is that
> any shows
> you have set to record during this time will not record.  I still think it's
> ridiculous
> that a DVR in this day and age, needs to use the same amount of power to
> "wait" to record
> as it does to actually record.  Unless that hard-drive is spinning even in
> "standby" mode,
> which is again ridiculous in terms of hard-drive life expectancy.
> 
> -PJ