Response To California's Large-Screen TV Regulation 619
An anonymous reader writes "It's great that unelected bureaucrats in California are clamoring to save energy, but when they target your big-screen TVs for elimination, consumers and manufacturers are apt to declare war. CEDIA and the CEA are up in arms over this. Audioholics has an interesting response that involves setting the TVs in 'SCAM' mode to meet the energy criteria technically without having to add additional cost or increase costs to consumers. 'In this mode, the display brightness/contrast settings would be set a few clicks to the right of zero, audio would be disabled and backlighting would be set to minimum. The power consumption should be measured in this mode much like an A/V receiver power consumption is measured with one channel driven at full rated power and the other channels at 1/8th power.' This is an example of an impending train wreck of unintended consequences, and many are grabbing the popcorn and pulling up chairs to watch."
Hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey Sacramento - if I want a bigger television, I'll drive out of state to get it and you won't get any tax money out of it. Suckas!
Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want people to use less electricity charge more for it and use the tax to fund something good like public transit
Deckchairs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
New TVs, whether plasma or LCD, consume FAR less electricity than the old fashioned CRTs. My TV is one of the old ones, a 42 inch Trinitron that uses over 200 watts of energy, probably over four times as much as an LCD of the same size.
Maybe California should subsidize the purchase of new TVs for Californians who still use CRTs?
Why the uproar? (Score:4, Insightful)
Today, the Energy Star 3.0 spec limits active power consumption for a 32-inch HDTV to 120 watts; the impending Energy Star 4.0 spec, which goes into effect in May 2010, drops that to 78W; and the spec for Energy Star 5.0 (due in May 2012) is 55W. For a 50-inch set, the current Energy Star 3.0 spec limits power consumption to 353W; for Energy Star 4, that drops to 153W; and for Energy Star 5.0, that drops to 108W.
The mandatory Tier 1 CEC spec for 2011 says a 32-inch HDTV's maximum power consumption must be no more than 116W for a 32-inch model; the Tier 2 spec for 2013 drops that to 75W--higher than the Energy Star 5.0 spec, which will be introduced six months earlier. For a 50-inch HDTV, the Tier 1 CEC spec will require the maximum power consumption to be at 245W; the Tier 2 CEC spec drops that to 153W.
Suicide State? (Score:1, Insightful)
California sure is hell bent on strangling itself in regulations. I don't get the mentality. I consider myself green because I don't even own a car and ride a bicycle, hence my carbon footprint is very low. But I'm not buying into the "Opus Dei" mentality that is the modern green movement: self-punishment in the name of mother earth, our new god, and we deserve to suffer (by we I mean all of you).
Re:Hooray! (Score:3, Insightful)
Virg
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to fix overpopulation is what we're doing. Encourage economic prosperity which in turn reduces the number of new children born. This method is already working in Europe and has always worked well in the United States.
The fewer people living in poverty, the less of an economic engine having lots of kids will provide and the problem will become underpopulation.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Malthusian, depopulate yourself.
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a question of technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why the uproar? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can anyone explain what the manufacturers are up in arms about?
Probably the expense of testing their products to prove they meet the regulations. Energy star is voluntary and probably less bureaucratic to get. To have to do it all over again to prove to a state that they meet the regs (even if it is just the time of a staffer to submit the paperwork) is viewed as a un-necessary expense. What if multiple states start doing this kind of thing? Pretty soon is a whole department of people needed to keep up with the paperwork. Which makes your TV more expensive.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I did say the disease is the life style of relentless consumption that we see nowadays in most of the industrialized world.
The biggest problem is that the pollution bill is footed by everyone in the planet. People buying (and throwing away) stuff should be forced to also pay for the pollution produced by the waste and manufacturing of the goods.
Kyoto was a first attempt at trying to get handle of that. It didn't go very far.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:3, Insightful)
The disease is overpopulation
[Citation needed]
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's overpopulation, per se. I think it is simply a matter of how much energy each human uses over their lifetime.
Think about it. Tribes in the forest use next to zero energy. They use rudimentary tools and what little carbon they create/release (breathing/fires) is easily absorbed by the environment.
The issue really is when you look to "civilized" society where we have cars (and all the manufacturing to make/sustain them), houses, "things", and simple energy usage to power tv's and other electronics.
