This article was originally published in the May/June 1999 issue
of Home Energy Magazine. Some formatting inconsistencies may be
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May/June 1999 Video Networks: A Surprising Energy Drain by Alan
Meier and Karen Rosen Karen Rosen is a senior research associate
at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. TVs and VCRs are
typically dismissed as minor energy consumers in homes. But many
homes have three, four, or even five TVs--plus VCRs, cable
boxes, and video games. They add up to a big part of a home's
total electricity use, especially when standby losses are taken
into account. Although some standby power is used in these
devices for features like clocks and remote-control operation,
much or most of it is consumed by the appliances' power
supplies, which convert alternating current into direct current.
However, because of their variety of functions, different
appliances use significantly