hey, i just thought id bring up the idea of creating a remote control for a tv which turns the tv off completly instead of just going onto standby.

the reason i thought of this is because when its late at nite and you crawl into bed to watch a film and ur really tired when it ends and u just want to roll over and go to sleep cos your so compfy but you cant because you have to get up to press the power button, because if you leave it on standby it is supposed to cost more than actually watching the tv. its hard when uve got a big tv at the other side of the room so you cant reach it.

sorry im abit of a lazy bast@rd,lol

anyone else have this problem?

cheers, tom

yeh that would be sweet. how about getting a timer switch for the power or something? Could set it turn to turn off after its finished.

I saw a program the other day, where someone got 2 televisions for the bedroom.
1 each side of the bed, so that he could watch tv which ever side he was sleeping on.

Yeah me too, but I have the wife!

If shes asleep I have this length of bamboo.................

Don't worry about the cost though. Your TV doesn't use more electricity in stand-by. Its considerably less. See this.
You may have heard or read the piece about TVs on stand-by use more electricity nationwide. Thats because - though I don't know the exact figures - TVs may be on stand-by for 80% of the time!

StereRowe
Last edited by StereRowe : 15-09-2004 at 21:10

I 've got a vcr and tv with timers on so thats as good as i want it . I noticed that my pc completely powers down , the monitor as well so it shouldn't be difficult to have tvs etc do it too.
I suggest a multiplug with a timer would be the answer to your problem. See at maplin.co for one

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lol, thats a right idea, but that is lazy

cheers, tom

Make sure that if you are using a TV with a Timer plug that you don't let the plug switch it back on. I was told by my electronics teacher back at school (ten years ago), when I considered doing the same, that there will be a small amount of damage from an electrical surge. This will build up over time and cause the tv to fail possibly years earlier than otherwise. Best advice, always physically switch the tv off with the button before turning the mains back on.

Here's another lazy trick,
I've just got my eyetoy webcam working on the PC. The PC is only a 333mhz, so can't run a tv card, instead I pointed the web cam at the television and have the output running in the corner of the computer screen. Now I don't have to turn 45 degrees to my left to watch the tv.

I have better things to do in bed than watch TV.

What a fool, being too lazy to turn your TV off at the push button on the front, poses a big fire risk. I have heard of many TV's catching on fire, through them being left on stand-by and over heating.

As an electronics engineer of 20+ years I have say the risks are so small as to not really be worth mention. Do you switch your fridge and freezer off at night as well, just in case? The risks are the same.

You never hear of fridges and freezers catching fire though.

I'm sure they do from time to time.

What? you can't do both?

A modern small TV probably uses less energy overnight on standby than it takes to get up and switch it off and on!
Re: Fire risk, The only real risk is during an electrical storm when you should unplug and disconnect the aerial. (& don't sit there with your tongue on the end!)
The most common cause of a TV fire is the mains switch overheating.
Allways go to standby first before using the switch or socket switch in order to reduce the load on the TV switch.
A timer switch will make no difference to the load the TV draws or cause any surge when it turns ON (this is just the same as plugging it in) - if the timer disconnects the TV when it's ON it will produce a back EMF and cause the PSU and main switch to 'take a hit' - once again in standby this is greatly reduced.

Standby on most TV's reduce your CRT tubes life span, so setting you TV to go into standby then having a mains timer to switch off your TV should be a better idea than left all night on standby. I would press the power switch to off the following morning and up plug the set. In the instructions on my Panasonic TV it says that the TV is on just by being plugged in. This I suspect is due to the 7 Day EPG timer system.