Brown bids Goodby to Standby

A World of Digital reports that Among Gordon Brown's many laudable ideas to tackle climate change this week was a proposal to phase out standby buttons for genuine 'off' buttons on home electronics. But should we abandon standby?

Mr Brown told the BBC: "I know the British people want to do the right thing. We've got to help make it possible. If you take the home - by first eliminating standby, which is wasteful of electricity."

But the questions are: Would eliminating standby really help? And how does this join up with thinking about Digital Switch?

Paul Fellows, MD of set-top box maker TVonics, said: "The proposal is practical for TV’s since it is obvious when they are switched on and they perform no useful function in standby mode. However other equipment such as personal video recorders or video cassette recorders do need to be on standby to record programmes.

"Removing the standby button from equipment which works silently in the background such as PVRs, VCRs and DVD players may actually increase carbon emissions since consumers rather than going through the ‘hassle factor’ of switching off completely and perhaps running the risk of missing their favourite TV programmes will just leave them turned on fully all of the time.

"Manufacturers have a duty to build ‘smart software’ into their products to minimise power consumption. Consumers should keep an eye on the power consumption of electronic products – this will not only save them money, it will also help the environment."