Humans in the forest live just fine. At least in the sense of being born, living a happy contributing life (at least to their tribe), procreating and then passing on. The rest of us basically do the same thing, but we fill every gap in between with "things" to make life "better".
I'm no tree hugger and frankly I love my computer, tv, house, car, etc, etc, etc. I don't want to give up those things for a loincloth and a hut in the Amazon. But that is our basic problem as a species. We soak up so much more than we need to survive.
What can we do about it? Well, now we can't shut the box we've opened for ourselves. We can't just ask everyone to turn off everything, stop manufacturing anything besides huts/basic tools and start living as the natives do. We just can't go back now.
So now we're stuck finding a technological solution to a technological problem. We have things and we now need more things to fix the damage our current things are doing. Is this possible? I have no idea. Frankly, if we find some technological, easy, cheap way to create energy to reduce our footprint, I'd argue we'll just take advantage of it and make more things for ourselves and use more energy. No matter how much energy we make, I can guarantee you we'll, as a species, find a way to use it until we need more.
I have a feeling, we'll never "fix" our basic issues. We will never have a clean planet. We'll find a way to fix the current problem enough to keep living and then we'll do it again, and again. I hope I'm wrong, however.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:2, Insightful)
We, in the US to use an often cited stat, use 25% of the World's oil - and we're what? 4% of the World's population?
The reason why the consumption around the World is increasing is because people in developing countries want to live like US. If 300 million people are using 25% of the oil, then that would mean that only 1.2 billion can use oil like we do.
I say, we here in the USofA lead by example. If folks want to live like US, let's show them how to live.
Re:Article is BS... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who this hurts is those who have bet on Plasma technology, as plasma can effectively not meet these requirements, but plasma is dying anyway, as LCD screens keep getting bigger and faster reacting while being cheaper than plasma TVs.
You can pry my plasma from my cold dead hands, because I appreciate things like dark blacks, bright whites, color fidelity and blur free motion. LCDs are a lot better than they were at these things, but 1000:1 contrast (DNC is a lie) is still a deal breaker.
I gladly pay for every watt that my plasma draws, so if you think that I'm not paying my fair share, I invite you to find a rate that you think is more fair (of course, remember that you'll have to pay that rate for your fridge too -- a KWH is the same irrespective of what use). Moreover, my energy use is median for my area, so I'm not using more than my neighbor even if my TV uses more than his TV -- I save energy in other ways.
Finally, I have no problem driving up to Oregon (bonus: no sales tax) to buy my next TV. It's quite ironic that a measure intended to cut energy use would encourage such insanely wasteful behavior -- TV energy use pales in comparison to a few hundred miles on my (30mpg) vehicle.
Re:Hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
It was well said already, I do not repeat:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1451590&op=Reply&threshold=2&commentsort=0&mode=nested&pid=30172042 [slashdot.org]
What is fascinating is how these discussions so soon turn towards political drivel. I am genuinely interested in finding out what makes people behave in such irrational manner. Lack of logic? Anchoring to a view and incapable of admitting the mistake?
- TV size is not regulated, power consumption is.
- The household energy use issue is real for CA. Remember the rolling blackouts?
- Legislation often happens in parallel. Homework assignment: how many laws they pass in a year? Would you want them to do it one at a time in order of importance?
Having said the last one, I also think some issues are just distraction, for sure.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is that the default response to someone claiming overpopulation? Just don't have 5 fucking kids and we'll be ok in a few generations.
Re:Why the uproar? (Score:5, Insightful)
What manufacturers are really worried about has nothing to do with the content of these specific regulations.
They're concerned about the possibility that individual states can have separate regulatory frameworks from the government. In that case, they'd be obliged to do testing and demonstrate that their products satisfy the regulations of every state in the Union that passed regulations. Theoretically they could just make sure they satisfy the most stringent of the state regulations, but if the regulations conflict, that's a problem; if different regulations emphasize different aspects, that's a problem. If CA mandates that televisions use less than 200 KW, and NY mandates that their manufacturing process not contain any Insidium-A, both those regulations may be achievable individually, but you may not be able to make an energy-efficient TV without Insidium-A, and now the megacorps lose the economies of scale that let them crush any smaller competition. (Though to be fair, it would be kind of a headache to keep track of all that, which was sort of the idea behind the Interstate Commerce Clause to begin with).
