Standby Product Profile - Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs)

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Please note: This publication is simply an historical document as work is currently underway to regulate all home entertainment equipment.

Background

In 2002, the Ministerial Council on Energy released "Money isn't all you're saving" a long-term strategy to address excessive standby energy used by consumer appliances and equipment. This strategy is also known as the "1 Watt" standby power plan.

Summary

This standby product profile covers Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs). VCRs are formally known as Video Cassette Recorders. In Australia, this means a conventional VHS video cassette recorder which uses the PAL broadcast system. Typically a VCR both converts a signal off a tape enabling a television to transmit audiovisual images as well as recording television transmissions for later playback. The advent of the VCR allowed viewers to have control of when and what they could watch on their televisions.

This standby product profile for VCRs covers the following broad topics:

product description
current ownership and trends
relevant modes for the "1 Watt" standby power plan
known standby data for the product
greenhouse emissions
current overseas policies and trends for the product
proposed government target to meet the "1 Watt" standby power plan.

To support the preparation of this and other profiles, NAEEEC commissioned store surveys of products in major retail stores during 2001, 2002 and 2003 to collect standby measurements from a wide range of appliances and equipment. The results of these measurements are available in NAEEEC Report 2003/04.

Government Target

In accordance with the National Standby Strategy, NAEEEC intends to recommend to the Ministerial Council on Energy an 'interim' target. The purpose of which is to provide governments with confidence that Australian products will meet the ultimate target, of one watt in 2012. If the 'interim' target is not met in the specified year, government will commence dialogue with industry to explore other options, including the possibility of moving to Stage 2 mandatory measures. In addition, all VCRs will be required to "power down" to passive standby after a period of thirty minutes.

The interim target for 2006 is:

an off mode power of less than 1 Watt
a passive standby power consumption of less than 4 Watts
an automatic power down time of not more than 30 minutes

The ultimate target for 2012 is:

an off mode power of less than 0.3 Watt
a passive standby power consumption of less than 1 Watt
an automatic power down time of not more than 10 minutes

Government will announce whether this product should be targeted for stage two intervention under the National Standby Power Strategy (involving possible regulatory intervention) or whether the abovementioned actions together with industry intervention have been successful in meeting the target at the NAEEEC Forum in the year: 2007.

This page last modified 02 February 2009