You have evidence for your above points? As far as my 522 is concerned, the hard drive is always on anyway. The receiver is always on. When you turn off the receiver, you are only activating a screen saver.
Ok first question, evidence will be linked to last part of post, Behavoir that may be part of the VOD, unsure, I dont have that reciever. My 508s however did not behave this way before VOD. I understand by dish that the 508 is or was the most popular receiver still in use. Can anyone confirm this?
Based on my experience with computer hardware (I do this for a living), I doubt that is has any appreciable effect on wear, noise, heat, or power consumption. You can really hear the difference between a hard drive spinning and reading/writing?
The changes in heat affect the life of all computers, the debate still goes on about whether to turn it off or on.
I for one know that mechanical parts wear out, bearings turning all the time, air bearings even wear out (laser print heads on copiers/printer do go bad). I myself work as a computer tech, networking tech, copier tech, printing, scanning, email, wide format printing, you name it tech. And thats just my day job. I fix everything from air conditioners to vcr's ( well back when vcrs weren't disposible
)
And yes I can hear the spinning of a hard drive, and some of them writing, especially seagates and quantums, some western digitals. I can hear a bad flyback or one warming up at the other end of the house. I can even hear a dog wistle. But, even the average person can hear the hard drive power up and even the cooling fans when they are on.
While I am not a fan of VOD and think it's a waste of time, my only concern is if it reduces the recording capacity of the programs that I choose to record.
My only complaint with VOD is the 'in your face' menu changes that came with it.
I don't really mind having to press the pvr button twice on my 508, the 522's I believe have a diffent menu system, so no comment there. as for reducing the capacity, yes and no. the Advertised capacity is based on and approximate hours, actual use is affected by sound quality and picture quality. How much is movement I believe even affects the compression. Now the Hard drive is and has always been partitioned with reserve space that 508,510 users cannot use. It was for future use whcih is now VOD. We do get our advertised capacity though.
If you really want to save noise and electricity, unplug the power cord when you aren't using it. The hard drive won't 'wear' out (but it may die from the power-on surge), you'll save electricity, and prevent VOD movies from downloading.
I have UPS system on all my dvrs' (excpept one, I'm waiting on a new battery), That way when the power fails ( at least twice a week or more here
) I won't lose the recording if the thing will wake up to record (VOD side effect apparently on the 508s). As for saving electricity, read the evidence below.
I hope I was clear, been interupted about 50 times writing this.
Evidences
What effect does this have
1. DVR is constantly working to bring you VOD
Established, it won't have VOD if it doesn't do download when your not using the box. The less you use the box, the more free time it does get though.
2. Hard Drive failure IS going to happen, VOD will speed it up.
Why do hard drives wear out? First, it is important to recognize that the platters inside a hard drive (which look something like several CDs impaled on a golf pencil) are spinning remarkably fast. Many popular drives boast speeds of 10,000 revolutions per minute (rpm). At these speeds, any friction leads to heat and physical wear. Heat is an important consideration because physical materials expand and contract by different amounts, based on changes in temperature. The size of a gap between surfaces will change with the temperature, and an important component of drive engineering is to make sure that such changes do not lead to unexpected friction that can lead to undue wear.
and
Very high humidity for extended periods can cause accelerated wear of the heads and platters by corrosion _ believe me, in alabama we know about humidity.
and
The hard disk's electronics control the movement of the actuator and the rotation of the disk, and perform reads and writes on demand from the disk controller. Modern disk firmware is capable of scheduling reads and writes efficiently on the platter surfaces and remapping sectors of the media which have failed. Also, most major hard disk and motherboard vendors now support self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology (S.M.A.R.T.), by which impending failures can be predicted, allowing the user to be alerted to prevent data loss.
and
Hard drives do have a limited life, however. Hard drives, as do most other electronic components, naturally wear out as they are used. Inside hard disk drives you'll find moving mechanical parts which add to the reason why hard drives wear out over time. The average life of a hard drive is at least 3 years or so. So, you have a while before a normal hard drive will wear out. It is always a good idea to back up any important documents, photos, videos, etc. just in case your hard drive does fail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk
http://computers.families.com/blog/turning-off-computer-ruin-hard-drive
http://www.smartcomputing.com/edito...00/s1103/09s03/09s03.asp&articleid=7468&guid=
3. Cooling systems are going to turn on to keep the system cooled if not ventilated well.
This is a given, thats why there is a cooling fan on it. Some recievers are averaging 118-120 degrees. see this thread
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=68690
4. Additional electricity is used to run the DVR all the time.
google energy vampires or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standby_power
Government has passed laws regarding this
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010731-10.html
According to America's Department of Energy, national residential electricity consumption in 2004 was 1.29 billion megawatt hours (MWh)—5% of which is 64m MWh. The wasted energy, in other words, is equivalent to the output of 18 typical power stations.
2000 study showed that standby power accounted for around 10% of household power-consumption. So take 10% of your power yearly power bill (for fluctuations of summer and winter) YIKES for people who live pay check to pay check.
5. Additional noise polution for those who can hear the DVR.
This is for those who can hear the DVR as stated. I can, especially at night, wtiht the one I have in the bedroom, I'm working on putting it the closet, as soon as I have time to relocate wiring.
I tried to condense this, do I hold a record for longest post?