I don't think it's a terrible thing, particularly when the regulations aren't onerous and no other state really does this -- CA is large enough that it deserves to be its own state (in the poli-sci sense) anyway -- and the manufacturers, like all big businesses, have an immediate knee-jerk reaction against any kind of regulation. But I can see how the precedent might not be pleasing to manufacturers.
Re:What is more important (Score:2, Insightful)
California is just hedging it's bets against manufacturers lobbying Congress and buying enough of them to get the 2011 regulations pushed back to 2013. They did the same thing with car emissions. They'd sign on to the government plan, but the fed's would always move the goal posts at the last minute. So, California just started creating their own regulations in-line with the federal standards they agree with, and then holding tight to them. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
More tempest in a teapot so that certain self-righteous individuals can get all worked about nothing and feel good about themselves.
Hello!? - how much more regulation can you have? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really!? Regulate the size of your TV?
How about how many doughnuts you can eat in a day? I'm sure fat people generate more co2 than a thin person. Plus they radiate more heat. Should we regulate that? How about a government controlled bedtime? If everyone was forced to go to bed at sundown we could save lots of energy.
Um.... toilet paper rationing? Do you really need more than a square per squat? (except fat people who would be TAXED for additional squares)
Water conservation! -regulate the number of showers per week!
Seriously, how much government are we (THE PEOPLE) going to allow?
Re:Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
No, because Californians live in a statewide, narcissistic reality-distortion field where they use referendums to increase services yet limit what they pay in taxes. The politicians are limited in what they can do.
Not illegal at all (Score:2, Insightful)
California already has stricter emissions requirements on cars than other states. Just try and license a car you bought in another state in CA and you will discocer it has to be retrofitted to meet CA emissions standards.
Re:Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Even people who are just trying to use it to run some basic necessities.
Why does the final use of the power matter when charging for it? The power plant and grid are use agnostic. A KWH is a KWH and is just as expensive to deliver whether it powers a massage chair or a insulin pump.
I do support tiered usage -- first 500KWH for the month at one rate, the rest at a higher rate but that doesn't really correlate with usage. I use the median amount of power for my area but a huge proportion goes to technological gizmos and very little to necessities.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:2, Insightful)
There isn't enough land to go back to living a hunter gatherer lifestyle (or even a long-rotation agriculture lifestyle, or probably, any sort of pre-steam machine agriculture).
So there are too many people to do that, regardless of the willingness of those people to live that lifestyle.
Re:Idiotic bureaucrats (Score:3, Insightful)
This is idiotic; what would stop someone from driving to AZ, NV or Oregon and buy a TV from another state?
Well, given that the two largest population centers (SF Bay, LA) are not a 20 minute drive to the border, how much money would be saved driving out of state? The cost of gas to drive to and from the border would outweigh the savings on a cheaper, less-efficient set. On top of that, the energy bill for the TV will be higher over its lifetime. If you are going to be buying a huge TV, then you'll need an SUV or a big truck, and that doesn't sound like a cheap tank of gas.
Re:Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problem legalizing illegal immigrants provided they teach their children English and assimilate into our culture. I don't want an underclass of people in this country separated by language who can be exploited by unscrupulous businesses into low wages and forced into perpetual lower class hell.
If we just legalize them and don't expect them to assimilate it will be bad for their offspring in the long run. Their offspring may as well have been born in the country their parent came from as they face the same hardships all over again. It may seem mean to tell them they need to assimilate, but in the long run it best way for them to reach the American dream.
Unless the goal of the power hungry elites it to create a lower class of language divided peoples to do grunt work, I have a word for that, it is called slavery and I thought it was outlawed over 150 years ago.....
Re:Article is BS... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tax (Score:2, Insightful)
>>> everyone who has lived and worked in this country for a period of one year should become a citizen. As of now. Don't like it? Too bad - you shouldn't have bought things from stores that employ illegals, you shouldn't have used illegals to mow your lawn, you shouldn't have rented apartments to illegals.
>>>
Do I have a choice? There's no way for me to know if the Hispanic gentleman who helped me at JCpenney or Apple or Purdue are hiring illegals. I didn't see if he has a birth certificate or not. It's like the documentary "Food Inc" pointed out: Don't arrest just the workers... also arrest the people in HR who are hiring non-citizens. THEY should be the ones that get arrested, but too many times nothing happens to HR or the Board of Directors.
