The Energy Saved By Ditching DVDs Could Power 200,000 Homes

Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The environmental benefits of streaming a movie (or downloading it) rather than purchasing a DVD are staggering, according to a new U.S. government study by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. If all DVDs purchased in 2011 were streamed instead, the energy savings would have been enough to meet the electricity demands of roughly 200,000 households. It would have cut roughly 2 billion kilograms of carbon emissions. According to the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, even when you take into account cloud storage, data servers, the streaming device, streaming uses much less energy than purchasing a DVD. If, like me, you're thinking, 'who buys DVDs anymore, anyways?', the answer is 'a lot of people.'" The linked paper is all there, too — not just an abstract and a paywall.

Comments

Hard copy

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you're unable to read the study online, you can order a paper copy.

Energy cost of DRM?

[maxwell demon]

Did they also calculate how much energy would be saved if we would not waste processor power on DRM decoding?

Don't Worry, We Spent All the Energy Already

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> If all DVDs purchased in 2011 were streamed instead, the energy savings would have been enough to meet the electricity demands of roughly 200,000 households.

Or, if you're like my family, the energy "saved" from spinning up DVDs on two different TVs has now gone into a more powerful wireless router (to support better streaming), bigger TVs (bought with money saved from cancelling cable), a digital antenna booster (so we can watch HD network TV without cable), and personal tablets that none my three kids had in 2011.

False comparison

[QuietLagoon]

Apples and oranges comparison.

.
When I buy a DVD, I own that DVD. That is why I buy DVDs. I don't want some DRM server somewhere suddenly saying that I cannot stream a movie I purchased.

Now if streaming allowed me to purchase and keep a copy free of DRM, then I'd be interested.

But so long as there is DRM, I'll continue buying DVDs.

DVD still have use.

[PhotoJim]

I still buy physical DVDs - primarily because they are passively archival and don't depend on me a) having connectivity or b) having my server nearby. I view programming at some locations (like my cottage) where it's easier to bring a few DVDs than it is to copy a bunch of data onto a hard disk and then connect a computer to the television.

I also wonder if the energy consumption considers the issues of ramped-up Internet infrastructure and server capacity required to store, back up and stream the content. This isn't free and isn't emission-neutral. High-def (e.g. Blu-Ray) content is even moreso whereas the cost of a Blu-Ray disc versus DVD is actually almost trivial. Once you own the Blu-Ray player, you're done except for the marginal two or three dollar cost for the higher definition media.

Re:Nice try cloud guys

[Zeromous]

As someone who has spent the last decade virtualizing anything with a power supply that wasn't critical, you would be astounded as to the savings from yes, *gasp* running apps in the 'cloud'.

It just doesn't mean what YOU think it means.

The cloud isn't just a hosted application that moves seamlessly around a cluster. It can be a head on a cluster, that hosts an application and save thousands of KW a year and you the end user wouldn't know the difference. It's a direct analog to the idea of ditching DVDs. Move the application where the backing resources can be shared, and managed remotely and you will save carbon.

It's the energy cost of the drive

[Geoffrey.landis]

If you read the article in detail, the energy cost for a DVD rented or purchased by mail is pretty much identical to that of one streamed (figure 4.)

The purported energy cost difference between DVD and streaming is entirely due to the fact that they assume you drive to the store to buy or rent the DVD. (In fact, there is actually a tiny bit more carbon emitted if you stream instead of rent or buy by mail, if you look at the right image on figure 4).

I assume if you buy or rent from a store you're going to visit anyway, this differnce vanishes

Re:It's the energy cost of the drive

[Grishnakh]

That 50% assumption is stupid. You can't stream the food items or other things you buy while you're at that store. So you need to go to the store anyway, DVD or not.

Re:It's the energy cost of the drive

[David_Hart]

I assume if you buy or rent from a store you're going to visit anyway, this difference vanishes

They accounted for that, only 50% of the trip is assumed to be for the DVD.

You could cycle or walk to the store.

I rent or buy Blu-ray, not DVD. I do stream every so often. However, the local Redbox, which is within walking distance, is cheaper. I did have Netflix for a while, but they suck for new movies so I dropped them.

I'm willing to bet that the energy use would reverse if they did the same study using Blu-ray quality bit-rates. The energy used to go to the store to rent would end up being the same (possibly lowed due to higher fuel efficiency) but the streaming energy cost would increase due to the higher amount of data being stored, streamed, etc.

Environmental benefits staggering?

[Jmc23]

Not quite. The only difference seen is with people driving cars to purchase the dvd.

So all of the 'environmental benefits' boil down to the assumptions they make about those purchases.

Perhaps it's just me, but I would lean more towards people already being at a store/mall for another purpose and picking up the dvd as an impulse buy. Non-impulse buys of dvd would seem to more logically take place over the internet.

Re:Environmental benefits staggering?

[pla]

Not quite. The only difference seen is with people driving cars to purchase the dvd.

This - THANK you, someone on Slashdot knows how to read! Hell, you don't even need to read, just look at the pretty chart.

Physically dragging yourself to the store, just for the purpose of buying or renting a single DVD comes out to more energy used. Every other scenario comes out to less energy, including buying it and having it mailed to you. And if you ignore the salmon-colored portion of each bar (the part that goes toward driving) because, for example, you bought a DVD while out and already at the store getting other stuff... Store-bought would actually come out as the most efficient.

More suspiciously, I find it odd that they dropped the "client device operation" energy consumption by over half for streaming. I don't know about you, but my USB-powered DVD drive draws under 2.5W; My TV draws 80-90W. I'd love to ask the authors what part of streaming magically makes my TV 20x more energy efficient.

"This info-tisement brought to you by Netflix and Blockbuster, who really wish you'd quit insisting we stock all these damned physical discs; and by the MPAA, who would like to remind you that you only license the contents of your DVDs, they can still revoke that license any time they want."

..and the drawbacks just as bad

[epyT-R]

1. no control over purchase as it can be revoked at any time for any reason.
2. even the best internet streams hitch, lag, and drop frames.
3. complexity: the majority of nontechnical people understand the concept of placing a disk in a tray and hitting play.
4. value proposition. I won't pay $20 for a movie I can't really own.

Still buying DVDs here

[cpghost]

I'm still buying DVDs, because

• they are a good archival media
• they are multilingual
• they play everywhere, thanks region-free DVD players
• they are not DRM-infested like BluRay (thanks DeCSS!)
• they are faster to get than to download, esp. box sets of series
• they are always available, and can't be revoked or disabled by some anonymous entity

Re:Nice try cloud guys

[wagnerrp]

All "clouds" must be over the internet. The whole point of "the cloud" is that it is located remotely, on someone else's hardware, managed by someone else's IT staff. Elsewise, it's nothing more than the same data center you had a decade ago.

BS meter pegged

[frovingslosh]

Looks like some special interests are trying to strike another blow against people actually owning the movies that they buy. Lets list some other benefits: You don't get to watch the disc again, or lend it to a friend. And if you do watch it again on-line, you can completely ignore any costs involved (because that's what the research did). You're not distracted by the extra content included on DVDs. The lower quality streaming video is perfectly fine for you. You're completely freed from the "right of first sale' and will never have to concern yourself with selling or trading old DVDs that you have. And those nice people at your ISP who have started capping your service and who will charge outrageous overages if you happen to exceed your monthly quota will gladly forgive your overage if you explain how you were downloading or streaming for the sake of the planet (wouldn't you, AT&T?)