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The
firm says that these initiatives illustrate
its full support of the global energy program
of its parent News Corp. which has launched
a range of measures to reduce its impact
on climate change and to engage audiences,
employees and business partners on the issue.
The
first initiative is an innovative Auto Standby
solution which NDS has developed to automatically
switch inactive devices into standby mode
overnight. The standby consumption of an
STB has been estimated to be 10 watts. If
this figure is multiplied by the 500 million
digital set-top devices which are projected
to be deployed over the next five years,
it is clear that reducing standby consumption
will yield massive benefits, potentially
saving the equivalent carbon emissions of
five ‘super’ power stations.
NDS
director of technology and new initiatives
James Field says, "Currently, an HD
DVR can use as much power as a domestic
refrigerator and we want to address this.
With this new auto standby feature, we can
help our customers’ customers - namely,
consumers of digital TV - to reduce their
carbon footprint, with the additional benefit
of lowering their electricity bills. We
look forward to supporting both the environment
and our consumers in this way – one
set-top box at a time."
The
new feature monitors whether viewers are
using their DVR or HD STB between, for example,
the night-time hours of 23.00 and 04.00.
If the unit has not been used for a period
of two hours after 23.00, an Auto Standby
warning displays on screen for a few moments.
If
there is no further use, the box will go
into standby mode automatically and the
hard disk will stop spinning. The auto standby
solution is just the first step in the NDS
environmental strategy.
The
NDS R&D team is working with STB manufacturers
and platform operators around the world
to develop innovative solutions to continue
to reduce STB power consumption."
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