As for the issue of the actual illegals - Do you think people have a right to walk into your house, grab a spare room, and setup living quarters? No? Then neither do they have a right to enter a sovereign country without permission. My Japanese, Chinese, and Russian friends asked for an received permission to enter; so too should Mexicans and Canadians. Don't just bust in to private homes or homelands
Re:SCAM Mode Vs Vivid Mode (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is that people are far more likely to use the default settings than they are to ever change them.
part of the problem is the way that all the TVs are displayed right next to each other in the stores. The ones that people naturally gravitate towards are the ones with the brightest picture, and the absurdly over-saturated colors. Most people don't even notice the fact that on those sets you can't differentiate between total black and a shadow, or between off-white and bright white. Bigger is better; more buzzwords are better, cheaper is better.
Disclaimer: I'm currently running a Panasonic Viera V10 (50" plasma) because I'm a snob when it comes to picture quality. I frequently use the TV instead of my computer monitor for my digital painting projects because the colors are better. I've tried using LCD televisions for the same projects and I can't stand them because they won't display subdued colors no matter what mode you put them into.
TL;DR Yes, the backlights (especially on LCD) are way too bright, and the saturation is up way too high. Yes this wastes a ton of energy. Consumers are unlikely to change it from the default settings, because average consumer thinks brighter + more saturated = better.
Re:Just cut us off already (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Well silly, don't you know that most politicians steal from Peter to buy Paul's vote? If they had to cut, you know, spending and stuff, then they would not be able to live off the public dole for their entire lives.
The only way to get this situation fixed, is the stop voting for people promising things like free healthcare, welfare and benefits for people who are perfectly capable of otherwise having a job and earning money.
And stop taxing people into leaving California for other less regressive tax states, like Texas.
In this budget crisis, it is interesting to see the states in the biggest mess financially are the ones with the highest taxes.
But the liberal progressives scream bloody murder every time their pet government project is cut. They just don't get it.
And the wimpy conservatives are unable to counter the "grandma on dog food" crap that the liberal progressives love to spew.
Next time you hear "Think of the Children" crap, whether it is from an (R) [porn/crime] or (D) [starving/homeless], tell them to STFU and address the real problems, and not politically expedient anecdotal cases.
Aliens on our planet? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Trying to save the planet (Score:5, Insightful)
Half true, but you ignore one important historical fact...
From the early 1900s until the 1960s, "energy" cost a pittance and no one worried about emissions. You can see the consequences of this in home designs from that period - They leak like a sieve because, well, "just burn more oil". Older heating systems (including wood) have insane particulate outputs, simply because no one cared. If you compare almost identical houses built in the 60s vs the 80s (and not substantially renovated since), you'll find that the former has literally 2-3 times the HVAC costs of the latter.
Thus the DoE's big push to get people to do those energy saving renovations... Get better insulation, get better HVAC systems, get double-glazed low-E windows, and they'll pay people to do this because it literally pays itself back to the US economy within a year or two (it also pays itself back to the homeowner, but most people can't afford to blow $10k on replacing all their windows without some sort of incentive).
We need to start rolling out more sensible power generation facilities.
I agree with you completely that we desperately need to solve our dirty and nonrenewable generation issues... But these form two sides of the same coin. If we can at least hold our energy use constant for 20 years, we can slowly replace older capacity with cleaner sources. If we keep using more and more and more, we might add in renewable capacity but we'll just end up keeping 80YO coal plants online despite the "improvements".
Nothing wrong with pruning your your orchard for a better harvest next year, but don't ignore the existing low-hanging fruit you already have.
Just SOP for California, learn to love it. (Score:5, Insightful)
California is basically the only reason we have efficient washers and dryers, wallwarts with switching power supplies instead of transformers, consumer electronic devices which actually have low power modes, and vehicle requirements that vastly improve safety and mileage over federal standards. It has all been beneficial in reducing per-capita energy consumption (and water consumption too when it comes to washing machines).
The problem the U.S. has is that most people can't see beyond the end of their nose when it comes to shaping policy. It's really unfortunate that the Feds can't get their act together and it takes action by a state like CA to actually get something done. It's doubly unfortunate that CA regulations designed to give industries upwards of a decade to make changes aren't allowed to take effect until the very last minute by idiot politicians who think they are doing industry a favor when all they are really doing is making our industry non-competitive with other countries and creating massive shocks to the system that are totally unnecessary.
