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Response To California's Large-Screen TV Regulation
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."
It's about time the government focuses on real issues, like how big your television screen is. I mean, if California was facing one of the worst financial crises in history or something, it would be totally absurd theater meant to detract from the fact that our legislative body has failed us deplorably. But since California is in fine shape, with no farmers in the Central Valley going without water, without widespread corruption, brutality, and incarceration - well, there's no reason not to focus on such an important and substantial issue.
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!
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
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?
Free Martian Whores!
"In fact, by the time the first wave of CEC regulations enter into effect in 2011, Energy Star 4.0 will be in place."
"In short, the differences between the two are not dramatic--the CEC's requirements are ultimately not any more stringent than the Energy Star guidelines."
"According to its analysis, many popular HDTV models already meet the CEC's requirements for the year 2011, and some LED models--which have made a selling point of their energy efficiency--already meet the CEC's Tier 2 standard."
Stay calm, people. The Governator is not coming to steal your teevees.
Actually that's not funny. After all, the pigs already use infrared sensors to search homes without a warrant looking to bust up harmless pot farms. Maybe they'll add cool televisions to their targets when they invade our privies.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
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.
Maybe they'll add cool televisions to their targets when they invade our privies.
Why are they invading your toilets?
Trying to save the planet by reducing energy usage is like trying to save a river by not drinking.
We are not going back.
Reasonable reduction, recycling programs, and common sense are certainly part of the picture, but the answer to the energy problem will be a technological one. We need to start rolling out more sensible power generation facilities.
If we pretend we can get by on coal and making TVs dimmer, we will pollute the atmosphere to the point it can't support us.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
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.
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.
That's no longer permitted in the US.
(Apart from being a good ruling for civil liberties and privacy, Kyllo's also interesting for its strange 5-4 split: the majority, pro-civil-liberties, opinion is by Scalia, joined by Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I think nothing could be better for the people of California. Tell the Federal Empire which robs us blind, kills our young men, and embroils us in endless overseas conflict to get lost. California would save tens of billions a year not paying taxes to the Empire, which we could turn around and use on our own infrastructure and defense. We have the eighth largest economy on our own, we don't need the American albatross hanging around our neck.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
I see a business opportunity for folks willing to be a TV "mule" to smuggle big-screens into the state.
I don't think this would be as popular as you might think. I can only think of one person who would be capable of kiestering a 65-inch TV, and even he might be turned off by the sharp corners.
"If you want people to use less electricity charge" We all saw how well this worked when gas prices hit $4. People are not willing to drive less or even willing to drive sanely.
"Motorists drove 112 billion fewer miles during the 13-month period between November 1, 2007 and November 30, 2008 compared with the year-prior period, the U.S. Department of Transportation said"
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/22/news/economy/gas_use/?postversion=2009012215
Too many of the comments seem to come from Fox News viewers. All rant, no facts.
First, here are the actual regulations. All comments submitted (including e-mail rants) are on-line. Some of the better ones:
Other than Sony, most of the big players don't seem to have major problems with the requirements.
"The pigs?" What is this, 1967?
Do you call money "scratch" too?
California's problems are self created. They spend more than they take in, it's just that simple. Removing themselves from the union would just add additional costs for subsidies that they currently get at the federal level.
Their problems stem mostly from social services run amok and loss of tax income revenue. They have a huge illegal problem (some estimates as high as 10 percent of their workforce) according to a recent non-partisan study, where folks earn money, and then simply send it back to Mexico. Same on the health care front. They end up offering social services not only to tax payers, but to the large illegal population. They also spend millions on wasteful social services they simply can't afford. I found it odd that everyone was screaming when they put those services on the chopping block in order to get a budget that would pass muster. They simply don't realize that you can't spend what you don't have. They've been in that sort of spend cycle for years, and it finally came to a breaking point.
Public schools are a biggie. They actually tried to deny illegal children the right to attend public schools but a federal judge blocked that. The illegal population can collect welfare, as well as take advantage of health services all on the taxpayer dollar. Many of these are also avoiding taxes simply because they are paid cash for day labor. I'm generally about as left as you can go, but I have to stop short on giving a free ride to illegals. Unfortunately most border states suffer from the same issues.
Add on top of all that their tax system, which relies almost heavily on income taxes (over half of their budget money comes from this). Every time the economy tanks, so does their revenue.
They have a lot of problems that have to be addressed both in their taxation, and spending. Succeeding from the union won't fix them.
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.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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
>>>the entirety of the American people are helping to prop up this '8th largest economy'.
That's not really true. According to a study from 2005, for every dollar paid to the IRS in taxes, California only gets 81 cents back. If anything it's CA and other rich states (i.e. the northeast) that are propping-up the rest of the continent.
1. New Jersey ($0.62)
2. Connecticut ($0.64)
3. New Hampshire ($0.68)
-4. Nevada ($0.73)
5. Illinois ($0.77)
-6. Minnesota ($0.77)
-7. Colorado ($0.79)
8. Massachusetts ($0.79)
9. California ($0.81)
10. New York ($0.81)
-Why do these states get back so little? Surely Las Vegas, Denver, and Minneapolis/St Paul don't generate that much wealth? Also with military bases and parkland, I'd expect them to get lots of U.S. handouts.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall