Government to ban TV remotes

[Agent]

Because a TV isnt going to pick the signal up from a remote if standby is outlawed...

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...266159,00.html

But he seems perfectly happy to use a jet for a simple journey from Birmingham to Devon.

[BEANFro Elite]

It wouldn't actually be a bad idea to ban remote controls for television sets outright in a bid to encourage people to get up and manually change the channel.

Not going to happen but if the government is serious about cutting down on obeisity in children etc its suddenly not a completely unreasonable thought.

So what, is the government going to order a mass recalling of all remote controls?

Now THAT'd be funny and grossly impractical and expensive.

I bet they'd impose another fining scheme for not getting the Standby button on the remote deactivated / removed.



*Naturally, this post contains some mild satire and sarcasm*

[Mike Fishcake]

Pah!

I laugh at their pathetic attempts to generate electricity from air, water or light!

I'm currently designing an elecricity generator powered by the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. One of Christ's smiles will be enough to power Durham for a day.

That'll show them.

[5lab]

my 36" crt tv uses <1.3W of power. lcd's use even less. over a year, that equates to a whopping... &#163;1.20 in electricity - damn, thats less than 2 boils of a full kettle. are they going to ban tea?

[chuckskull]

my 36" crt tv uses <1.3W of power. lcd's use even less. over a year, that equates to a whopping... £1.20 in electricity - damn, thats less than 2 boils of a full kettle. are they going to ban tea?

either you have the most efficient TV in the world or my elctricity company is lieing to me

[Stigggeh]

lol... well its not a bad idea because a tv does use the same power on stand by (so the word on the street says )

but blair is a numpty we all know that... its one rule for them another for us

[bsodmike]

Who says your remote needs to be wireless pffft Oh and does this mean that they are going to ban all iR LEDs? Not a huge deal making your own remote, and you'll find 'em going for quite a price on eBay...and the seller would be tonyblair_rocks229 hehe.

[99Flake]

What an utterly rediculous idea! Next they will ban computers! All PC's sit in a standby mode, there is perpetual current running through them if they are plugged into mains. This is to supply power for things like Wake On Lan, are they going to ban that too?

And on the subject of 'your TV uses the same amount of power in standby as it does running', this applies to old TV's, modern ones (as in from about 10 years ago) use on average 5w in a year on standby. Not only that but turning a TV (crt) on and off all the time uses huge amounts of energy because of the surge, far more than you save by not using standby.

Also as mentioned earlier LCD tv's are massively more efficient and also run in standby only, the switch on the front is not physical at all.

[schmunk]

All PC's sit in a standby mode, there is perpetual current running through them if they are plugged into mains.

Dust off your AT PSUs, folks...

[DavidM]

Now a pedal powered TV... that would be useful

[Lee H]

Here we go again

A bunch of pompous, overpaid, out-of touch ministers think they know what's best for us and want to ban standby on electrical devices.

Hows about NO (raise middle finger). Instead look at your own usage of private planes, jaguars to travel 200m down the road and other such "perks" for being an MP etc before meddling with all our lives and passing rules you think are going to make the environment better.

If they really want to help, Force America to tackle it's carbon emissions - Oh yeah I forgot, TB hasn't got the balls to do that. Instead he'd rather roll over and be tickled on the stomach by Bush

[BlackDwarf]

They can prise my Logitech Harmony out of my old dead fingers......

[kalniel]

Fantastic idea to be honest.

Electricity generation is still one of the biggest causes of CO2 production, it's expensive, and relies on importing.

All measures need to be considered. And heh, it may get people off their bottoms as well.

Yes, new computers would be affected as well, if this came in then any new devices would have to be made without a standby.

But of course, in reality this isn't going to happen. What will happen is they'll ban new devices from having *only* a standby mode, and require computers/tvs/hi-fis to have an off button that actually turns the thing properly off. Then they'll put a cap on how much power can be drawn in standby mode (either a flat cap or a %). Both of which are measures I'd be very happy to see indeed.

[chrestomanci]

Then they'll put a cap on how much power can be drawn in standby mode (either a flat cap or a %). Both of which are measures I'd be very happy to see indeed.

That already happens; it is called the Low power directive, which all consumer electronics products in Europe have to comply with. Basically if a device (such as a TV) has a standby mode, there is a limit on the power consumption, I think it is 20W, but it could vary by type of device.

Some devices such as TVs do very little in standby mode other than wait for a switch on signal from the remote (or scart). Other such as Sky+ Boxes has to watch out for remote firmware updates, or even record TV shows.

Bear in mind that if the limit on low power consumption is set to low, the manufacturers will be forced to leave out features from the low power mode, and consumers will decide to leave the device on instead. A good example is the wake on LAN feature of PCs. In order to support it, the PSU has to supply power to the PCI bus while in standby which consumes electricity, but overall the features saves a lot of electricity as it makes it possible to remotely turn on office PCs to perform upgrades during the night. Without it, many IT managers would ask office users to leave their PCs on overnight instead of switching them off.

But of course, in reality this isn't going to happen. What will happen is they'll ban new devices from having *only* a standby mode, and require computers/tvs/hi-fis to have an off button that actually turns the thing properly off.

That is probably a good idea, though I would not expect it to be used as much as you think, and many service providers (such as Sky) will actively discourage it from being used for the reasons above.

[Elmo]

have people forgotten about the disabled/elderly population of this country? For instance, my grandmother, she has arthritis in her legs and spine, she finds it very difficult to keep getting up and sitting/bending down, she also gets quite lonely and bored during the day whilst the rest of the family is at work, her only solace seems to be the television (we've just bought her a digi-box and she loves it!), she would be totally lost without her remote! In fact she'd either have to just watch the same channel all day or not watch the tv at all. I'm sure there are a lot of other disabled/elderly people out there who are in the same boat. It's a bloody rediculous idea. Next they'll be cutting everyones electricity off at night, cos lets face it, we dont need it if 90% of the population is sleeping, **** the other 10%!

[kalniel]

That already happens; it is called the Low power directive, which all consumer electronics products in Europe have to comply with. Basically if a device (such as a TV) has a standby mode, there is a limit on the power consumption, I think it is 20W, but it could vary by type of device.

Maybe it could be dropped a bit lower then - I've heard (no evidence I can see though) that the figure is a lot higher from some things)

Bear in mind that if the limit on low power consumption is set to low, the manufacturers will be forced to leave out features from the low power mode, and consumers will decide to leave the device on instead. A good example is the wake on LAN feature of PCs. In order to support it, the PSU has to supply power to the PCI bus while in standby which consumes electricity, but overall the features saves a lot of electricity as it makes it possible to remotely turn on office PCs to perform upgrades during the night. Without it, many IT managers would ask office users to leave their PCs on overnight instead of switching them off.

Not true - I'm in an IT company and we specifically turn all our equipment off overnight. All updates are rolled out during the day and automatically applied immediately prior to shutdown (there's the 'install updates then shut down option) with a backup application the next day until it's sucessfully installed.

have people forgotten about the disabled/elderly population of this country?

I don't think they have - we've had elderly people long before we had remote controls. Wireless sets (radio) used to have easy to use on/off switches, as did some early TV sets. The getting up to go to the TV might be a problem, yep, but I'm sure this would be considered - but if there were a decent cap on the standby mode maybe it wouldn't be needed. But a good point to bring up certainly.