ECO-FRIENDLY CABLES AND OTHER IDEAS FOR A GREENER HOME THEATER

Eco-friendly cables. Low power displays. LED lighting. Put these three improvements on your list for creating a greener home theater.

As awareness of the global climate crisis increases, conscientious consumers are looking for new and creative ways to reduce the environmental impact of their homes while still enjoying the best home theater system possible. Enthusiasts need not be left out of this movement, as there are a number of home theater ideas—from the best HDMI cables, to the best displays, to the best lighting choices—for creating a perfect home entertainment refuge while remaining sensitive to environmental concerns.



Something you might not immediately consider when 'greening' your home theater are the accessories: things like eco-friendly cables. Why eco-friendly cables? Home theater technologies move fast. In just the past ten years, a typical home theater might have progressed from RCA cables, to S-Video cables, to component video cables, to HDMI cables. What happened to the first three sets of cables? What happened to the packaging that those cables came in? They're probably sitting in a landfill somewhere, along with an EPA-estimated 2 million tons of other electronics discarded by American consumers annually. As those discarded electronics break down, any harmful chemicals they might contain are released into the ground, contaminating landfills.

This reviewer recently discovered the most eco-friendly cables to address these issues are from a new company called Torrent. Their HDMI cables and component video cables offer great performance and quality, while containing no harmful substances. I wish more companies would follow suit.

Fortunately, international regulations are forcing manufacturers to produce less-toxic products. RoHS stands for Reduction of Harmful Substances, and is a mandate of the European Commission which limits the acceptable levels of substances like mercury, lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and a range of flame retardants. Any electronics product released for sale in the European Union after July 1, 2006 must meet this standard, and so thanks to a global consumer electronics market, a number of compliant home theater options are available even in countries that do not mandate RoHS compliance.



One of the most profound changes in reducing home theaters. energy use was the industry-wide shift from CRT (cathode ray tube) televisions to projection, plasma, and LCD screen technology. Besides being incredibly bulky, heavy, and requiring frequent calibration, home theater-sized tube televisions used up to 30% more energy than similar-sized LCD or plasma television. In high end home theaters, projection systems can use as little as half the energy of a large CRT while producing a picture several times larger.

Once a home theater has a modern display, there's still work to do. Newer displays often come with a standby mode which enables them to be turned on quickly. Unfortunately, this standby mode uses significant amounts of power, sometimes even negating the energy savings relative to a CRT. To further reduce your display's power consumption, I recommend consumer purchase a third party device such as the Smart Strip, which cuts 100% of devices' power when turned off, effectively disabling this standby mode.



The easiest and most common change homeowners are making to reduce their power consumption comes from switching traditional incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent equivalents. However, because compact fluorescent lights cannot be effectively dimmed, they may be ruled out for the time being for home theater use. Traditional incandescent lights produce a familiar and easily dimmable glow, but at the expense of high energy use and a great deal of heat generated for the amount of light given off. Home theater enthusiasts currently have two excellent options. On the lower end of the price spectrum we find halogen bulbs. Halogen bulbs are incandescent bulbs filled with halogen, creating up to 30% more light with the same energy usage. For those with larger home theater budgets, LED lighting offers the ultimate theater experience - dimmable, programmable lights that use a fraction of the energy of incandescent, halogen, and even compact fluorescents. There is a growing list of LED lighting products from which to choose. I'm impressed with the products coming from another up-and-coming company called EcoSense.



As you can see, there are a number of exciting options available to consumers at a wide range of price points for ensuring that their home theater design plans fit in with an environmentally conscious home. Many products feature reduced energy consumption, as well as reduced or eliminated usage of harmful substances.

Another thing to keep an eye out for are products that use recycled and recyclable materials in their product packaging. Packaging can account for over 60% of the volume and 15% of the mass of an electronics product, and so should not be overlooked as a result. Torrent, Smart Strip, and EcoSense all offer environmentally friendly packaging as well as environmentally friendly products.

With some careful research and purchasing decisions, your home theater can be green - even in the dark.