¦^WsT ENERGY STAR Information to Facilitate Discussion of How to Address Removable Media Players /Recorders (DVD) Under the Version 2.0 ENERGY STAR® Set Top box Specification Removable Media Players/Recorders (DVD) DVD players and recorders that include an over the air (OTA) tuner are covered under the draft Set-top Box specification.1 DVD players and recorders that do not include a tuner are not covered. A stakeholder has raised a concern that some DVD products (i.e., those that include tuners) could qualify both under the STB specification and the ENERGY STAR Audio and DVD specification.2 EPA seeks stakeholder feedback on the option presented below to clarify this qualification issue, and other ideas that stakeholders may have. As discussed below, EPA believes that exempting products that fall under the current Audio and DVD specification from the STB specification may be the best approach for the near term. Background DVD products with OTA tuners have been included in draft STB specifications to date for the following reasons: o Including OTA tuners follows the STB definition and categorization scheme used in standards CEA-2022 and CSA-C380-06. o Including DVD products with OTA tuners in the STB specification would be timely given the planned transition to all digital terrestrial transmission in early 2009. o The proposed Total Energy Consumption (TEC) criterion for DVD products with OTA tuners goes beyond the Standby only criterion under the Audio and DVD specification. DVD definition per the Audio and DVD specification: o A commercially-available electronic product encased in a single housing whose intended purpose is the production or recording of digitized video signals on a spinning reflective disc media. DVD definition per draft STB specification. o Digital Video Recorder (DVR): A device that records video in a digital format to a rewritable disk drive or other non-volatile storage media local to the unit. The term covers DVR functions integrated in a STB; it does not include software for personal computers that enables video capture and playback to and from the computer's data storage nor does it include server based DVR capabilities. o Note also "All STB types can come as stand-alone tuners or as part of a larger device with other tuners and/or secondary functions such as, but not limited to, DVR and DVD playback/recording." 1 The latest draft is ENERGY STAR® Program Requirements for Set-top Boxes DRAFT 2 October 5, 2007 2 ENERGY STAR® Program Requirements for Consumer Audio and DVD Products - Version 2.0 ------- Proposal To Address Removable Media Players/Recorders Exempt products that can qualify under the Audio and DVD specification o In Section 2 - Qualifying Products, products that qualify under the ENERGY STAR Audio and DVD specification would be added to the Tier 1 exemption as follows: 2) Qualifying Products: In order to qualify as ENERGY STAR under Tier 1 of this specification, STBs must meet the definition for these products in Section 1 and meet the technical requirements in Section 3. The following devices that fall within the definition of an STB, or provide functions similar to STBs, do not qualify under this Tier 1 specification. EPA envisions that the below list of excluded products list will likely be modified for the Tier 2 phase of this specification: Tier 1 Excluded Products: • Game Consoles (See definition above) • DTAs (See definition above) • IP set-top boxes sold or provided outside of a dedicated service or service contract. ~ • Products that qualify under the ENERGY STAR® Program Requirements for Consumer Audio and DVD Products o EPA expects that a majority of products covered by the exemption will be DVD Recorders that feature an OTA tuner. o EPA expects that all models covered by the exemption will be sold at retail and will not have a digital cable or satellite tuner. o Based on initial review, EPA believes this is the best way to address the potential for DVD products to qualify under two separate ENERGY STAR specifications during the STB Tier 1 time frame. o OTA tuners in DVD products may be addressed in any future revision of the Audio and DVD specification, or integrated as part of Tier 2 of the STB specification. ------- |