-Matt
Re:Trying to save the planet (Score:3, Insightful)
It's cheaper to save a watt of power than to generate another watt of power.
Utter nonsense. You ignore what that watt of power is doing. It has benefits in addition to the costs. Otherwise, the logical extreme is simply don't produce power at all and "save" a lot of money.
So you start with making things as efficient as possible, and look at additional generation as a last resort.
How about you start with real problems instead of imaginary ones? There's no problem with power consumption. Hence, no need to do anything about it.
Re:Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, in the United States of America, it is and has been the dominate language. It is a requirement to show some proficiency in English in order to become a US citizen. If you want to move well within our society here in the states, you need to be able to at least be able to speak and understand English. It is our official unofficial language (why the hell can't they just codify this and end all arguments?). It is good to have a common language for our country, so that we ARE more one people, we are supposed to be the great melting pot, and that starts with common language. Since the majority speak/read English currently in the US, why don't we stick with that instead of trying to teach everyone Spanish?
I put the States above in bold to emphasize an answer to part of your question (by the way, isn't it Puerto Rico?), in that no I don't guess it should be mandated there, since it is not a real state, I'd only mandate it for the true 50 states, but, if you are a US territory, it would bode well to learn English for sure.
Re:Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I used to think this to be too radical to rationally consider in the past, but, the more I think of it, especially in terms of what you mentioned, perhaps it is time to change the laws to prohibit those on the dole from voting. I'd heard it put forth something to the effect of, that a democracy (I know, we're a republic) will only last until the general populace learns to vote itself money from the public coffers. And, I sort of see that here in the US today.
From what I understand, approx. 50% of the people in the US, don't pay federal taxes. And yet, we see more and more, that the politicians are constantly pandering to this class of people, promising them more entitlements...a free ride on society on the backs of those that work hard, innovate and try to earn and grow wealth.
Perhaps it IS time to look into this being a reasonable method to put control back in the hands of people who contribute to society. If you don't pay taxes, and are on welfare/, you don't get to vote. Maybe only working tax payers should be the ones that vote so that policies affecting the money they put into government, are in their best interest.
It might also give incentive to more people to start working.
Fradulent Summay (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone, please read the article. The summary is a deliberate prevarication (three dollar word for "lie"). There is no plan or proposal to " target your big-screen TVs for elimination". Under the proposed California regulations anyone can sell or buy and size TV they like now and in the future. In fact the proposed regulations are unremarkable: they are essentially the same as the voluntary Energy Star program, considered to be well within reach by the industry. The CEC mandate simply makes them mandatory instead of voluntary. The better TV manufacturers (e.g. Visio) are in full compliance, and fully support both the standards, and making them mandatory. The only whiners here are companies that wish to hawk cheap inefficient TVs, and ideologues who feel that any government regulation is inherently evil in principle.
Re:Hooray! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hey Sacramento - if I want a bigger television, I'll drive out of state to get it and you won't get any tax money out of it. Sucka"
You want to break the tax code, good for you. Most people aren't going to spend the time and money to drive to another state and get a TV.
Plus that won't matter since all TV'x will be built to meet CA standards.
Of course, modern LED TV's already meat the standard, but you go on a ignorantly pound your meat hooks against your keyboard in a futile attempt at making some sort of coherent point.
Re:Deckchairs? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a difference between prosperous in terms of GDP and prosperous in terms of having an empowered middle class. You can have a country with a staggering GDP yet a massive, poverty-stricken underclass and serious quality-of-life problems simply by balancing it with a few obscenely rich folks.
Re:Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
In case you didn't notice, the entire country has a budget shortfall, and it's a hell of a lot larger per capita than California's. The US has a projected deficit this FY of $1.4 trillion, and a population of about 304 million, or about $4600 per person. California has a projected deficit of $21 billion, and a population of about 36.7 million, or about $570 per person. As another poster pointed out, it is very consistently the "liberal tax and spend" states (including CA) which prop up the "conservative small government" states by contributing far more to federal revenues than they receive. All the red state self-proclaimed rugged individualists are sucking at the government teat. Fair warning: sooner or later those of us who pay the bills will get tired of it.