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Solve : Video watching and battery life?

Answer» <html><body><p>I was planning on watching a movie on my laptop tonight and I am worried about my comp not having enough battery life. I was wondering what was more energy efficient: watching a movie on a dvd, ripping the movie to my hard drive and watching it or ripping it to a usb drive and watching it. I am running Windows Vista so I also plan to use ReadyBoost with either the same usb drive or another flash memory device I have. <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/thanks-665909" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about THANKS">THANKS</a> for any advice.mmm...I think running it from the flash drive would be most energy efficient.<br/><br/>Also:<br/><br/>A) Turn off wireless, B) turn screen brightness as low as is consistent with a 'good' viewing experience, C) don't use another Readyboost drive - will take <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/power-2475" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about POWER">POWER</a> and won't improve the movie viewing.<br/><br/>Good luck!Actually, watching it on the computer would be most energy efficient but I hope this wont be done illegally...  <br/><br/>The computer would have the use quite some power to use the Flash Drive but it would be useless if you can copy it from the flash drive to the HD.<br/><br/> Quote from: drmsucks on July 17, <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/2008-290075" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about 2008">2008</a>, 10:13:18 AM</p><blockquote>A) Turn off wireless, B) turn screen brightness as low as is consistent with a 'good' viewing experience, C) don't use another Readyboost drive - will take power and won't improve the movie viewing.<br/></blockquote> An external monitor/TV/ screen would save power too since it draws power from the mains. Quote from: Carbon Dudeoxide on July 18, 2008, 09:13:11 PM<blockquote>Actually, watching it on the computer would be most energy efficient but I hope this wont be done illegally...  <br/><br/>The computer would have the use quite some power to use the Flash Drive but it would be useless if you can copy it from the flash drive to the HD.<br/><br/> Quote from: drmsucks on July 17, 2008, 10:13:18 AM<blockquote>A) Turn off wireless, B) turn screen brightness as low as is consistent with a 'good' viewing experience, C) don't use another Readyboost drive - will take power and won't improve the movie viewing.<br/></blockquote> An external monitor/TV/ screen would save power too since it draws power from the mains.<br/></blockquote> <br/>Not sure that I understand your first points, but, with reference to the external monitor, yes, that would save power, he could turn off the laptop screen; but, he said that he wanted to watch the movie on his laptop. Quote<blockquote>Not sure that I understand your first points, </blockquote> <br/>In other words, why put it on your flash drive when you can put it on your hard disk?His original question was, which is more energy efficient, running the movie from: a) harddrive, b) DVD, or c) flash drive. <br/><br/>I answered that I thought the flash drive would be most efficient, i.e., use less power.<br/><br/>Do you think that running the harddrive requires less power that running a flash drive? Quote<blockquote>Do you think that running the harddrive requires less power that running a flash drive?</blockquote> If you don't run the hard drive, how do you run the OS? Quote from: Carbon Dudeoxide on July 18, 2008, 10:56:39 PM<blockquote> Quote<blockquote>Do you think that running the harddrive requires less power that running a flash drive?</blockquote> If you don't run the hard drive, how do you run the OS?<br/></blockquote> <br/>He is going to play a movie on his laptop. The harddrive will 'run' whether or not he 'plays' the movie from the harddrive or the flash drive. <br/><br/>The question becomes, "will the incremental power consumption from playing the movie from the harddrive be equal to, less than or more than the power required to play the movie from the flash drive?" I think that the <a href="https://interviewquestions.tuteehub.com/tag/answer-15557" style="font-weight:bold;" target="_blank" title="Click to know more about ANSWER">ANSWER</a> is: more than; therefore, the battery will last longer if he plays the movie from the flash drive.   <br/><br/>The HD is already being used so running a movie from the HD won't  increase the power usage. Watching from a flash drive means the computer has to supply power to the Flash Drive, right? Quote from: Carbon Dudeoxide on July 19, 2008, 11:07:52 AM<blockquote> <br/><br/>The HD is already being used so running a movie from the HD won't  increase the power usage. <br/></blockquote> <br/>Sounds like you think that harddrives consume a fixed amount of power regardless of the drive's activity. That is not the case; each read and write by the drive increases its power consumption over its consumption at idle.<br/><br/>To run the movie from the harddrive will require 'extra' reads from the harddrive to 'play' the movie, plus any extra harddrive activity due to Windows increased 'maintenance' because of playing the movie. The question then becomes the one above.<br/><br/>I'm not certain that the answer is that the flash drive requires less power than the incremental power used by the harddrive - that's just my guess. But it is certain that the harddrive will use more power running the video than not running the video - everything else equal.<br/><br/>Relative to the OP's question re maximizing battery life, I would guess that the difference in battery life running the movie from the hdd v. a flash drive would be 1% - 2% +/-, not important unless the battery goes dead before learning whodunit!Hmmm....Interesting Argument......Since it's a video running from the flash drive will still require some cacheing to the HDD no matter what device it's running from...<br/>Following this logic running it from the HDD would consume the least power.<br/><br/>But renting the movie and watching it on a DVD player on a wide screen TV with surround sound would save the most power on the laptop... Quote<blockquote>Following this logic running it from the HDD would consume the least power.</blockquote> Quote from: Carbon Dudeoxide on July 19, 2008, 09:50:19 PM<blockquote> Quote<blockquote>Following this logic running it from the HDD would consume the least power.</blockquote> <br/></blockquote> <br/>Perhaps Whether or not you are in idle or playing games, the HD still spins.</body></html>


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